Part 9

The fields in this part of the country are excellent, being extensive and level, the soil consisting of sandy and argillaceous earth. The crops are abundant, provided the corn be not injured by frost, as it had been the preceding year. Owing to this misfortune, I found bread made of spruce fir bark at present in general use. The Buckbean (_Menyanthes trifoliata_) is very seldom used, on account of its bitterness[44].

[44] Linnaeus in the _Flora Lapponica, ed. 2. 53_, tells us that "in times of extreme scarcity the roots of this plant, dried and powdered, are mixed with a small quantity of meal, and serve to make the miserable bread of the poorer settlers in Lapland, which is extremely bitter and detestable." In the same work, _p. 259_, he describes an excellent kind of bread made of the roots of _Calla palustris_, which though acrid when fresh, become wholesome if dried, and boiled afterwards in water, as is the case with its near relation our common _Arum_, and the _Jatropha Manihot_, or Casava, of the West Indies.

Flax is scarcely ever cultivated here.

In the evening I strolled out from the post-house at Bumoen towards the sea side in search of natural productions. The brooks close to the shore swarmed with innumerable little oval _Notonectae_ (Boat-flies), no bigger than nits (_N. minutissima_); as well as with the lesser ovate _Dytiscus_, shaded with grey, and known by its blunt cloven _sternum_. (_D. cinereus._) On the beach multitudes of black insects without wings, and half covered with shelly cases, were running about. (Probably _Cimex littoralis_.) There were also abundance of _Ephemerae_ (May-flies), all which had two prominent fore feet, and three bristles at the tail. I caught several, thus rendering their transient existence still shorter. They were of two species, one larger, of a blackish hue, with dark clouded wings (_E. vulgata_); the other about half as large, with a blackish thorax, and white wings. (This does not agree with any species in the _Fauna Suecica_.)

Not far from the shore, on a small elevation, where the trees and underwood had lately been burnt down, grew the Strawberry-leaved Bramble (_Rubus arcticus_) with jagged petals, a remarkable and elegant variety. (See _Fl. Lapp. t. 5. f. 2_.)

_June 14._

It rained very hard in the course of this day, as well as in the preceding night.

The cornfields hereabouts vary in soil, being sometimes clay or sand, sometimes a good mould, and often a mixture of all three. In general they yield some kind of a crop, whatever the weather may be, except it should prove severely cold, which is the ruin of the country.

The forests are beautiful, consisting of Spruce Fir, Common Fir, and plenty of Birch, so that no part of Sweden is more pleasant to travel through while the summer lasts.

The principal subsistence of the inhabitants is derived from selling deals. The price is sixteen silver styvers (about three English farthings each) for a dozen of deals. Tar is sold at six dollars, copper money, a barrel.

I wish those who deny that certain plants are peculiar to certain countries could see how abundantly the Birch, the Lapland Willow, the Strawberry-leaved Bramble, the Cloud-berry (_Rubus Chamaemorus_), and the Thyme-leaved Bell-flower (_Linnaea borealis_) flourish in this district, and how the _Ranunculus acris_ entirely covers the pasture lands with its brilliant yellow flowers.

On arriving at the post-house of Sunnanaen, I was gratified with the view of a fine river, and the very neat little town of Skelleftea, consisting of two principal streets and several cross ones, with a church. The houses are about three hundred and fifty or four hundred, and their white chimneys give them a cheerful aspect. I was informed that every peasant in the parish had a house of his own in the town, for the use of his family during festivals[45].

[45] In T[:o]rner's work on the Geography of Sweden is the following curious account: "Skelleftea, a parish consisting of about one hundred and fifty whole farms (in Swedish _hemman_), and containing four thousand souls, is situated near a cove or arm of the sea, in which is an island, formerly of considerable extent but now very small. St. Stephen is said to have prophesied that the day of judgment will come as soon as this island is entirely washed away. The island certainly diminishes yearly, but every one must judge for himself as to the probability of the prophecy."

