第55章 LETTER X(1)

BUCOLICS--THE GOAT--MAID MARIAN--A LAPP LADY--LAPP LOVE-MAKING--THE SEA-HORSEMAN--THE GULF STREAM--ARCTICCURRENTS--A DINGY EXPEDITION--A SCHOOL OF PERIPATETICFISHES--ALTEN--THE CHATELAINE OF KAAFIORD--STILL NORTHWARDHO!

July 27th,Alten.

This letter ought to be an Eclogue,so pastoral a life have we been leading lately among these pleasant Nordland valleys.Perhaps it is only the unusual sight of meadows,trees and flowers,after the barren sea,and still more barren lands we have been accustomed to,that invests this neighbourhood with such a smiling character.Be that as it may,the change has been too grateful not to have made us seriously reflect on our condition;and we have at last determined that not even the envious ocean shall for the future cut us off from the pleasures of a shepherd life.Henceforth,the boatswain is no longer to be the only swain on board!We have purchased an ancient goat--a nanny-goat--so we may be able to go a-milking upon occasion.Mr.Webster,late of her Majesty's Foot-guards,carpenter,etc.,takes brevet-rank as dairy-maid;and our venerable passenger is at this moment being inducted into a sumptuous barrel [Footnote:The cask in question was bought in order to be rigged up eventually into a crow's-nest,as soon as we should again find ourselves among the ice.]which I have had fitted up for her reception abaft the binnacle.A spacious meadow of sweet-scented hay has been laid down in a neighbouring corner for her further accommodation;and the Doctor is tuning up his flageolet,in order to complete the bucolic character of the scene.The only personage amongst us at all disconcerted by these arrangements is the little white fox which has come with us from Iceland.Whether he considers the admission on board of so domestic an animal to be a reflection on his own wild Viking habits,I cannot say;but there is no impertinence--even to the nibbling of her beard when she is asleep--of which he is not guilty towards the poor old thing,who passes the greater part of her mornings in gravely butting at her irreverent tormentor.

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But I must relate our last week's proceedings in a more orderly manner.

As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest harbour,we went ashore;and having first ascertained that the existence of a post does not necessarily imply letters,we turned away,a little disappointed,to examine the metropolis of Finmark.A nearer inspection did not improve the impression its first appearance had made upon us;and the odour of rancid cod-liver oil,which seemed indiscriminately to proceed from every building in the town,including the church,has irretrievably confirmed us in our prejudices.Nevertheless,henceforth the place will have one redeeming association connected with it,which I am bound to mention.It was in the streets of Hammerfest that I first set eyes on a Laplander.Turning round the corner of one of the ill-built houses,we suddenly ran over a diminutive little personage in a white woollen tunic,bordered with red and yellow stripes,green trousers,fastened round the ankles,and reindeer boots,curving up at the toes like Turkish slippers.On her head--for notwithstanding the trousers,she turned out to be a lady--was perched a gay parti-coloured cap,fitting close round the face,and running up at the back into an overarching peak of red cloth.Within this peak was crammed--as I afterwards learnt--a piece of hollow wood,weighing about a quarter of a pound,into which is fitted the wearer's back hair;so that perhaps,after all,there does exist a more in,convenient coiffure than a Paris bonnet.

Hardly had we taken off our hats,and bowed a thousand apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair inhabitant of the green trousers,before a couple of Lapp gentlemen hove in sight.They were dressed pretty much like their companion,except that an ordinary red night-cap replaced the queer helmet worn by the lady;and the knife and sporran fastened to their belts,instead of being suspended in front as hers were,hung down against their hips.Their tunics,too,may have been a trifle shorter.

None of the three were beautiful.High cheek-bones,short noses,oblique Mongol eyes,no eyelashes,and enormous mouths,composed a cast of features which their burnt-sienna complexion,and hair like ill-got-in hay did not much enhance.The expression of their countenances was not unintelligent;and there was a merry,half-timid,half-cunning twinkle in their eyes,which reminded me a little of faces I had met with in the more neglected districts of Ireland.Some ethnologists,indeed,are inclined to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the Celtic family.Others,again,maintain them to be Ugrians;while a few pretend to discover a relationship between the Lapp language and the dialects of the Australian savages,and similar outsiders of the human family;alleging that as successive stocks bubbled up from the central birthplace of mankind in Asia,the earlier and inferior races were gradually driven outwards in concentric circles,like the rings produced by the throwing of a stone into a pond;and that consequently,those who dwell in the uttermost ends of the earth are,ipso facto,first cousins.