第57章 LETTER X(3)

Every Laplander,however poor,has his dozen or two dozen deer;and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount sometimes to two thousand head.As soon as a young lady is born--after having been duly rolled in the snow--she is dowered by her father with a certain number of deer,which are immediately branded with her initials,and thenceforth kept apart as her especial property.In proportion as they increase and multiply does her chance improve of making a good match.Lapp courtships are conducted pretty much in the same fashion as in other parts of the world.

The aspirant,as soon as he discovers that he has lost his heart,goes off in search of a friend and a bottle of brandy.The friend enters the tent,and opens simultaneously--the brandy--and his business;while the lover remains outside,engaged in hewing wood,or some other menial employment.If,after the brandy and the proposal have been duly discussed,the eloquence of his friend prevails,he is himself called into the conclave,and the young people are allowed to rub noses.The bride then accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer's tongue,and the espousals are considered concluded.The marriage does not take place for two or three years afterwards;and during the interval the intended is obliged to labour in the service of his father-in-law,as diligently as Jacob served Laban for the sake of his long-loved Rachel.

I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have been able to learn about the honest Lapps,than by sending you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty.

The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge towards the home of his adored one:--"Hasten,Kulnasatz!my little reindeer!long is the way,and boundless are the marshes.Swift are we,and light of foot,and soon we shall have come to whither we are speeding.There shall I behold my fair one pacing.

Kulnasatz,my reindeer,look forth!look around!Dost thou not see her somewhere--BATHING?"As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp lady and her companions,a process to which they submitted with the greatest complacency,we proceeded to inspect the other lions of the town;the church,the lazar-house,--principally occupied by Lapps,--the stock fish establishment,and the hotel.But a very few hours were sufficient to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest;so having bought an extra suit of jerseys for my people,and laid in a supply of other necessaries,likely to be useful in our cruise to Spitzbergen,we exchanged dinners with the Consul,a transaction by which,I fear,he got the worst of the bargain,and then got under way for this place,--Alten.

The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being able to get to Spitzbergen at all--received a tremendous shock.

We had just sat down to dinner,and I was helping the Consul to fish,when in comes Wilson,his face,as usual,upside down,and hisses something into the Doctor's ear.

Ever since the famous dialogue which had taken place between them on the subject of sea-sickness,Wilson had got to look upon Fitz as in some sort his legitimate prey;and whenever the burden of his own misgivings became greater than he could bear,it was to the Doctor that he unbosomed himself.On this occasion,I guessed,by the look of gloomy triumph in his eyes,that some great calamity had occurred,and it turned out that the following was the agreeable announcement he had been in such haste to make:"Do you know,Sir?"--This was always the preface to tidings unusually doleful."No--what?"said the Doctor,breathless."Oh nothing,Sir;only two sloops have just arrived,Sir,from Spitzbergen,Sir--where they couldn't get,Sir;--such a precious lot of ice--two hundred miles from the land-and,oh,Sir--they've come back with all their bows stove in!"Now,immediately on arriving at Hammerfest,my first care had been to inquire how the ice was lying this year to the northward,and Ihad certainly been told that the season was a very bad one,and that most of the sloops that go every summer to kill sea-horses (i.e.,walrus)at Spitzbergen,being unable to reach the land.,had returned empty-handed;but as three weeks of better weather had intervened since their discomfiture,I had quite reassured myself with the hope,that in the meantime the advance of the season might have opened for us a passage to the island.

This news of Wilson's quite threw me on my back again.

The only consolation was,that probably it was not true;so immediately after dinner we boarded the honest Sea-horseman who was reported to have brought the dismal intelligence.He turned out to be a very cheery intelligent fellow of about five-and-thirty,six feet high,with a dashing "devil-may-care"manner that completely imposed upon me.Charts were got out,and the whole state of the case laid before me in the clearest manner.Nothing could be more unpromising.The sloop had quitted the ice but eight-and-forty hours before making the Norway coast;she had not been able even to reach Bear Island.Two hundred miles of ice lay off the southern and western coast of Spitzbergen--(the eastern side is always blocked up with ice)--and then bent round in a continuous semicircle towards Jan Mayen.That they had not failed for want of exertion--the bows of his ships sufficiently testified.