Proceeding a little further, I remarked a steep hill near the road carefully covered over with boughs of spruce fir. On removing some of these, the ground evidently appeared to have been broken up, and apparently blasted with gunpowder. This should seem to have been done by some one in search of ore, of which however I could not perceive the least indication. I carried away a few specimens of the rock.

After passing the next post-house, I was ferried over a river about half way towards the third, when an Owl appeared, flitting every now and then, at short distances, before me. Laying hold of my gun, I ventured to take aim, though my horse kept going on at a good rate. It was a quarter past twelve at night, yet not at all dark. I was lucky enough to hit the bird, but in such a manner that one side of it was too much damaged to allow of stuffing and preserving the specimen. (This was the _Strix Ulula_, the Latin description of which, made on the spot, is given, somewhat, corrected, in the _Fauna Suecica_; but the annexed sketch is too great a curiosity to be suppressed).

Just as I was about to draw up a description of this Owl, a little Beetle crept out of its plumage. It was evidently a _Scarabaeus_ by its antennae. The whole body was oblong, shaded with blue and black; the belly white. When touched or alarmed, it lay perfectly still. (Probably _Dermestes murinus_.)

Near the road lay a trap to catch Salmon, made of long slender laths, bound together with six flexible twigs of osier into a cylindrical form, open at the base, and furnished with twigs in that part placed like the wires of a mousetrap, but in a double row, that they might be so much the stronger. The open space between them was enough to admit a man's head. On one side further on was a door to take out the fish when caught.

_Oniscus aquaticus_ was in the water.

The Dean of Skelleftea told me an anecdote of a Laplander who, at the last court of justice held there, summoned his neighbour for having twice as much land, without paying any greater share of taxes than himself. The man summoned was of course sentenced to pay double what he paid before. This provoked him so much, that he immediately gave information of a vein of silver on his own estate, in consequence of which he was, by the fundamental laws of the realm, exempt from all taxes whatsoever. He then went to his adversary in triumph, exclaiming, "See how matters go now! I am exempt from taxes, but how is it with you?"

_June 15._

This day afforded me nothing much worthy of notice. The sea in many places came very near the road, lashing the stony crags with its formidable waves. In some parts it gradually separated small islands here and there from the main land, and in others manured the sandy beach with mud. The weather was fine.

In one marshy spot grew what is probably a variety of the Cranberry (_Vaccinium Oxycoccus_), differing only in having extremely narrow leaves, with smaller flowers and fruit than usual. The common kind was intermixed with it, but the difference of size was constant. The _Pinguicula_ grew among them, sometimes with round, sometimes with more oblong leaves.

The Bilberry (_Vaccinium Myrtillus_) presented itself most commonly with red flowers, more rarely with flesh-coloured ones. _Myrica Gale_, which I had not before met with in Westbothnia, grew sparingly in the marshes.

In the evening, a little before the sun went down, I was assailed by such multitudes of gnats as surpass all imagination. They seemed to occupy the whole atmosphere, especially when I travelled through low or damp meadows. They filled my mouth, nose and eyes, for they took no pains to get out of my way. Luckily they did not attack me with their bites or stings, though they almost choked me. When I grasped at the cloud before me, my hands were filled with myriads of these insects, all crushed to pieces with a touch, and by far too minute for description. The inhabitants call them Knort, or Knott, (_Culex reptans_, by mistake called _C. pulicaris_ in _Fl. Lapp. ed. 2. 382_.)

Just at sunset I reached the town of Old Pithoea, having previously crossed a broad river in a ferry boat. Near this spot stood a gibbet, with a couple of wheels, on which lay the bodies of two Finlanders without heads. These men had been executed for highway robbery and murder. They were accompanied by the quartered body of a Laplander, who had murdered one of his relations.

Immediately on entering the town I procured a lodging, but had not been long in bed before I perceived a glare of light on the wall of my chamber. I was alarmed with the idea of fire; but, on looking out of the window, saw the sun rising, perfectly red, which I did not expect would take place so soon. The cock crowed, the birds began to sing, and sleep was banished from my eyelids.

