Mr Barlow.—In some countries it is so; but there the inhabitants complain more of the intolerable heat than you do of the cold. They would with pleasure be relieved by the agreeable variety of cooler weather, when they are panting under the violence of a scorching sun.
Tommy.—Then I should like to live in a country that was never either disagreeably hot or cold.
Mr Barlow.—Such a country is scarcely to be found; or if it is, contains so small a portion of the earth as to leave room for very few inhabitants.
Tommy.—Then I should think it would be so crowded that one would hardly be able to stir, for everybody would naturally wish to live there.
Mr Barlow.—There you are mistaken, for the inhabitants of the finest climates are often less attached to their own country than those of the worst. Custom reconciles people to every kind of life, and makes them equally satisfied with the place in which they are born. There is a country called Lapland, which extends a great deal further north than any part of England, which is covered with
perpetual snows during all the year, yet the inhabitants would not exchange it for any other portion of the globe.
Tommy.—How do they live in so disagreeable a country?
Mr Barlow.—If you ask Harry, he will tell you. Being a farmer, it is his business to study the different methods by which men find subsistence in all the different parts of the earth.
Tommy.—I should like very much to hear, if Harry will be so good as to tell me.
Harry.—You must know then, Master Tommy, that in the greatest part of this country which is called Lapland, the inhabitants neither sow nor reap; they are totally unacquainted with the use of corn, and know not how to make bread; they have no trees which bear fruit, and scarcely any of the herbs which grow in our gardens in England; nor do they possess either sheep, goats, hogs, cows, or beasts.