_Mr Barlow._--There you are mistaken, for the inhabitants of the finest
climates are often less attached to their own country than those of the
worst. Custom reconciles people to every kind of life, and makes them
equally satisfied with the place in which they are born. There is a
country called Lapland, which extends a great deal further north than
any part of England, which is covered with perpetual snows during all
the year, yet the inhabitants would not exchange it for any other
portion of the globe.
_Tommy._--How do they live in so disagreeable a country?
_Mr Barlow._--If you ask Harry, he will tell you. Being a farmer, it is
his business to study the different methods by which men find
subsistence in all the different parts of the earth.
_Tommy._--I should like very much to hear, if Harry will be so good as
to tell me.
_Harry._--You must know then, Master Tommy, that in the greatest part of
this country which is called Lapland, the inhabitants neither sow nor
reap; they are totally unacquainted with the use of corn, and know not
how to make bread; they have no trees which bear fruit, and scarcely any
of the herbs which grow in our gardens in England; nor do they possess
either sheep, goats, hogs, cows, or beasts.
_Tommy._--That must be a disagreeable country indeed! What then have
they to live upon?
_Harry._--They have a species of deer, which is bigger than the largest
stags which you may have seen in the gentlemen's parks in England, and
very strong. These animals are called _reindeer_, and are of so gentle a
nature that they are easily tamed, and taught to live together in herds,
and to obey their masters. In the short summer which they enjoy, the
Laplanders lead them out to pasture in the valleys, where the grass
grows very high and luxuriant. In the winter, when the ground is all
covered over with snow, the deer have learned to scratch away the snow,
and find a sort of moss which grows underneath it, and upon this they
subsist. These creatures afford not only food, but raiment, and even
houses to their masters. In the summer, the Laplander milks his herds
and lives upon the produce; sometimes he lays by the milk in wooden
vessels, to serve him for food in winter. This is soon frozen so hard
that, when they would use it, they are obliged to cut it in pieces with
a hatchet. Sometimes the winters are so severe that the poor deer can
scarcely find even moss, and then the master is obliged to kill part of
them and live upon the flesh. Of the skins he makes warm garments for
himself and his family, and strews them thick upon the ground, to sleep
upon. Their houses are only poles stuck slanting into the ground, and
almost joined at top, except a little hole which they leave to let out
the smoke. These poles are either covered with the skins of animals, or
coarse cloth, or sometimes with turf and the bark of trees. There is a
little hole left in one side, through which the family creep into their
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