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"No, no, it's he. This de Lapp or de Lissac, or whatever his devil's name is. It is he." Then I saw him at once. It was the horseman with the high red feather in his hat. Even at that distance I could have sworn to the slope of his shoulders and the way he carried his head.
The rearing of reindeer might easily be made such a profitable business as to be sufficient in itself to insure a comfortable livelihood to the Lapps. The deer itself hardly requires any looking after the whole year round. All through the summer it feeds on various grasses, and in winter on the yagel, or reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina), which it scratches out from under the snow, with its hoofs. This lichen, or moss, grows in profusion all over the tundras and forests of the Kola Peninsula. It is his deer which supply the Lapp with food and clothing, convey his family and goods hundreds of versts in his wanderings, and, finally, give him the opportunity of adding to his income by acting as carrier, and by supplying teams to the government postal-stations, etc. Some years ago some Ziri
The Lapp said to me, 'I think the bear expects to winter round here; we must watch him and follow him. Soon after the bear disappeared. "'Do you think he has scented us? I asked. 'I do not see how he could, my guide replied, 'the wind is in the wrong direction for that. He has gone for some reason of his own, you may be sure.
He was sent up north on some Government job he had, and fell in with her. He would marry her.” “But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes, like Chinese?” I objected. “I don’t know, maybe. There must be something mighty taking about the Lapp girls, though; mother says the Norwegians up north are always afraid their boys will run after them.”
The kind Fredrika did not recognise us in our Lapp dresses, until I had unrobed, when she cried out in joyful surprise, "Why, you were here before!" We had been so completely chilled that it was a long time before any perceptible warmth returned. We then went to bed, tingling and stinging in every nerve from the departing cold.
"She will find kind parents and kind brothers and sisters in the tent," insisted Ola Serka. "It's worse to be alone than to freeze." The fisherman became more and more zealous to prevent the adoption. It seemed as if he could not bear the thought of a child of Swedish parents being taken in by Laplanders. "You said just now that she had a father in the mine." "He's dead," said the Lapp abruptly.
"So it seems!" said I, in my blunt fashion. "You may not feel so merry when my friend Jim Horscroft comes back to-morrow." "Ah! he comes back to-morrow, does he? And why should I not feel merry? "Because, if I know the man, he will kill you." "Ta, ta, ta!" cried de Lapp. "I see that you know of our marriage. Edie has told you. Jim may do what he likes."
Ask the Highland shepherd who has imprudently gone to sleep under the "blowin' sna"; question the Scandinavian, whose calling compels him to encamp on the open "fjeld"; interrogate Swede or Norwegian, Finn or Lapp, and you may discover the danger of being "smoored."
"Long Isaac says," he shouted, "that the deer will go well enough, if you knew how to drive him." "Long Isaac may go to the devil!" was, I am sorry to say, my profane reply, which Anton at once translated to him. Seating myself in the pulk again, I gave the deer the rein, and for a time kept him to the top of his speed, following the Lapp, who drove rapidly down the windings of the stream.
The Lapp race is evidently dying out, or rather, is gradually intermingling with, and being absorbed by, the neighbouring races. With neither written memorials nor a historic past to cling to, nor any particular religious belief, they are all of the Orthodox Faith.
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