The next house, which was at a short distance, belonged to the captain of one of the boats which had been alongside of our ship. He and his wife were waiting for me outside and bade me come in. His house was long, narrow, and low, and built entirely of flat stones. I entered through a wooden door a room built in the centre of the house. Their winter garments hung on poles, there was a pile of firewood, and a heap of dry seaweed and reindeer moss. I followed him to the room on the left. There the family lived. The floor of the room was covered with flat slabs; in one corner was a bed on the floor, itself made of young branches of birch, kept together by logs. The skins that made the rest of the bed were outside to be aired. This room was about ten feet long and about ten feet wide, the whole width of the house, and lighted by a small window with tiny panes of glass. At the foot of the bed in the corner was a small cow. Such a cow! I had never seen one so small. In the opposite corner was another one. These two cows were hardly three feet high, and between the two were a calf and three sheep. "These animals," said my host, "help us to keep our room warm and comfortable during the winter months." This was a very strange way of heating a room, I thought to myself. "Come and stay with us to-night," added the Lapp. "You will sleep comfortably and you will not be cold." I accepted. The furniture of the room consisted of some kettles, a coffee pot, coffee grinder, a lamp, and a few chests. Everything, strange to say, was very clean. The third room contained a few nets, and on the floor were a few reindeer skins upon which slept any stranger who chanced to share their dwelling. I was a favored guest. I was to sleep in the same room with the host, hostess, cows and sheep. I was considered as one of the family. I slept splendidly. In the morning I had water to wash my face with. That was fine! I gave myself a good rubbing with soap, for I said, "Paul, after you leave this place it will be quite a while before you wash your face, except with snow." But I could not as successfully get rid of the odor of the stable, which clung to my clothes with a persistence that would have driven every friend I had away from me if I had been at home. Not far from this _gamme_ was the house of another well-to-do Sea Lapp, one of the rich fellows of the hamlet. His house was long and narrow, one part built of logs, the remainder of layers of turf. The wooden part was the every-day room--parlor, bedroom, kitchen. The roof was supported by poles and covered with birch bark, over which more than a foot of earth had been placed to keep the cold out; the birch bark was used as shingles and kept the rain from dripping inside. Two little cows, two dwarfish oxen, eight sheep, and two goats completed the household, and these were housed in the turf compartment.