The Land of the Long NightDu Chaillu, Paul B. (Paul Belloni)
General
The Land of the Long Night
Du Chaillu, Paul B. (Paul Belloni)
Lapland -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
The Lapp women wore queer-fitting little caps of bright colors, and when
in holiday dress wore a number of large showy silk handkerchiefs.
Sometimes they had as many as four, on the top of one another, over
their fur dresses; they wore necklaces of large glass beads, round their
waists were silver belts, and their fingers were ornamented with rings.
They wore trousers of reindeer skin, as the Lapp women do universally.
The men wore peaked caps.
These people were short of stature, compactly but slightly built, with
strong limbs, their light weight allowing them to climb, jump, and run
quickly. There are no heavy men with big stomachs among them. Quite a
number of Lapps have fair hair and blue eyes. They are unlike the
Esquimaux, and in a crowd at home, dressed like ourselves, would pass
unnoticed. There are a number of Lapps in the North-west of our own
county. The tallest woman that I saw was 5 feet 1/2 inch, the tallest
man 5 feet 4-1/2 inches; the smallest woman 4 feet 4-1/4 inches, the
smallest man 4 feet 7 inches. There were more women averaging 4 feet 10
inches than men of that size, men averaging generally above five feet.
I left Kautokeino, and that same day I came to Lake Givijaervi. I had to
be told that it was a lake, for it was a continuous snow-land. Here was
a farm, the owner of which kept a small store and sold sugar, coffee,
salt, flour, tobacco, matches, some woollen underwear, etc., to the
Lapps; and bought from them skins, shoes, and gloves, in summer smoked
tongue and reindeer meat, reindeer cheese, etc., and every year went
with these to some of the Norwegian towns on the Arctic Sea to sell them
and buy groceries and other goods.
Here I had a clean room and bed. The place was a great rendezvous for
nomadic Lapps, and I found many of them. The farmer extended to them
unbounded hospitality, and spread as many reindeer skins on the floor at
night as the room could hold, for them to sleep on.
The Lapps liked the place very much, and came there to rest for a few
days, bringing their food with them. Their wives and children would also
come, and were sure to be welcome at the farm. I could not drink
sufficient milk or coffee, or eat enough reindeer meat, cheese, or
butter that had been churned in summer, to please the good-hearted
farmer. He wanted no pay. He even insisted on accompanying me to
Karasjok.
The sleighing was fine, and the snow was six and seven feet deep on a
level. Our arrival at Karasjok, after a hundred miles' journey from
Givijaervi, was announced by the fierce barking of the dogs of the place,
and twice I was almost overtaken by one more fierce than the others.
"They only bark," shouted my guide. I was now in latitude 69 deg. 35', and
within a few miles of the longitude of Nordkyn. The hamlet was situated
on the shores of the Karasjoki river. Some of the fir trees of the
forests near Karasjok measured twenty inches in diameter; but once cut
they do not grow again. I saw very few young trees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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