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TRAVELS OF EHRENMALM. 367
whofe underftanding is more extended, and their minds more enlarged, are not the
mott difficult to recognize man in the favage Laplander. Very limited minds alone find
in him the brute.
The Laplanders are ftrong, and of a tolerable ftature. Their limbs are coarfe,
their hair long and thick, face fmall, their forehead {trait, the beard {mooth, their
breaft and fhoulders broad, and their legs commonly bent.
The women, on the contrary, have {mall limbs, hair of little thicknefs, and narrow
breafts. The men are incontinent without being vicious, and the women extremely
licentious ; that is to fay, that both {carcely know pleafure, nor crime in love; and as
they almoft attach no moral idea to the intercourfe of the fexes, they make no virtue
of continence. But the Lapland women would be capable of in{piring it, by the
infirmities with which nature feems to have armed them again{t the attempts of ag-
greflors.
The only advantage which they may poffefs over women of other nations, is of being
ignorant of the alteration of fafhion in drefs; if however it is a merit in a weak and
flender fex, to be free of thofe frivolous taftes which give it fo much importanee. One
would fay, that they are afraid of pleafing, left they fhould have caufe to blufh at the
flight of the conqueror, at the moment of triumph. ‘They pretend to have preferved
the attire of ancient times; yet Ido not believe it, nor think that the Laplanders.
have a fufficient refemblance to the Hraelites to be defcended from them, as fome
would perfuade them. It is more reafonable to think that tranfmigrations of na-
tions proceed from the frozen zone to the torrid, than from the equator towards the
pole.
A nation has fcarcely any occafion to borrow its cuftoms from another; at leaft
all the cuftoms which relate to the firft wants of life. The Laplanders live and drefs
as the climate permits. They ufe no linen cloth; this only accords with warm coun-
tries, All their foreign luxury confifts ina very coarfe woollen cloth. They have caps
of it which they border on all the feams with a lace of a richer or more fhining cloth.
They make their doublet of it; it isa great coat with long fleeves, wide about the
neck, and open at the breaft. Yet they cover the fkin with a ftomacher : in the
bad weather of fummer, this piece of cloth is covered with an old furred robe; in
the winter with a warmer fur. In the fevere cold of that long feafon, they wear caps
or cloaks of fkin. ‘The Laplanders of the woods in fummer wear fhoes made of the
bark of birch ; the Laplanders of the mountains in winter have fhoes of rein-deer
fkin. The trees and the rein-deer are their refource for clothing and food. They
have neither in abundance; but they are feldom in dread of want. Careful to pro-
vide fubfiltence for themfelves, they do not expect it from public provifions and ma-
gazines, which may fuddenly raife in price, or totally fail. They are not fubjeét to
{carcity or famine, before the granaries or tables of opulence, which overflow with fu-
perfluity. ‘They are not feen to wander pale and difheartened in the provinces,@Dout
caftles and parks, of which the mafters make parade at court, or in the capital, of gold,
filver, diamonds, and fumptuous dreffes of various colours, where the people might
reclaim its blood, and the labourer his reward.
The drefs of the Lapland women is nearly the fame with that of allthe favage women
of the north, fhort and tight, differing little from that of the men. Extreme want in re-
fpe& of clothing, makes no diftintion of fexes except by concealment ; and if they
conceal them in the north, it is becaufe the cold will not fuffer nudity. Neverthefs, even
in Lapland, the women are willing to diftinguifh themfelves, at leaft in their head-drefs
uA o> De
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