t noticing that the
eyeballs rolled upwards when the child was spoken to, I asked the mother
whether, when she was with child, she had seen anybody turn their eyes
in that manner. She replied that she had attended her mother, or
mother-in-law, who was supposed to be dying, whose eyes rolled in a
similar fashion. This was the cause of the infant's misfortune.

At Lulea I was informed of a disease of cattle so pestilential that
though the animals were flayed even before they were cold, whenever
their blood had come in contact with the human body it had caused
gangrenous spots and sores. Some persons had both their hands swelled,
and one his face, in consequence of the blood coming upon it. Many
people had lost their lives by the disease, insomuch that nobody would
now venture to flay any more of the cattle, but contrived to bury them
whole.

On June 30 I arrived at Jockmock, where the curate and schoolmaster
tormented me with their consummate and most incorrigible ignorance. I
could not but wonder that so much pride and ambition, such scandalous
want of information, with such incorrigible stupidity, could exist in
persons of their profession, who are commonly expected to be men of
knowledge. No man will deny the propriety of such people as these being
placed as far as possible from civilised society.

The learned curate began his conversation by remarking how the clouds as
they strike the mountains carry away stones, trees, and cattle. I
ventured to suggest that such accidents were rather to be attributed to
the force of the wind, since the clouds could not of themselves carry
away anything. He laughed at me, saying surely I had never seen any
clouds. For my part it seemed to me that he could never have been
anywhere but in the clouds. I explained that when the weather is foggy I
walk in clouds, and that when the cloud is condensed it rains. At all
such reasoning, being above his comprehension, he only laughed with a
sardonic smile. Still less was he satisfied with my explanation how
watery bubbles may be lifted into the air. He insisted that the clouds
were solid bodies, reinforced his assertion with a text of Scripture,
silenced me by authority, and laughed at my ignorance.

He next condescended to inform me that a phlegm is always to be found on
the mountains where the clouds have touched them. I told him that the
phlegm was a vegetable called nostoc, and he thereupon concluded that
too much learning had turned my