The Laplanders dye their wool red chiefly with the Blood-root or Tormentil, _Tormentilla erecta_. A red colour is given to their leather by means of fir bark. The men wear a kind of trowsers which reach down to their feet, and are tied round their half boots, so as to keep out water. They wear no shirt nor stockings. The waistband is fastened by thongs, not buttons. As to the diseases of these people, I was informed here that fevers are very rare indeed, and that the smallpox is also of unfrequent occurrence. Hence, when it does come, many old people with grey hairs fall a sacrifice to the latter disorder, which however is not widely communicated, any more than fever, because of the very thin population. Of intermittent fever I met with only one example, and of _calculus_ another. They cure a cough by sulphur laid on the lighted fungus which serves them as tinder, or on the fire, the smoke of which inhaled into the lungs is esteemed a specific; but it is a very fallacious one. For the headache a small bit of the aforesaid fungus is laid on the place where the pain is most violent, and, being set on fire, it burns slowly till the part is excoriated. This therefore is the _Moxa_ of the Laplanders. In case of a _prolapsus uvulæ_ they cut off the protuberance with a pair of scissars. For the colic or belly-ache they rub the nails with salt, besides which they administer oil internally. I here satisfied myself about the native species of _Angelica_, which are two only, not three. The Biœrnstut is _Angelica sylvestris_, the Botsk _A. Archangelica_. (See _Flora Lapponica, n. 101, 102_.) The bountiful provision of Nature is evinced in providing mankind with bed and bedding even in this savage wilderness. The great Hair-moss (_Polytrichum commune_), called by the Laplanders Romsi, grows copiously in their damp forests, and is used for this purpose. They choose the starry-headed plants, out of the tufts of which they cut a surface as large as they please for a bed or bolster, separating it from the earth beneath; and although the shoots are scarcely branched, they are nevertheless so entangled at the roots as not to be separable from each other. This mossy cushion is very soft and elastic, not growing hard by pressure; and if a similar portion of it be made to serve as a coverlet, nothing can be more warm and comfortable. I have often made use of it with admiration; and if any writer had published a description of this simple contrivance, which necessity has taught the Laplanders, I should almost imagine that our counterpanes were but an imitation of it. They fold this bed together, tying it up into a roll that may be grasped by a man's arms, which if necessary they carry with them to the place where they mean to sleep the night following. If it becomes too dry and compressed, its former elasticity is restored by a little moisture. _June 6._