_June 16._

This morning I made an excursion to the northward, in order to examine a well, reported to be of a mineral nature. It is situated about half a quarter of a mile from Old Pithoea, and seemed to me only a common cold spring, having no taste, nor could I perceive any ochre about it, nor any silvery film on its surface. In the road to this spring stands a steep hill called _Brevikberget_, which I climbed with great difficulty. In the clefts of the rock lay several wings of young ravens and crows, with feet of hares, &c. "See," said I to my companion, "here has been the nest of an Eagle Owl!" On arriving at the next crag, a little higher up, we discovered a pair of birds of this species (_Strix Bubo_) sitting in a hollow of the rock. Their eyes sparkled like fire, for the iris in each of them was luminous in itself, like touchwood, glow-worms, or rotten fish. These birds were as large as young geese. I durst not venture to attack them with my hands; but approaching them with a stake, I then first perceived they were almost full grown, though not yet able to fly. The extent of their wings when spread was four feet; their colour blackish, with red-brown spots; their plumage very soft down, of a blackish hue tipped with white, mixed with sprouting quills. The smaller feathers were underneath of a reddish brown, marked with very narrow curved lines. The hue of the larger feathers, especially of the breast, where they were most apparent, was a brick colour, each being marked with a black indented longitudinal stripe. The feathers over the eyelids were small and black; upper part of the cheeks dark coloured, lower whitish. The wings and tail were not yet come to their full growth, but their quill feathers were blackish, with roundish red-brown spots. Feet like those of a hare, red-brown and downy, with naked claws. Bill black, the cere or membrane at its base black, accompanied by whitish whiskers. Nostrils at the fore part of the cere, roundish, separated by an oblique partition. Throat white. Iris of the eye round, large, saffron-coloured, with a very large blueish-black pupil. The ears were large, and I could have wished they had fallen under the inspection of an able anatomist, as they would certainly have afforded him matter for curious observation. The bones called the _stapes_, _incus_, &c., as well as the _cochlea_, were of large proportions. The eyes also were large and prominent, dilated at their base like an onion. When the white outer coat was removed, which was easily accomplished, the cornea appeared of considerable thickness, in which, when in a room, external objects were very accurately delineated, but not so abroad. The crystalline lens was remarkably soft, and scarcely of more consistency than the vitreous humour. The _tunica arachnoidea_ was very conspicuous, filled with innumerable vessels, and of such firmness as to be very easily separable from the cornea. In the middle, near the optic nerve, it looked red from the number of blood-vessels, but the sides were of a blueish black. There were two orifices at the larger corner of the eye.

On this same mountain grew in abundance a kind of _Muscus lichenoides_ of a greyish black colour, as if scorched or burnt, different from what authors have described, being more coriaceous and greenish, while that is black and brittle, almost like burnt paper, and smooth underneath; whereas the plant I here observed has the under side entirely covered with fibres like little roots. (This was the true _Lichen velleus_ of Linnaeus, preserved in his herbarium, and figured in Dillenius, _tab. 82. f. 5_. See _Fl. Lapp. ed. 2. 360_.)

The branches of Spruce Fir here began to show that appearance to which Clusius, if my memory does not deceive me, has given the name of _Pinus nodosa_. These knots consist of innumerable little plates, looking as if all the buds had been cut short, and platted together. In the inside is lodged a great mass of very small oblong insects, or rather eggs.

_June 17._

Although I walked about a good deal, and was not inattentive to what came in my way, I met with nothing peculiarly worthy of notice. On the grass I frequently observed that substance like saliva, which the common people call Frog-spittle, and which envelops a little pale flesh-coloured insect like a small Grasshopper. This insect, though not arrived at maturity, moved in some degree, and showed sufficient signs of the family to which it belonged, though it was not yet old enough to cut capers. I removed the frothy moisture from some of these insects, and on returning to them in the course of an hour, I found them covered as before; a proof of the origin of the froth, which is produced by the animal for the purpose of protecting its tender skin against the violent heat of the sun.

