The practice of dram-drinking is so general that mothers pour the horrid dose down the throats of their infants. Their christenings and funerals become mere pretexts for indulging in brandy. But their mild and pacific disposition shows itself in their drunkenness, which is manifested only in howling, jumping, and laughing, and in a craving for more drams with hysteric screams until they fall senseless on the ground--while at the same time they will suffer kicks, cuffs, blows, and provocations of any kind without the smallest irascibility. When sober they are as gentle as lambs, and the softness of their language, added to their effeminate shrill tone of voice, remarkably corresponds with their placable disposition. An amiable trait in the character of the Lapp is the warmth of his affection towards his wife, his children, and his dependents. Nothing can exceed the cordiality of their mutual greetings after separations, and it is to be feared that but few married men in England could match the Lapp husband who assured Castrén that during thirty years of wedlock no worse word had passed between himself and his wife than “Loddad-sham,” or “My little bird.” In spite of his fatiguing life, and the insufficient shelter afforded him by his hut, the Fjall Lapp is generally vigorous and healthy, and not seldom lives to a hundred years age. Continual exercise in the open air braces his constitution, his warm clothing protects him against the cold of winter, and his generous meat diet maintains his strength. To prevent the scurvy, he eats the berries of the _Empetrum nigrum_ or _Rubus chamæmorus_, and mixes the stems of the Angelica among his food. But his chief remedy against this and every other bodily evil is warm reindeer-blood, which he drinks with delight as a universal panacea. The Skogs Lapp, or Forest Lapp, occupies an intermediate grade between the Fjall Lapp and the Fisher Lapp, as fishing is his summer occupation, and hunting and the tending of his reindeer that of the winter months. His herds not being so numerous as those of the Fjall Lapp, he is not driven to constant migration to procure them food; but they require more care than his divided pursuits allow him to bestow upon them, and hence he inevitably descends to the condition of the Fisher Lapp. Lästadius describes his life as one of the happiest on earth--as a constant change between the agreeable pastime of fishing and the noble amusement of the chase. He is not, like the Mountain Lapp, exposed to all the severity of the Arctic winter, nor so poor as the Fisher Lapp. He is often heard to sing under the green canopy of the firs. The villages of the Fisher Lapps--as they are found, for instance, on the banks of Lake Enara--afford a by no means pleasing spectacle.