th Norwegian and Swedish; and now their pride received
a vast accession. "How is it possible?" said they to Herr Berger, "these
men come from the other side of the world, and you talk with them as
fast in their own language as if you had never spoken any other!" The
schoolmaster, Lars Kaino, a one-armed fellow, with a more than ordinary
share of acuteness and intelligence, came to request that I would take
his portrait, offering to pay me for my trouble. I agreed to do it
gratuitously, on condition that I should keep it myself, and that he
should bring his wife to be included in the sketch.

He assented, with some sacrifice of vanity, and came around the next
morning, in his holiday suit of blue cloth, trimmed with scarlet and
yellow binding. His wife, a short woman of about twenty-five, with a
face as flat and round as a platter, but a remarkably fair complexion,
accompanied him, though with evident reluctance, and sat with eyes
modestly cast down while I sketched her features. The circumstance of my
giving Lars half a dollar at the close of the sitting was immediately
spread through Kautokeino, and before night all the Lapps of the place
were ambitious to undergo the same operation. Indeed, the report reached
the neighboring villages, and a Hammerfest merchant, who came in the
following morning from a distance of seven miles, obtained a guide at
less than the usual price, through the anxiety of the latter to arrive
in time to have his portrait taken. The shortness of the imperfect
daylight, however, obliged me to decline further offers, especially as
there were few Lapps of pure, unmixed blood among my visitors.

Kautokeino was the northern limit of my winter journey. I proposed
visiting Altengaard in the summer, on my way to the North Cape, and
there is nothing in the barren tract between the two places to repay the
excursion. I had already seen enough of the Lapps to undeceive me in
regard to previously-formed opinions respecting them, and to take away
the desire for a more intimate acquaintance. In features, as in
language, they resemble the Finns sufficiently to indicate an
ethnological relationship. I could distinguish little, if any, trace of
the Mongolian blood in them. They are fatter, fairer, and altogether
handsomer than the nomadic offshoots of that race, and resemble the
Esquimaux (to whom they have been compared) in nothing but their rude,
filthy manner of life. Von Buch ascribes the difference in stature