The Bride
Then Accepts From Her Suitor A Present Of A Reindeer's
Tongue, And The Espousals Are Considered Concluded.
The
marriage does not take place for two or three years
afterwards; and during the interval the intended is
obliged to labour in the service of his father-in-law,
as diligently as Jacob served Laban for the sake of his
long-loved Rachel.
I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have been
able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending
you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty.
The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge
towards the home of his adored one: -
"Hasten, Kulnasatz! my little reindeer! long is the way,
and boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light
of foot, and soon we shall have come to whither we are
speeding. There shall I behold my fair one pacing.
Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth! look around! Dost
thou not see her somewhere - BATHING?"
As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp lady
and her companions, a process to which they submitted
with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect
the other lions of the town; the church, the lazar-house, -
principally occupied by Lapps, - the stock fish
establishment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were
sufficient to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest; so
having bought an extra suit of jerseys for my people,
and laid in a supply of other necessaries, likely to be
useful in our cruise to Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners
with the Consul, a transaction by which, I fear, he got
the worst of the bargain, and then got under way for this
place, - Alten.
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