[Illustration] CHAP. XVIII. _Of the Diet of the_ Laplanders. Having discoursed of their Garments, I proceed to speak of their Diet. Their food is not the same amongst them all, but different according to the places they inhabit. The Mountaineers live almost wholly on their Rain-deers, that furnish them with Milk, Cheese, and Flesh: tho sometimes they buy from the neighboring parts of _Norway_ Sheep, Goats, and Oxen, which they milk in the Summer, and kill in the Winter, because they have neither Pasture nor Stable room for them to keep them long. And for this reason they buy but very few of them, and feed almost altogether on their Rain-deer, which they have in great abundance. The flesh of these they feed on in the Winter, and that alwaies boiled, but in the Summer their diet is Milk, Cheese, and dried flesh. Their dainties most in esteem with them are the tongue and marrow of their Rain-deers, and with these they are want to entertain their Priests. One odd kind of dish these of the Mountains have, and that is the blood of their Rain-deers boiled in water to the consistence of a hasty pudding. The others that dwell in the Woods feed partly on Fish, and partly on Birds and Beasts, and that too both Summer and Winter, but more frequently on Fish. The flesh of Beares they prefer before all other, and with that they feast their dearest friends. They have also some kind of Sawces of Black-berries, Straw-berries, and other peculiar ones of their own, as also wild _Angelica_, and the inner rine of the Pine-tree. The use of Bread and Salt is almost unknown to them, and when they have any of the later, they use it very sparingly. Instead of bread they eat dried fish, which by grinding they reduce to a kind of meal, and instead of Salt the inward rine of the Pine-tree, prepared after an odd kind of manner. They pull the bark off first, and then they take the inward rine, and divide it into thin skins like parchment, making it very clean; these they dry in the Sun, and then tearing it into small pieces they put it up in boxes made of the barks of trees: these they bury under ground, and cover them with sand. When they have bin dried about a day, they kindle a great fire over the hole where they put their boxes, and by that means the rines acquire a red color, and a very pleasant tast. On Fridaies they eat no flesh, but feed either on fish, or milk, having retained this custom from their Roman Catholic Priests. They boil all their fresh flesh, but not very much; that their broth may be the better and fuller of gravy: and sometimes they put also fish into the same kettle. Their milk they either boil with some quantity of water, it being of it self to thick, or else they let it stand in the cold, to freeze into a kind of Cheese, that it may be kept longer for use. Their fish they eat sometimes fresh as soon as they catch them; sometimes they dry them in the Sun, and being hardned by the wind and air, they may be kept severall years.