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196 REGNARD’S JOURNEY TO LAPLAND.
The quantity of fifh is the reafon why one meets with fo many caftors in Lapland,
(the Swedes call them daver,) and they take great delight in thofe places, where no
noife of the traveller difturbs their repofe. But the beit place to find them, is, in the
province of Kimi and in Ruffia. The kidney of this animal is employed in the cure of
many difeafes. Every body afferts, that there is no greater fpecific again{t the plague ;
and that, if it is taken every morning, it difpels the bad air: it is alfo faid to be an
ingredient in the moft efficacious compofitions. Olatis, chief prielt of the province of
Pitha prefented me with the half of one at Torno, and affured me, that he made ule of
nothing elfe for his beft remedies ; he was well acquainted with pharmacy. He further
aflured me, that he extracted an oil from the tail of the fame animal, and that there
was no remedy of more efficacy in the world.
There are alfo in Lapland, a very great number of ermines, which the Swedes de-
nominate /ekat. ‘This animal is about the thicknefs of a large rat, but twice as long.
It does not always retain the fame colour, for in fummer, it is fomewhat red, and in
winter, it changes its hair, and becomes as white as we fee it: its tail is equally long
with its body, and it terminates ina little point black as ink, fo much fo, that it is dif_i-
cult to fee an animal, which is at the fame time either blacker or whiter. ‘The {kin of
an ermine cofts four or five pence. The flefh of this animal {mells difagreeably, and it
lives upon minevers, and mountain-rats. ‘This laft little animal, wholly unknown. every
where elfe, and very fingular, as you fhall fee, is fometimes found in fuch abundance,
that the earth is wholly covered with them. The Laplanders call it /emucat ; it is of
the fize of a rat, but the colour is redder, marked with black; and it feems as if it fell
from heaven, for it is never feen, except after great rain. ‘Thefe bea{ts do not flee from
the approaching traveller ; but, on the contrary, run to him with a great noife; and
when any one attacks them with a ftick, or any other weapon, they turn upon him and
bite the ftick, to which they continue hanging by the teeth, like little angry dogs.
‘They fight with the dogs, whom they are not afraid of, and leap upon their backs, and
bite them fo feverely, that the dogs are obliged to roll themfelves on the earth, to get
rid of this little animal. It is even faid, that thefe animals are fo warlike, that they
fometimes declare war againft each other, and that when the two armies arrive near to
the place which they have chofen for the field of battle, they fight bitterly. The Lap-
landers, who obferve the quarrels of fuch fmall animals, conclude, that the battles of
other individuals muft be much more bloody ; and they think that Sweden has a good
right to go to war with Denmark or Mufcovy, who are her moft mortal enemies.
As thefe animals are warlike, they have alfo many enemies who make confiderable
havoc among them. The rein-deer eat all thofe they can meet with. They are the
moft delicate food of the dogs; but they never eat their hind parts. The foxes fill
their dens with them, and lay up magazines of them for times of {carcity ; this vexes
the Laplanders, who know when they have procured this food, for this prevents them
from feeking food elfewhere, and from falling into the {nares which have been laid for
them. Even the ermines fatten themfelves on thefe animals. But that which is re-
markable in this creature, is, its fenfibility of it approaching deftruGtion. Forefeeing
that it cannot live during winter, it retires to the top of a tree between two forked
branches, where great numbers are caught; others of them, not relifhing this kind of
death, jump into lakes, where they are often in the body of the pike, newly fwallowed ;
and thofe of them, who do not wifh to be the authors of their own deftruction, and
who patiently await their deftination, perifh in the earth, when the rains which brought
them into exiftence, likewife deprive them of it. ‘They chace a great number of hares,
I who
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