Whilst I was busied in these observations, a number of cattle came running over the fields with the greatest velocity. Even the most miserably lean cows, which one would think scarcely able to drag one leg after another, went skipping along like does. _Hic pauper cornua sumit_[46]. They twisted their tails round and round, and went bounding and frisking about, till they at length reached a puddle, where they stopped all at once, as having found a sure asylum against the enemy that had put them to flight. Anxious to investigate what it could be that excited such extraordinary agitation, and prompted such exertions as neither the whip nor the fear of immediate death could occasion, I discovered it to be an insect which I had already met with lower down in the country, and which is no other than an _Oestrus_ or Gad-fly, (_Asilus crabroniformis_). Our Natural Historians confound the _Oestrus_ with the _Tabanus_, which are as distinct from each other as a hare from a bear[47]. Cattle indeed are as much incommoded by the _Broms_ (_Tabanus bovinus_) as by the very worst of the Fly or _Musca_ tribe, to which the _Tabanus_ certainly belongs; but by the _Oestrus_ (_Asilus_) they are frightened out of their wits. This insect does not fix itself on the body of the animal, but on the feet, between the larger and smaller hoofs. As it scarcely ever flies higher above the earth than two or three spans, and in general not more than four or five inches, the cattle, when aware of it, run as fast as they can till they get their feet into water or marshy ground, in which situations they are free from danger. The habit of the insect is that of an _Ichneumon_, and it much resembles a Hornet, being of a yellowish colour, with a small sharp point at its tail curved forwards. See the figure and description of Frisch, and my own specimen.

[46] "Here the poor takes up horns." Alluding to Horace's "_addis cornua pauperi_."

[47] By this comparison, and the subsequent allusion to an _Ichneumon_ and a Hornet, Linnaeus at the present period appears to have taken this _Asilus_ for one of the hymenopterous order, and he even calls it an _Ichneumon_ in _Act. Upsal. ann. 1736, p. 29, n. 8_. The history of its attacking the feet of cattle is given in the first edition of _Fauna Suecica_, 308, on the authority of the country people, but is omitted in the second, probably because Linnaeus found he had been misinformed. My learned entomological friend the Rev. Mr. Kirby observes that the real _Oestrus Bovis_ is, as has from all antiquity been believed, the cause of the above-described agitation in cattle, who escape it by running into cool damp places, which it dislikes to frequent.

_June 18._ Sunday.

The people brought me a peasant's daughter, a year and half old, who was deprived of sight, requesting me to say whether her complaint was a cataract. Finding the eyes well formed, without any unusual appearance, and quite free from specks or clouds, I was rather inclined to say the child had a _gutta serena_, but was soon convinced that this could not be the case, as she evidently enjoyed being in the light near the window. But at the same time I remarked curious convulsive motions in the eyes, and that when the child was spoken to, and tried to look towards the speaker, they were turned upside down, so that only the white part became visible. She was born in this state. I inquired of the mother whether, when she was with child, she had seen any body turn their eyes in this manner. She replied that she was then in constant attendance on her mother, or mother-in-law, who was supposed to be dying, but afterwards recovered, and whose eyes were affected with similar convulsions. _Hinc illae lachrymae_; this was the cause of the infant's misfortune. I believe it was not originally blind, but that the focus was situated too much on one side of the eye-ball, so that vision was impossible unless the eyes were placed in a particular position with respect to the rays of light, as is observable in persons that squint. The natural situation of the eyes in the subject before me was partly under the upper lid, so that only half the pupil was exposed, and this was sufficient for vision in one particular direction only. I know no remedy for such a misfortune, except perhaps glasses, cut in a peculiar manner for this express purpose, might help it. I recommended however that the child's cradle should be placed with the feet towards the window, so that she might, though not at first without inconvenience, gradually acquire a habit of turning her eyes downward in pursuit of the light; for by repeated efforts any thing becomes possible and easy. Bartholin's management of squint-eyed people is founded on the same principles.

After a violent storm of thunder with much rain, I went, about four in the afternoon, to the new town of Pithoea, and examined several gardens, in order to learn what plants are able to stand the severe winters of this inhospitable climate. Among them were the Burnet (_Poterium Sanguisorba_) and the Costmary (_Tanacetum Balsamita_). Some young oaks had been raised from acorns the preceding year, the greater part of which were killed by the winter frosts. A few of them only had put forth a fresh shoot just above the ground. The apple-trees were almost entirely destroyed.

