arcely come in question on account of the
difference of language. As an example of how this goes on, the
following story of Wrangel's may be quoted. At the market a young
Chukch had been prevailed upon, by a gift of some pounds of tobacco,
to allow himself to be baptised. The ceremony began in presence of a
number of spectators. The new convert stood quiet and pretty decent
in his place till he should step down into the baptismal font, a
large wooden tub filled with ice-cold water. In this, according to
the baptismal ritual, he ought to dip three times. But to this he
would consent on no condition. He shook his head constantly, and
brought forward a large number of reasons against it, which none
understood. After long exhortations by the interpreter, in which
promises of tobacco probably again played the principal part, he
finally gave way and sprang courageously down into the ice-cold
water, but immediately jumped up again trembling with cold; crying,
"My tobacco! my tobacco!" All attempts to induce him to renew the
bath were fruitless, the ceremony was incomplete, and the Chukch
only half baptised. ]

[Footnote 261: In Lapland, too, the melting of the snow in spring is
brought about in no inconsiderable degree by similar causes, _i.e._
by dry warm winds which come from the fells. On this point the
governor of Norbotten laen, H.A. Widmark, has sent me the following
interesting letter--"However warm easterly and southerly winds may
be in the parts of Swedish Lapland lying next the Joleen mountains,
they are not able in any noteworthy degree to melt the masses of
snow which fall in those regions during the winter months. On the
other hand there comes every year, if we may rely on the statements
of the Lapps, in the end of April or beginning of May, from the west
(_i.e._ from the fells), a wind so strong and at the same time so
warm, that in quite a short time--six to ten hours--it breaks up the
snow-masses, makes them shrink together, forces the mountain sides
from their snow covering, and changes the snow which lies on the ice
of the great fell lakes to water. I have myself been out on the
fells making measurements on two occasions when this wind came. On
one occasion I was on the Great Lule water in the neighbourhood of
the so-called Great Lake Fall. The night had been cold but the day
became warm. Up to 1 o'clock P.M. it was calm, but immediately after
the warm westerly wind began to blow, and by 6 o'clock P.M. all t