CHAP.

I.

of the

all of which, both the crime and its cause, humanity recoils. Acts of violence, if ever committed, are attributed, not to the Swedes, or to the Laplanders, but to the Finns; a lively but irascible race of men, of whom we shall soon have occasion to speak more fully. The traveller who visits this extremity of the Gulph of Bothnia, whether from Umeå on the south, or from the Lapland provinces lying towards the north, will frequently have occasion to remark, that whenever the Finns are mentioned in conversation, Character the inhabitants shake their heads, ascribing to Finns. them, or to their influence, all deeds of anger, lust, violence, and drunkenness. The Finns are to the Swedes and Lapps what the Irish are to the English and Scotch; that is to say, a nation in which the extremities of virtue and vice are singularly blended; haughty, impetuous, and arrogant, in prosperity; abject and spiritless in adversity; in all things given to excess, whether on the brighter or on the darker side: which is the real reason why it has been so often observed of the Irish, that every individual among them has two characters: and fortunate is it for those who have witnessed only a manifestation of the one, which is deserving of all praise.

August 15.-We prevailed with the apothecary to allow little Pyppon to accompany us to

CHAP.

I.

Departure

neů.

Kiemi fair. Upon the evening of this day, therefore, we bade a final adieu to Torneå. If our from Tor- horses had been gifted with Pegaséan wings, they would not have flown fast enough for our young companion; so eager was he to reach Kiemi, and for once enjoy unrestrained liberty. During six years, with the exception only of his summer-morning scampers after a plant or an insect, he had never been farther from the shop than his master's door, or the limits of his courtyard. We had given him some English needles for his insects, and a few other trifles from our trunks, with which he considered himself possessed of great treasure. In this manner, with the most buoyant spirits, he took his seat in our waggon; making his appearance, for the first time, with a coat on, and his feet and legs clad in shoes and stockings, that he might seem dressed for the occasion: but complaining, shortly after, of the confinement and heat his holiday suit occasioned, he begged permission to divest himself of the incumbrance. As night drew on, however, we felt the coldness of the air very sensibly. The coldness of the fogs, after sun-set, is very piercing in the valleys; but in ascending a small hill, or any little eminence, hot gusts of wind are felt as from a stove. The moon, this evening, exhibited some

I.

Extraor

the Atmo

remarkable phænomena, owing to the state of CHAP. the atmosphere. Indeed, the horizontal moon in Northern regions, at this season of the year, dinary Remay be deemed as great a curiosity as the fraction of solstitial sun. In our own country, the rising spere. of a fine harvest-moon is one of the most glorious sights in nature; but the size of the orb this evening, when it first appeared, was as large as the fore-wheel of a common chariot. At first, half the periphery was visible in the horizon, like an arch of fire, with the most brilliant indentations. Soon afterwards, a new and singular phænomenon was displayed: the upper part of this semi-orb seemed separated from its truncated segment below, and remained suspended above it, like a lambent flame over an expiring lamp; the band of vapours, which separated the two parts, forming a line perfectly straight, and parallel to the horizon; and having the same hue as the rest of the atmosphere: the planet itself seeming separated into two parts, which receded from each other. Another circumstance, yet more remarkable, attended this rise of the moon. We thought that the upper part of the periphery appeared rather the segment of an ellipse than of a circle, resting on its major axis. Presently, all doubt was removed: when the whole orb had cleared the verge of

I.

CHAP, the horizon, owing to the very great refraction of the lower stratum of the atmosphere, we saw the moon, perfectly elliptical as to its form, like a vast egg resting upon rolling clouds. It bellso enw

(1) "The air's density and refractive power are increased by cold, and diminished by heat; not to mention the changeable mixture of vapours and exhalations with the air near the horizon. There is a famous observation of this kind made by some Hollanders. that wintered in Nova Zembla, in the year 1596, and were surprised to find, that, after a continual night of three months, the sun began to rise seventeen days sooner than according to computation, deduced from the altitude of the Pole, observed to be 760; which cannot otherwise be accounted for, than by an extraordinary quantity of refraction of the sun's rays passing through the cold and dense air in that climate. Kepler (Paralipom. in Vitellio, p. 238) computes that the sun was almost five degrees below the horizon, when he first appeared; and consequently the refraction of his rays was about nine times greater than it is with us."-SMITH's Optics, vol. II. p. 62. (Remarks) Quarto Edit.

After

*

but a more magnificent sight can scarcely be conceived. The antient mythological fable of the Egg of Night resting upon Chaos may have owed its origin to a similar appearance; and it may be observed, that this Egg was called wòv vérov, which, according to Hesychius', ὠὸν ὑπηνέμιον,

signifies (vérios) rainy‘.

After the preceding remarks upon the First Book of his Optics, the author mentions the oval figures of the horizontal Sun and Moon.

"Since the apparent vertical diameters of the horizontal Sun and Moon (by reason of the unequal refractions of the highest and lowest rays) are much more contracted than their horizontal ones, their pictures upon the retina, and consequently their apparent figures, become oval; their longest and shortest apparent diameters being frequently as 5 to 4, (Balthasaris Micrometria, p. 101, fig. 103.) especially in the mornings, when the rays are most refracted through a colder, denser, and moister air." Ibid.

(2) Aristophanes in Avibus, v. 692. "Sable-winged Night produced an Egg; whence sprouted up, like a blossom, Eros, the lovely and desirable, with his glossy golden wings." This subject afforded to Darwin the machinery for one of the finest passages in his poetry :

"When Love divine, with brooding wings unfurled,
Called from the rude abyss the living world-

Let there be Light!' proclaimed the Almighty Lord,
Astonished Chaos heard the potent word;
Through all his realms the kindling Ether runs,

And the mass starts into a million suns;

Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issue from the first;
Bend, as they journey with projectile force,

In bright ellipses, their reluctant course;

Orbs wheel in orbs; round centers, centers roll;
And form, self-balanced, one revolving whole:
Onward they move, amid their bright abode,
Space without bound, the bosom of their God."

·(3) “Yanvíμiov äveμov virov. Hesychius.

(4) See Bryant's Mythology, vol. II. p. 352. Lond. 1774.