Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1Linné, Carl von
History
Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1
Linné, Carl von
Lapland -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Lapland
We rose early this morning, and after walking a quarter of a mile
arrived at the lofty icy mountain. This is indeed of a very great
elevation, and covered with perpetual snow, the surface of which was,
for the most part, frozen quite hard. Sometimes we walked firmly over
it, but it occasionally gave way, crumbling under our feet like sand.
Every now and then we came to a river taking its course under the snowy
crust, which in some parts had yielded to the force of the currents, and
the sides of each chasm exhibited many snowy strata one above another.
Here the mountain streams began to take their course westward, a sign of
our having reached Norwegian Lapland. The delightful tracts of
vegetation, which had hitherto been so agreeably interspersed among the
alpine snows, were now no longer to be seen. No charming flowers were
here scattered under our feet. The whole country was one dazzling snowy
waste. The cold east wind quickened our steps, and obliged us to protect
our hands that we might escape chilblains. I was glad to put on an
additional coat. As we proceeded across the north side of this
mountain, we were often so violently driven along by the force of the
wind, that we were taken off our feet, and rolled a considerable way
down the hill. This once happened to me in so dangerous a place, that,
after rolling to the distance of a gun-shot, I arrived near the brink of
a precipice, and thus my part in the drama had very nearly come to an
end. The rain, which fell in torrents on all sides, froze on our shoes
and backs into a crust of ice. This journey would have been long and
tiresome enough without any such additional inconvenience. At length,
after having travelled betwixt three and four miles, the mountains
appeared before us, bare of snow though only sterile rocks, and between
them we caught a view of the western ocean. The only bird I had seen in
this icy tract, was what the Laplanders call _Pago_ (_Charadrius
Hiaticula_). Its breast is black, throat white, feet orange.
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