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KERGUELEN’S VOYAGE TO THE NORTH. 751
. After defcribine the productions of the ifland, it is fit I fhould notice the conftitution,
labours, and private life of the Icelanders. Thefe people are of a common fize, and
robuit nature, enjoying their health admirably ; a manly education, a fober, frugal, and
laborious life, no doubt contribute to give them this temperament. They are moftly
nimble and well made, have fine teeth, and generally light hair. ‘The women are not
of fo ftrong conf{titution as the men ; their occupations are very light, they work and
prepare the wool, and their moft laborious employment is hay-making. Their labours
are not fo eafy nor fo fortunate as M. Anderfon defcribes; they do not proceed to bathe,
and refume their different work immediately after laying-in. In the different places I
refided at in the country my furgeon delivered feveral, and always with the fame diffi-
culty, and I know that they always kept their bed for a week. I have even been in-
formed that for want of midwifes, furgeons, and neceflary afliftance, many women are
loft. The Icelanders have no good furgeons, nor fkilful phyficians ; neverthelefs after
fifty years of age they are much in need of them ; it is then that they begin to be at-
tacked by diforders and infirmities. A man of eighty years of age is feldom feen on
the ifland. They die chiefly from complaints in the breaft, the fcurvy, and ob{trutions.
They call almoft all the diforders which are fatal by the common title of /and/arfak. They
have an hereditary complaint differing little from the leprofy, but not contagious. It
will perhaps appear furprifing that the Icelanders, whom I have defcribed fo vigorous,
fhould become infirm fo foon ; but refpect muft be had to their rude occupations, and
the fedentary life they lead. They have no public exercife, no games, no dancing, and
both by night and day in fifhing are fubjeét to the inclemency of the weather ; or if they
inhabit the interior, they never leave their home without getting wet at feet, from the
number of rivulets and torrents which fall from the mountains covered with ice and
fnow. The Icelanders bring up their children with great tendernefs, and do not wean
them earlier than inFrance. M. Anderfon is deceived in imagining that they.do not :
fuckle more than eight or ten days; but (without offence to M. Horrebows) he is cor-
rect in {tating that when a child is carried to be baptifed, a bit of linen dipped in milk is
put into its mouth: I have feen and can certify the truth of this. Their mode of bring- -
ing up their children furprifed me; they put them in breeches at the end of two months.
Ihave obferved that the life of an Icelander was. fober and frugal: the reader may
form an eftimate of it from their meals; they live during the fummer principally on.
cod’s heads, and in the winter on fheep’s heads: they cut off the heads of the cod to
dry or falt the fifh, andthey are moftly confumed at home. A common family:make a
meal of three or four cods’ heads boiled ia fea-water: they boil ‘every thing. The
fheep’s heads which they confume in the winter are the remnants of the mutton they falt
for trading with. ‘They put them in a kind of vinegar for keeping.. The vinegar is
made from fkimmed milk, the juice of forrel, and other {trong herbs.. All their difhes
are cooked without either falt or {pice ; butter is the only fauce: milk-however is their
principal food. Bread is very uncommon in Iceland; the poor are unacquainted with
it, living on dried fifh alone: thofe in eafy.circumftances eat bread on high days, fuch
as wedding and baptifmal days, and where particular company vifit, &c. This bread
is brought from Copenhagen : it confifts of broad thin cakes, or fea-bifcuits, made of
rye flour, and extremely black.
The drefs of the Icelanders, particularly the women, is fingular : I-do not ‘fpeak of
the officers of the law who come from Denmark, and who drefs after the manner of
their country, but only of the inhabitants of Iceland. The men drefs in much the fame
manner. as feamen ; they have a jacket fhaped like a coat, and a good cloth waiftcoat,
with breeches of the fame. They have four and even fix rows of buttons to their wailt.
6 coat,
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