The colonists who reside among the Laplanders are beloved by them, and treated with great kindness. These good people willingly point out to the strangers where they may fix their abode so as to have access to moist meadows affording good hay, which they themselves do not want, their herds of reindeer preferring the driest pastures. They expect in return that the colonists should supply them with milk and flour. Ovid's description of the silver age is still applicable to the native inhabitants of Lapland. Their soil is not wounded by the plough, nor is the iron din of arms to be heard; neither have mankind found their way to the bowels of the earth, nor do they engage in wars to define its boundaries. They perpetually change their abode, live in tents, and follow a pastoral life, just like the patriarchs of old. Among these people the men are employed in the business of cookery, so that the master of a family has no occasion to speak a good word to his wife, when he wishes to give a hospitable entertainment to his guests[30]. [30] When Linnæus wrote this sentence, he seems to have had a presentiment of his own matrimonial fate, just the reverse in this very point of that he was describing. The dress of these Laplanders is as follows. On the head they wear a small cap, like those used at my native place of Stenbrohult, made with eight seams covered with strips of brown cloth, the cap itself being of a greyish colour. This reaches no lower than the tips of the ears. Their outer garment, or jacket, is open in front half way down the bosom, below which part it is fastened with hooks, as far as the pit of the stomach. Consequently the neck is bare, and from the effects of the sun abroad and the smoke at home, approaches the complexion of a toad. The jacket when loose reaches below the knees; but it is usually tied up with a girdle, so as scarcely to reach so far, and is sloped off at the bottom. The collar is of four fingers' breadth, thick, and stitched with thread. All the needle-work is performed by the women. They make their thread of the sinews in the legs of the reindeer, separating them, while fresh, with their teeth, into slender strings, which they twist together. A kind of cord is also made of the roots of spruce fir. The country bordering on the sea coast hereabouts, in some places consists of grassy pastures, in others of pebbly or sandy tracts. Large stones are rare. The river of Umoea now began to swell, the weather having been for some days very warm, so as to melt the ice and snow in the frozen regions above. The stream was now so deep and strong that it was not to be navigated without difficulty. In general the strongest flood does not set-in till Midsummer. This river, as I was informed, has its source in the alps about a mile from the sea of Norway, and empties itself into the gulf of Bothnia at Umoea. No colonists are to be met with north of this river.