ws," and so
southward through the heart of Swedish Lappmark; but I found that such a
journey would be attended with much difficulty and delay. In the first
place, there were no broken roads at this season, except on the routes
of inland trade; much of the intermediate country is a wilderness, where
one must camp many nights in the snow; food was very scarce, the Lapps
having hardly enough for their own necessities, and the delays at every
place where guides and reindeer must be changed, would have prolonged
the journey far beyond the time which I had allotted to the North. I
began to doubt, also, whether one would be sufficiently repaid for the
great fatigue and danger which such a trip would have involved. There is
no sensation of which one wearies sooner than disgust; and, much as I
enjoy a degree of barbarism in milder climates, I suspected that a long
companionship with Lapps in a polar winter would be a little too much
for me. So I turned my face toward Stockholm, heartily glad that I had
made the journey, yet not dissatisfied that I was looking forward to its
termination.

Before setting out on our return, I shall devote a few pages to the
Finns. For the principal facts concerning them, I am mostly indebted to
Mr. Wolley, whose acquaintance with the language, and residence of three
years in Lapland, have made him perfectly familiar with the race. As I
have already remarked, they are a more picturesque people than the
Swedes, with stronger lights and shades of character, more ardent
temperaments, and a more deeply-rooted national feeling. They seem to be
rather clannish and exclusive, in fact, disliking both Swedes and
Russians, and rarely intermarrying with them. The sharply-defined
boundaries of language and race, at the head of the Bothnian Gulf, are a
striking evidence of this. Like their distant relatives, the Hungarian
Magyars, they retain many distinct traces of their remote Asiatic
origin. It is partly owing to this fact, and partly to that curious
approach of extremes which we observe in nature no less than in
humanity, that all suggestive traits of resemblance in these regions
point to the Orient rather than to Europe.

I have already described the physical characteristics of the Finns, and
have nothing to add, except that I found the same type everywhere, even
among the mixed-blooded Quans of Kautokeino--high cheek-bones, square,
strong jaws, full yet firm lips, low, broad foreheads, dark eyes and
hair