Their good nature has been praised by many travellers; but they show the usual inhumanity of the savage towards the aged and infirm. Weakness is no title to the sympathy of the Eskimo; he respects strength, but he utterly disregards and cruelly oppresses the feeble. He is ungrateful towards his benefactors, and in his intercourse with strangers his fidelity can be relied upon only so long as he knows that any breach of faith will be severely punished. He does not steal from his own people, and “Tiglikpok,” “he is a thief,” is a reproach among the Eskimos as among ourselves; but no shame attaches to him if he robs the white man, though the latter may have loaded him with favours. If we add that they display a strong affection for their children, and that the children are singularly docile and obedient to their parents, we shall have said enough to assist the reader in forming an accurate conception of the characteristics of the inhabitants of the Eskimo Land. CHAPTER VIII. LAPLAND AND THE LAPPS. Lapland, or the Land of the Lapps, which the Lapps themselves call Sameanda or Somellada, forms the north and north-eastern portions of the Scandinavian peninsula, and is divided between Sweden and Russia. Norwegian Lapland includes the provinces of Norrland and Finmark; Swedish, of North and South Bothnia; and Russian, of Kola and Kemi. The last-named has an area of 11,300 square miles, with a population of 9000; Swedish Lapland, an area of 50,600 square miles, with 4000 inhabitants; and Norwegian, an area of 26,500 square miles, with a population of 5000. We are here referring to the number of true Lapps; in each division the population would be largely increased if we included Finns, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians. Lapland, for nine months in the year, is blighted by the rigour of a winter climate. The summer months, when the sun does not set for several weeks, are July and August; and these are preceded by a brief spring, and followed by even a briefer autumn. Cereals do not thrive higher than the sixty-sixth parallel, with the exception of barley, which is cultivated as far north as the seventieth. The greater part of the country comes within that wooded zone which we described in an earlier chapter, and the forests, consisting of birch, pine, fir, and alder, spread over a very extensive area. On the mosses and lichens which grow abundantly in their shelter, are fed the immense herds of reindeer which constitute the principal wealth of the inhabitants.