Our clothes, which were wet quite through with perspiration, in consequence of the heat we had encountered in the beginning of our journey, were now frozen stiff upon our backs by the cold. We determined to seek for a Laplander's hut. In order to get at one, we were obliged to descend so steep a hill, that, being unable to walk down it, I lay down on my back and slid along, with the rapidity of an arrow from a bow. I avoided with difficulty the large snow torrents that every now and then came in my way, and which were sometimes within an ell of me. On reaching this hut, I noticed some of the reindeer whose horns were not above half an inch long, the Brom-fly (_Oestrus Tarandi_) having bitten them while quite tender; for these insects are, in the Norwegian alps, worse than the gnats of Swedish Lapland. I here obtained a curious piece of information respecting the mode of castrating the reindeer. When the animal is two years and a half old, its owner, about a fortnight before Michaelmas, getting a person to assist him by holding it fast by the horns, places himself betwixt its hind legs. He then applies his teeth to the _scrotum_, so as to bruise its contents, but not so as to break the skin, for in that case the reindeer would die. He afterwards bruises the part still more effectually between his fingers. The same operation is performed on both sides, if the reindeer remains quiet long enough for the purpose at one time. The animal is in consequence rather indisposed for a while, so that he can hardly keep up with the rest of the herd, but he usually recovers perfectly in a week's time. This is certainly an art, no less curious than remarkable, and merits further consideration. The girls here, especially when they wish to appear to advantage, divide their hair into two braids, one above each ear, which braids are tied together, at the hind part of the head, so as to hang down the back. A tuft of ribands is appended to the extremity of each braid. _July 16._