I was hardly in this gamme when I wished myself out, but kept this to myself, for I did not want to hurt the feelings of the poor Lapp. The interior of the place was horribly filthy—dirty reindeer skins lay on the ground upon old dirty dried grass. A tent of a nomadic Lapp was a model of cleanliness compared with this! The outside was just as bad; on the ground lay the entrails and heads of fish, and a couple of barrels filled with half-putrid liver which in time would make a barrel of brown oil; there were a great many codfish heads drying on the rocks.
"Will you stay and have a cup of coffee with us?" my host asked.
"Yes," added his wife, "it will not take long to make a cup of coffee."
"Not to-day," I replied, "but some other time."
"All right," the host said; "don't forget."
I was glad when I got out. This abode was the gamme of a poor Sea Lapp, and the poorest kind of dwelling seen among them.
The next house, which was at a short distance, belonged to the captain of one of the boats which had been alongside of our ship. He and his wife were waiting for me outside and bade me come in. His house was long, narrow, and low, and built entirely of flat stones. I entered through a wooden door a room built in the centre of the house. Their winter garments hung on poles, there was a pile of firewood, and a heap of dry seaweed and reindeer moss.
I followed him to the room on the left. There the family lived. The floor of the room was covered with flat slabs; in one corner was a bed on the floor, itself made of young branches of birch, kept together by logs. The skins that made the rest of the bed were outside to be aired. This room was about ten feet long and about ten feet wide, the whole width of the house, and lighted by a small window with tiny panes of glass.
At the foot of the bed in the corner was a small cow. Such a cow! I had never seen one so small. In the opposite corner was another one. These two cows were hardly three feet high, and between the two were a calf and three sheep. "These animals," said my host, "help us to keep our room warm and comfortable during the winter months."
This was a very strange way of heating a room, I thought to myself.