_June 19._

I set out very early in the morning on a sea voyage to explore the natural productions of the tract called Skargarden and the islands belonging to it. The water a mile out at sea was scarcely salt, on account of the numerous rivers which here discharge themselves into the bay. No plants worth notice were to be found, though I searched carefully every place likely to afford any. Near the beach, where the tide often rises in winter ten or twelve fathoms, I observed an Alder thicket now white with little patches of _Trientalis_ and _Mesomora_ (_Trientalis europaea_ and _Cornus suecica_), whose snowy blossoms were a great ornament to the shore. Ray therefore justly mentions[48] the latter plant as growing in maritime places in Sweden. Here likewise grew the Male and Female Lychnis (_L. dioica_), for the most part with red flowers, very rarely with white; as well as the _Gramen miliaceum_ (_Milium effusum?_), and a Rush two feet high, with its sharp stem reaching a span above the panicle, which is lateral, and divided into three principal branches. Of this there was also a smaller variety. (This Rush must have been the _Juncus effusus_. See _Fl. Lapp. n. 117_.)

[48] See his _Historia Plantarum, v. 1. 655_, which Linnaeus here correctly quotes from memory.

The people hereabouts talked much of mountains haunted by hobgoblins, particularly the hill called Svenberget, situated between new and old Pithoea; also of seas and fishing-places, where nothing is to be caught, unless by those who come unexpectedly. Their discourse moreover ran on that useful sort of witchcraft by which a thief is put to his wit's end and detected. The origin of these fables may partly be traced in history, and the rest is to be attributed to invention.

The fishes of this neighbourhood are the Crusian (_Cyprinus Carassius_), the Miller's Thumb (_Cottus Gobio_), the Bream (_Cyprinus Brama_), the Asp (_Cyprinus Aspius_) called in this part of Lapland _Kuroupek_, the St[:a]m (_Cyprinus Grislagine_), the Three-spined Stickleback (_Gasterosteus aculeatus_), the Lax[:a]kel, a species of Trout (can this be the small or young Salmon, mentioned in _Fauna Suecica n. 345_?), the Rud (_Cyprinus erythrophthalmus_), and the Holken (what this last is I know not).

In the island of Longoen, three miles from Old Pithoea, I was lucky enough to find, growing under a Spruce Fir, the Coral-rooted Orchis (_Ophrys corallorrhiza, Engl. Bot. t. 1547._) in full bloom, which had never fallen in my way before. It is a very rare plant, and grows so sparingly, that, after finding one specimen, there is little hope of soon meeting with another[49].

[49] In the _Flora Lapponica_ this plant is said to be very frequent in Lapland. In other countries it is usually reckoned extremely rare; but I was favoured by Mr. Edward John Maughan, a young botanist of Edinburgh, in the summer of 1807, with a copious supply of specimens and living roots, gathered amongst willows in a peat bog, a little to the south of Dalmahoy hill, about nine miles from Edinburgh. Some of the roots blossomed in my garden.

The root is throughout of the thickness of a very small quill, white, smooth, fleshy, almost horizontal, branched and subdivided like a coral; the branches obtuse, and very slightly compressed, destitute of capillary fibres. Stem erect, simple, smooth, six inches high. Leaves none, except three sheaths, each longer and narrower than that below it, which reaches above its base, and all cylindrical, of a pale flesh-colour. Flowers generally about eight or ten, spreading in three rows, occupying an inch and half of the upper part of the stem; all equidistant, sessile, each with an acute scale at its base, cloven with an obtuse sinus. Germen oblong, striated, curved slightly outwards, but at length becoming erect and rugged. Calyx of three oblong, narrow, acute, purple-tipped, concave, equal leaves, longer than the petals, one of them being superior, the others inferior. Petals three: two of them ovate, adhering by their edges, constituting an upper lip; their summits reddish: the lowermost a flat, reflexed, obtuse, white lip, sprinkled with purplish dots near its base.

_June 20._