CHAP.

I.

lity of Su

widely dispersed are this nomade people, in whatsoever land they dwell. A curious custom exists among all these northern nations, as among Universathe French and Italians, and many of the inha- perstitions respecting bitants of ASIA and Africa, for which it would Sneezing. be difficult to assign an origin; namely, that of making a low bow, accompanied by some expression of benediction or of salutation, when a person happens to sneeze. The effect produced in a whole army of the Antient Greeks, by the mere circumstance of a person sneezing, is related by Xenophon. The approaching return of Ulysses was hailed by Penelope in the sneezing of her son Telemachus'; and a religious reverence for sneezing, so antient, so universal, so utterly absurd, and so unaccountable, is not only alluded to by the Greek and Roman Historians, but has excited the curiosity of antient and modern philosophers*.

Botanical travellers will not visit Kiemi with indifference it is the only spot in all Europe which may be referred to as the habitat of that rare and beautiful plant, the Cypripedium

(2) Xenoph. Anab. III. p. 198. ed. Cantab. 1785. Τοῦτο δὲ λέγοντος αὐτοῦ, πτάρνυταί τις· ἀκούσαντες δὲ οἱ στρατιῶται πάντες μιᾷ ὁρμῇ προσεκύνησαν ròv Osov. See Aristoph. Av. 717—721. ed. Brunck.

(3) Homer. Odyss. lib. 17.

(4) See Aristotle, Plutarch, Pliny, &c. &c.

Cypripedium bul

I

CHAP. bulbosum. The students and professors of Upsal send to Kiemi for specimens of this plant. Linnæus, who published an accurate representation of it in his Flora Lapponica, and gathered his account of it from Rudbeck himself, failed of finding it, when he visited the place. It is, in fact, one of the indigenous plants of North America; and, therefore, it appears here only as an emigrant, who has settled upon the borders of Lapland. The clergyman of Kiemi annually collects some specimens of it, as he receives applications for them from so many persons: he very kindly presented us with four of these. Among the Swedish botanists, it is always considered as the greatest rarity their country affords. It was in procuring specimens of this plant that we heard, to our great surprise, that Signor Acerbi, and his friend Colonel Skiöldebrand, had recently passed through Kiemi, in their return to Uleå, from the North Cape. They arrived at Enontekis the day after we left it; and finding Mr. Grape absent from home, they made no stay there, but descended the Muonio and Torneå with all

(1) See Tab. xii. fig. 5. Flor. Lapp. Amstel. 1737.

(2) Sir Joseph Banks has specimens of the same species of CYPRIPXDIUM, from the banks of the River St. Lawrence in North America; which he shewed the Author, soon after his return to England. The American specimens differ, as varieties, only in being of larger size.

possible expedition; and we, coming by other by other CHAP. rivers towards the same spot, had nearly met them.

We hired carts to convey us to Torneå. The country between Torneå and Kiemi is covered with dwarf-fir and birch trees. We passed several poor farms, and crossed three ferries. The bridges had been destroyed by ice, during the preceding winter. Those bridges had not been long finished: they had cost the peasants 3000 rix-dollars. The road is excellent: it was full of well-dressed people, going to and returning from the fair. We soon came in view of the churches of Torneå, which make a conspicuous and imposing appearance, in the otherwise unbroken line of the horizon. As we crossed the river to the island upon which the town stands, Torneå, once so strange to us, seemed as it were a home, to which we were returning. At the time of our arrival, the inhabitants were making hay in the midst of the streets of the town, according to their annual custom. We drank tea with the father of our Lapland interpreter, Mr. Pipping, one of the principal merchants. A party of gentlemen belonging to the place, his guests, were playing at backgammon, throwing the dice, from their fingers, against the sides of the tables, instead of using dice-boxes in the

I.

Haymak

ing in the

Streets of

Torneå.

CHAP.

I.

Visit to a

Swedish
Family.

common way. The whole company, as usual, were smoking tobacco. The tobacco commonly used for smoking in Sweden is, all of it, the produce of the country; and it is execrable. There is a manufacture for preparing it at Mälmö. The genuine Dutch knaster is not to be bought, even at Stockholm: the Swedes sell a spurious composition of their own, under the name of knaster.

We prolonged our stay a little, during this our second visit to Torneå. Our good friend Mr. Lunneberg, Director of the School, was with us every day. He accompanied us upon an excursion to the new Finnish church, which was built by Adelcrantz, the peasant architect before mentioned. Near this building was found (August 12) the Dianthus superbus, still in flower. We paid a visit to a family residing in the country, at some distance from Torneå; and here we were introduced to a party of young ladies, who were embroidering flowers and landscapes very elegantly in tambour. They spoke the French language with fluency. One of them was reading a volume of Swedish poetry. We examined this work: it contained several long odes, and other miscellaneous poems, some of which were humorous. Of the odes, one was "To Sleep," another "To Morning," and so on for the rest. The favourite measure of the

I.

Swedes, in their poetical compositions, consists CHAP. of thirteen feet; the rhyming termination of each line being formed with a Trochee. Of this it is not easy to give examples in our language; although we had something like it in the ballads of our ancestors.

The specimens of Natural History which we had brought with us from Lapland became the subject of conversation, and especially the birdsthe Fringilla Lapponica, and the Motacilla Svecica. Of the last, we had two stuffed; finding it impossible to procure a living specimen. They told us that this bird will not sing when it is confined in a cage; but that, in its native woods, it surpasses the Nightingale in the variety, harmony, and sweetness of its modulations and cadences'. Perhaps this may be doubted: the Swedish ladies, who thus extol it, are not likely to know more of its melody than what they hear from the reports of others; and in our long rambling amidst the wilds and woods of Lapland, whether by night or by day, we never heard the

(1) The author would have inserted an engraved representation of this bird, which is not bigger than a Wren; but even with the aid of a coloured plate, it would be difficult to picture the hues upon its breast. (See the Note from Mr. Cripps's MS. Journal, in Chap. X. of the preceding Volume.) In English books of Natural History, it is called "The Blue-throated Warbler."