Deeply affected with her story, I took leave of this sole surviving witness of these long-buried sorrows; and I, too, accompanied by the curé, once more visited the awful chamber. "Ah, madame!" said he, "poor human nature! with its passions, and its follies, and its mad revenges! Is it not sad to think that so much love should prove the foundation of so much woe?"
VISIT TO AN ENCAMPMENT OF LAPLANDERS.
BY WILLIAM HURTON.
OF all the wonders of distant climes of which we read in childhood, perhaps none make a stronger impression on our imaginations than such objects as exist beyond the mystic Arctic Circle. The pictorial representations of the Midnight Sun, the North Cape, the Aurora Borealis, the Laplanders and their reindeer, which all of us have gloated over in our dreaming youthful days, sink indelibly into our memory. While I sojourned on the Island of Tromsö, learning that on the neighboring mainland some Laplanders were encamped, I resolved to pay them a visit. Procuring a boat, I rowed over to the opposite shore (on the 17th July, 1850), where I met with a Nordlander, who informed me that the Lap encampment might be found somewhere toward the extremity of Trömsdal—a magnificent ravine commencing at no great distance from the shore, and running directly inland. He stated that the Laps had a noble herd of reins (the name universally given to reindeer), about eight hundred in number, and that, when the wind blew from a certain quarter, the whole herd would occasionally wander close to his house, but a rein-hund (reindeer-dog) was kept by him to drive them back.
The entrance to Trömsdal was a rough, wild tract of low ground, clothed with coarse wild grasses and dwarf underwood. There were many wild flowers, but none of notable beauty, the most abundant being the white flower of that delicious berry the moltebær. The dale itself runs with a gentle but immense curve, between lofty ranges of rock, which swell upward with regularity. The bed of this dale, or ravine, is from one quarter to three quarters of a mile across, and the centre was one picturesque mass of underwood and bosky clumps. All shrubs, however, dwindled away up the mountains' sides, and the vegetation grew scantier the higher one looked, until, at an altitude of not more than one hundred yards above the level of the sea, the snow lay in considerable masses. Overhead hung a summer Italian sky! Looking backward, the entrance to Trömsdal seemed blocked up by towering snow-clad mountains; and, looking forward, there was a long green vista between walls of snow, closed at the extremity by huge fantastic rocks, nodding with accumulated loads of the same material. Down the gray rocks on each hand, countless little torrents were leaping. They crossed the bottom of the ravine every few yards, and all of them hurried to blend with Trömsdal Elv—"the river of Trömsdal"—which runs through the dale, and falls into the sea at its entrance.
I had probably wandered four or five English miles down this noble dale, when a wild but mellow shout or halloa floated on the crisp, sunny breeze from the opposite side. I listened eagerly for its repetition, and soon it was repeated, more distinctly and more musically, and then I felt sure that it was the call of a Lap to the herd of reins. I paused, glanced keenly between the intercepting branches, and lo! there they were, of all sizes, by twos and threes, and dozens and scores. There they were, "native burghers of this desert city," denizens of the wilds, gathering together in one jostling mass of animated life! See their tossing antlers and glancing sides, as they pass to and fro among the green underwood.
They were on the far side of Elv; and just as I reached one bank of the stream, they came up to the other. The water here flowed with extreme violence, and was piercingly cold, but I unhesitatingly plunged in, and waded across. In a minute I was in the midst of the herd, and then saw that a Lap youth and Lap girl were engaged in driving them to the encampment. The youth had very bright, playful, hazel eyes, rather sunken, and small regular features of an interesting cast. His hands, like those of all Laps, are as small and finely shaped as those of any aristocrat. The simple reason for this is, that the Laps, from generation to generation, never perform any manual labor, and the very trifling work they necessarily do is of the lightest kind. His pæsk (the name of a sort of tunic, invariably worn by the Laplanders) was of sheep-skin, the wool inward, reaching to his knees. His boots were of the usual peaked shape, a few inches higher than his ankles, and made of the raw skin of the reindeer, the hair being nearly all worn off. On his head was a round woolen cap, shaped precisely like a night-cap, with a red tassel, and a red worsted band round the rim. This species of cap is the favorite one worn by the Laps.
