The household furniture of the Laplanders consists of horn spoons, pots and kettles, made of brass or copper, sometimes of stone ; wooden bowls of birch wood, capa ble of holding about 12 quarts ; a basket for holding cheese ; and a barrel for their oil, and other liquids. A few of the richer natives possess two or three pewter dish es, and silver spoons. The maritime Laplanders use a lamp made of a sea-shell, with a rush wick; but the motm •arefy any ether light than what the fire af A few rennet letga filled with milk for Nvinter use, are suspended from the roof ; and one or two racks for (-Kew placed along the upper part of the house. Oval fir hoets, capable of containing a few articles, and covered .
by a lacing of cords, are used es panniers transporting their goods ; and two of them wughing above two pounds each, are carried by a rein deer. The most ornamental piece of furniture in the house of a Laplander, is the cra dle; which is a piece of wood properly shaped and hol lowed, with a recess for the head of the child. Cords arc so fixed as to pass round it, and fasten it to the mother's back when site travels ; and a ring of beads is suspended front the upper part, to amuse the infant as it lies on its hack with its hands at liberty. In this case of wood the in fants arc rocked or swung, and sometimes fed with un bolted milk through a horn. In four months thcy arc ge nerally able to stand on their feet ; but many of them arc supposed to die from improper management, and especial ly from an early exposure to cold.
The diet of the Laplanders consists almost wholly of ani mal food. These who reside on the coast subsist chiefly on lish, with a little heel and mutton occasionally. They are fond of the cod-fish roasted as soon as caught ; and consider its liver, bruised and mixed with cranberries, as a very savoury dish. Salmon is split and dried, and in that state is eaten without any fat titer cooking or preparation, except dipping each piece in train oil before putting it in their mouths. When their stock of dried fish is exhausted or falling short, they collect the heads and bones, roast them before the fire, stew them in a kettle along with sli ces of seal-blubber, and cat the mess with a seasoning of train oil. The mountain Laplanders subsist principally on the milk and flesh of the reindeer. Its milk is used in a great variety of ways ; fresh or boiled, or boiled and coa gulated with sorrel ; or coagulated in a sour state, and so solid as to be capable of being cut into slices ; or coagu lated together with its cream ; or boiled down, when quite fresh, to the consistence of gruel, in which state it is called sweet cheese ; or coagulated with rennet, and boiled with meal ; or drained in a napkin, when just beginning to fer ment, and when sufficiently firm, eaten with sweet cream. In winter the new milk freezes as soon as drawn from the animal; and in this state is kept in small vessels of birch wood, as an extraordinary delicacy, to be eaten with a spoon as it thaws before the fire. lit autumn it is collect Ld in casks, or other vessels, in which it speedily sours ; and, as the cold weather conies on, freezes hard. It is fre quently mixed also with cranberries, and put into a clean paunch of the rein-deer, when it soon congeals, and, urge with the paunch, is cut into slices for use in winter. They make butter of the whole milk of the rein-deer, which the Nvom eu accomplish by stirring it about with their fingers, till it acquires the desired consistency. On making cheese it is necessary, on account of the extraordinary richness of the milk, to mix it with water ; and the cheese, which is remarkably fat, is used cold, boiled, or roasted. The whey, boiled with meal, forms another preparation ; and sometimes it is kept for a long time merely in a viscid state. Ilesides the calf's rennet, the Laplanders produce a similar preparation by infusing the salmi of the codfish, or the intestines of the rein-deer, in a quantity of butter milk. They use a great proportion of venison in their
daily fare. From the time that the dried fish is consumed, a family of four persons uses at least one rein-deer every week ; and three of these animals are accounted equiva lent to an ox. This venison, slaughtered as required, is cut into small pieces and boiled, which are dipped, as they are eaten, into the fat previously scummed from the pot, and washed down by a ladle full of the broth taken occa sionally during the repast. The legs arc boiled for the, sake of the marrow, watch forms one of the greatest deli cacies; and the entrails are cooked for food, though1 never along with the meat. Even the bones are most economi cally broken down, and stewed as long as any oil can be procured from them. The lights only are reserved fur the dogs. • The flesh of the rein-deer is frequently prepar ed also, by roasting on wooden spits, stuck in the ground, and placed before the fire; and occasionally parts of it are smoked by hanging in the upper part of the tent. It is killed only in winter, and always used fresh. The blood is preserved in bladders, kegs, Sec. and mixed with a kind of gruel. Both the maritime and mountain Laplanders cat the flesh of bears, beavers, wolves, foxes, seals, otters,glut tons, squirrels, martens, and -almost all quadrupeds that they can contrive to catch or kill.* The Laplanders make use of very little bread, except a little barley-cake, baked with water, or milk, or whey, upon the hearth. The poor er people grind the chaff, and even some of the straw, along with the corn. Sometimes the inner bark of the fir and pine tree, collected when the sap is rising, dried in the sun or over a slow fire, is ground into meal and mixed with the barley flour. Another kind of•bread is prepared front the Calla palu•tris, or water dragon, the roots of which are taken up io sptiug before the leaves shoot out, dried, pounded, ground, boiled, till it becomesthick like flumme ry, and, after standing in this state three or four days to lose its bitterness, is mixed for use with the meal of bark or barley. In times of great scarcity, bread is sometimes made from the ground seeds of the Spergula arvensis, or spurrey. The Laplanders are exceedingly fond of the Angelica Sylvestris, which grows abundantly in every part of woody Lapland, and which they cat, either fresh or dried, or boiled in milk, with great avidity, as at once a delicious sallad, and an antiscorbutic medicine. They use, in like manner, the SQnchus alpinue, a kind of small sow thistle, which has a milky stem of a very bitter taste. Among their dainties may he enumerated the inner bark of the fir tree, fresh, smoked, or steeped in train oil ; the different berries found upon the melting of the snow, thoroughly ri pened in this winter repository; and, above all,tobacco, which they chew or smoke, as the highest luxury, and when they can procure no more, will even masticate slips of the bag or chips of the cask in which it has been kept. They are greatly delighted with pepper, ginger, and other spices ; and peculiarly gratified by a present of ardent spit-its, of which they prepare none themselves, but procure a little brandy from Sweden or Norway. Before swallowing the liquor, they rub a little of it upon their foreheads or bo soms, in the persuasion that it will thus be prevented from injuring their head or breast. Their sole beverage, in ordi nary use, is water, procured in winter by dissolving the snow ; and for this purpose a quantity is kept always stand ing in a copper vessel in their huts. All the cookery is performed by the men, and in the dirtiest manner possible. The dishes and spoons are seldom washed, or, at most, only by squirting water upon them front their mouths, and rubbing them with their fingers.