At Enänger the people seemed somewhat larger in stature than in other places, especially the men. I inquired whether the children are kept longer at the breast than is usual with us, and was answered in the affirmative. They are allowed that nourishment more than twice as long as in other places. I have a notion that Adam and Eve were giants, and that mankind from one generation to another, owing to poverty and other causes, have diminished in size. Hence, perhaps, the diminutive stature of the Laplanders.
The old tradition that the inhabitants of Helsingland never have the ague is untrue, since I heard of many cases.
Between the post-house of Iggsund and Hudwiksvall a violet-coloured clay is found in abundance, forming a regular stratum. I observed it likewise in a hill, the strata of which consisted of two or three fingers' breadths of common vegetable mould, then from four to six inches of barren sand, next about a span of the violet clay, and lastly, barren sand. The clay contained small and delicately smooth white bivalve shells, quite entire, as well as some larger brown ones, of which great quantities are to be found near the waterside. I am therefore convinced that all these valleys and marshes have formerly been under water, and that the highest hills only then rose above it. At this spot grows the Anemone hepatica with a purple flower; a variety so very rare in other places that I should almost be of the opinion of the gardeners, who believe the colours of particular earths may be communicated to flowers.
On May 21 I found at Natra some fields cultivated in an extraordinary manner. After the field had lain fallow three or four years, it is sown with one part rye and two parts barley, mixed together. The barley ripens, and is reaped. The rye, meantime, goes into leaf, but shoots up no stem, since it is smothered by the barley. After the barley has been reaped, however, the rye grows and ripens the following year, producing an abundant crop.
II.—Lapland Customs
The Laplanders of Lycksele prepare a kind of curd or cheese from the milk of the reindeer and the leaves of sorrel. They boil these leaves in a copper vessel, adding one-third part water, stirring it continually with a ladle that it may not burn, and adding fresh leaves from time to time till the whole acquires the consistence of a syrup. This takes six or seven hours, after which it is set by to cool, and is then mixed with the milk, and preserved for use from autumn till the ensuing summer in wooden vessels, or in the first stomach of the reindeer. It is stored either in the caves of the mountains or in holes dug in the ground, lest it should be attacked by the mountain mice.
In Angermanland the people eat sour milk prepared in the following manner. After the milk is turned, and the curd taken out, the whey is put into a vessel, where it remains till it becomes sour. Immediately after the making of cheese, fresh whey is poured lukewarm on the former sour whey. This is repeated several times, care being always taken that the fresh whey be lukewarm. This prepared milk is esteemed a great dainty by the country people. They consider it as very cooling and refreshing. Sometimes it is eaten along with fresh milk. Intermittent fevers would not be so rare here as they are if they could be produced by acid diet, for then this food must infallibly occasion them.
In Westbothland one of the peasants had shot a young beaver, which fell under my examination. It was a foot and a half long, exclusive of the tail, which was a palm in length and two inches and a half in breadth. The hairs on the back were longer than the rest; the external ones brownish black, the inner pale brown; the belly clothed with short, dark-brown fur; body depressed; ears obtuse, clothed with fine short hairs and destitute of any accessory lobe; snout blunt, with round nostrils; upper lip cloven as far as the nostrils; lower very short; the whiskers black, long, and stout; eyebrow of three bristles like the whiskers over each eye; neck, none. The fur of the belly was distinguished from that of the sides by a line on each side, in which the skin was visible. Feet clothed with very short hairs, quite different from those of the body. A fleshy integument invested the whole body. There were two cutting teeth in each jaw, of which the upper pair were the shortest, and notched at the summit like steps; the lower and larger pair were sloped off obliquely—grinders very far remote from the fore-teeth, which is characteristic of the animal, four on each side; hind feet webbed, but fore feet with separate claws; tail flat, oblong, obtuse, with a reticulated naked surface.
At Lycksele was a woman supposed to have a brood of frogs in her stomach, owing to drinking water containing frogs' spawn. She thought she could feel three of them, and that she and those beside her could hear them croak. Her uneasiness was alleviated by drinking brandy. Salt had no effect in killing the frogs, and even nux vomica, which had cured another case of the same kind, was useless. I advised her to try tar, but she had already tried it in vain.
The Lycksele Laplanders are subject, when they are compelled to drink the warm sea water, to allem, or colic, for which they use soot, snuff, salt, and other remedies. They also suffer from asthma, epilepsy, pleurisy, and rheumatism. Fever and small-pox are rare. They cure coughs by sulphur laid on burning fungus.