Their ancient History and Conversion to Christianity.—Self-denial and Poverty of the Lapland Clergy.—Their singular Mode of Preaching.—Gross Superstition of the Lapps.—The Evil Spirit of the Woods.—The Lapland Witches.—Physical Constitution of the Lapps.—Their Dress.—The Fjälllappars.—Their Dwellings.—Store-houses.—Reindeer Pens.—Milking the Reindeer.—Migration.—The Lapland Dog.—Skiders, or Skates.—The Sledge, or Pulka.—Natural Beauties of Lapland.—Attachment of the Lapps to their Country.—Bear-hunting.—Wolf-hunting.—Mode of Living of the wealthy Lapps.—How they kill the Reindeer.—Visiting the Fair.—Mammon Worship.—Treasure-hiding.—“Tabak, or Braende.”—Affectionate Disposition of the Lapps.—The Skogslapp.—The Fisherlapp.

The nation of the Lapps spreads over the northern parts of Scandinavia and Finland from about the 63d degree of latitude to the confines of the Polar Ocean; but their number, hardly amounting to more than twenty thousand, bears no proportion to the extent of the vast regions in which they are found. Although now subject to the crowns of Russia, Sweden, and Norway, they anciently possessed the whole Scandinavian peninsula, until the sons of Odin drove them farther and farther to the north, and, taking possession of the coasts and valleys, left them nothing but the bleak mountain and the desolate tundra. In the thirteenth century, under the reign of Magnus Ladislas, King of Sweden, their subjugation was completed by the Birkarls, a race dwelling on the borders of the Bothnian Gulf. These Birkarls had to pay the crown a slight tribute, which they wrung more than a hundred-fold from the La............