The dress of the girl was similar in shape, but her pæsk was of very coarse, light-colored woolen cloth, a material frequently used in summer for the pæsks of both sexes, as being cooler than reindeer-skin or sheep-skin. Her head was bare, and her hair hung low over her shoulders. Her features were minute, and the prettiest and most pleasing of any Lap I ever saw either before or since. The complexion was a tawny reddish hue, common to all Laplanders. The legs of the nymph in question were bare from the tops of her boots to the knee, and were extremely thick and clumsy, furnishing a striking contrast to the delicate shape of her hands. The twain were accompanied by three little rein-dogs, and were very leisurely driving the herd onward, each having a branch of a tree in hand, to whisk about, to urge the deer on. The girl had a great coarse linen bag slung round her neck, and resting on her back. This she filled with a particular kind of moss as she went along. I asked her what she gathered it for, and she gave me to understand it was used in milking the reins; but in what manner, was as yet to me a mystery. I found both the girl and the youth very good-natured, and the eyes of the latter especially sparkled with merry humor. They could speak only a very few words of Norwegian, but understood some of my questions in that language, and very readily answered them. They were driving the herd to be milked, and on my telling them I was an Englishman, come from afar to see them and their reins, they repeated the word "Englesk" several times, in a tone of surprise, and regarded me with an interest and curiosity somewhat akin to what the appearance of one of their people would excite in an English city. Yet I must remark that, except in what immediately concerns themselves, the emotions of all Laplanders, so far as my opportunities of judging enable me to conclude, flow in a most sluggish channel. I asked the girl to show me the moss the reins eat, and she did so (after a little search), and gathered me some. It is very short in summer, but long in winter. In Sweden, I learn that this most admirable provision of nature for the sole support of the deer during nine months in the year (and in consequence, the existence of the Laplanders also depends on it) grows much more abundantly, and is of a greater length; which is the reason most Laps prefer Swedish Lapmark for their winter wanderings. Coming to a marshy spot where a particular long, sharp, narrow grass grew, I plucked some, and asked the Laps if they did not use that to put in their boots in lieu of stockings? They instantly responded affirmatively. This is the celebrated bladder carex, or cyperus grass (the carex-vesicaria of Linnæus). I gathered some, and afterward found it in several parts of the Island of Tromsö; but it only grows in marshy spots. The Laps at all seasons stuff their boots quite full of it, and it effectually saves their feet from being frost-bitten.
Onward we went, driving the herd, in which I gleefully helped, the three little dogs at times barking and fetching up stragglers. The Laps occasionally gave a short cry or urging shout to the reins, and I burst forth with my full-lunged English hallo, to the evident amusement of my companions. The scene was most exciting, and vividly brought to my recollection the forest scenes in "As you like it." The brilliant sunlight, the green grass, the sparkling, murmuring Elv, the picturesque glen, the figures of the Laps, the moving herd of reins—the novelty of the whole was indescribably delightful. I found the reins did not make such a very loud, "clicking" noise as most travelers have asserted. Here were hundreds of reins striking their hoofs together, and yet the noise was certainly any thing but loud from their cloven feet and horny fetlocks, and would hardly have been noticeable had I not particularly listened for it. But another thing, of which I had never read any notice, struck me much—the loud, snorting noise emitted by the deer at every step. Unpoetical as my fancy may seem, it reminded me most strongly of the grunting of swine, but was certainly not so coarse a noise, and, at the same time, partook much of the nature of a snort. The cause of the noise is this: when the deer are heated, they do not throw off their heat in sweat—their skin is too thick for that; but, like the dog, they emit the heat through the mouth. The size of some of the reins astonished me. In many instances they were as large as Shetland ponies, and some had most magnificent branching antlers of a very remarkable size. This is the only animal of the deer genus which invariably has a horizontal branch from the main antlers, projecting in a line over each eye. These antlers are covered with a short gray hair. Some of the herd in question had broken pieces off their antlers, which hung down bleeding by the skin. The does also have antlers, but very small, and generally straight, which, when skinned and dried, can be distinguished from those of the male by their whiteness. All the herd were casting their winter hair, and consequently their coats looked somewhat ragged and parti-colored—the new color being generally a dark, and the old a light gray. In some cases, however, the deer are white; and in winter all are more or less of a light color. There were many pretty young does running among the herd.