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40 TRAVELS
The geographical divifion of a country is a matter arranged be-
twixt fovereigns, and does not depend on the hand of nature. The
king of Sweden may, with a ftroke of his pen, convert into Lap-
land what is now Weft Bothnia; but fuch changes will effect
no alteration in the manners of the people, nor in the natural con-
dition of the country.
It is remarkable that Maupertuis who compofed an abridgment
of geography, fhould have known {fo little of a country wherein he
made fo many obfervations. He conftantly confounds Lapland
with Weft Bothnia, and gives to his journey, which only extended
to the borders of Lapland, the title of Voyage au Fond de la Lap-
ponie, “a Journey into the Interior of Lapland.” All other tra-
vellers after him feem to have fallen into the like miftake, and
fancied they had been in Lapland, when they had got as far as
Tornea. They have likewife confounded the Lapland tongue
with the language of Finland; and when they have brought with
them a fervant girl born in the town of Torneda, have fuppofed
they had got a Laplander.
The country from Tornea to Muonionifca and Pallajovenio,
though it changes its appearance to that of a wildernefs, does not
greatly vary. The mountains are the fame; the cataracts, lakes
and woods carry a near refemblance: in fhort, the objects that
prefent themfelves to the eye, have not a fufficient degree of divers
fity to render them worthy of obfervation. The face of the coun-
try, however, proceeding from Pallajovenio to Kautokeino, -by
the little river Pallojoki, is very different. The {mall rivers in
general
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