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TRAVELS OF EHRENMALM, 373
As foon as a child is born, he is wrapped without any {waddling clothes in a piece of
woollen cloth, and placed in a fort of wooden cafe, wide at one extremity and narrow
at the other, a cradle much refembling a coffin. The bottom is concave, and the fides
are only raifed to the level of the child. But to prevent his falling out, two hides are
pafied over his body, and faftened fufficiently tight. Thefe cradles are fufpended in
the tents, expofed to the {moke ; two cords are attached to rock the children, for they
rock them: this cuftom begins to appear prejudiciai to us ; but the example of fava-
ges inftructed by nature feems to juttify it. Befides the hammocks of the Negroes,
and the fufpended cradles of the Laplanders, have no occafion for the hand of a nurfe
to lull the children to fleep. The natural ofcillation which they have, fupplies this at-
tention. It is even more gentle and natural than the jolting of a cradle placed on a
plane, and which is agitated by a motion too irregular no doubt not to be fometimes
hurtful, or pernicious.
In Lapland we may judge of the education of the children from the manners of their
fathers. In Europe this would often be a flender inference. The firft education of
youth differs much more among us, than among the Laplanders, from the remainder
of life; and it perhaps is not to our advantage. Inthe age of innocence we im-
bibe errors ; in the age of knowledge we imbibe vices. Thofe alone who have no
education, are nearly equally unhappy in all the {tages of life; too enlightened not to
feel its evils, too limited to overcome them. It is not thus with the Laplanders.
Before I faw thefe people, I had pictured them to myfelf as a ftupid race. I have
had great reafon to be undeceived. ‘They have received from nature the fame
advantages of body and mind as the reft of men; but to the greater part of the Iap-
landers thefe benefits are loft. An exceflive love of liberty which they poflefs, fo as
not to with for any empire among themfelves, a profound ignorance maintained by the
prejudices of their education, remove all idea of a reafonable fociety. ‘They love
better to abide in the mifery in which they are born, than to releafe themfelves from it
by labour. To the moft delicious difhes they would prefer the liberty of eating the
rind of the pine, or clover, to fatisfy their appetite. [hey are not acquainted with
fixed hours for repaft or fleep. Tolye on the hard and dry earth, between thick
rufhes, and bear or rein-deer fkins, better fuits their ungovernable charaéter, than
a bed of the fofteft down, which they only enter and leave at times regulated by
cuftom or bufinefs. The lefs foft their bed is, the lefs they remain attached to it.
They have no dread of meeting with the anxiety of watchings, or of the next day ; the
wakefulnefs which burns and parches; the vapours of high living or of voluptuoufnefs.
They forget their hardfhips, where fo many others encounter them.
Independence in their opinion is true happinefs. Jealous to excefs of every thing
which may injure this fovereign wealth of their life, their imagination is very lively and
fenfible, though in a cold climate. Hence arife the extacies of their pretended magicians,
the ability of thefe people in counterfeiting the founds of the voice, the geftures and
motions of thofe who {peak tothem. Equally timid with their rein-deer, and ready to
flee at the leaft noife, their propenfity to fuperftition, their horror at the idea of fervi-
tude and con(traint, their eafily being alarmed, and fainting at the flighteft accident ;
are all indications of a fenfibility of organs, not commonly obferved among the favages
ofthe north. Perhaps in this refpect they refemble certain ferocious animals who are
{tartled at every thing with which they are unacquainted ; as if fear were the firlt fenti-
ment of every creature that is careful of its prefervation.
After the character of the Laplanders, it may be judged impoffible to fubdue them
by rigour; but’eafy to win them by gentle means. When they are convinced of the
5 benevolence
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