The sole property of the former is his herd of reindeer. He takes these to the high grounds, and after spending the months of June, July, and August there, returns in September to his winter quarters. In his journeys to and fro, he uses the reindeer as beasts of burden. When the ground is covered with snow, he harnesses these useful quadrupeds to his sledge. (Fig. 90.)
Dogs are also used as draft animals in Lapland. On the borders of the scanty forests of Lapland and Siberia, the inhabitants of these barbarous countries may often be seen gliding rapidly by on a sledge drawn by dogs.
The usual life of the nomadic Laplander is about as wretched as can well be imagined. A tent stretched on four uprights is his abode summer and winter. The fire-place is in the middle of the tent, and the smoke escapes through an opening in the top. Five or six reindeer skins stretched round the fire form the beds of the whole family, to which the surrounding smoke serves as the only curtain. Their furniture consists of an iron pot and a few wooden pails. The Laplander carries in his pocket a horn spoon and a knife. He often, instead of wooden pails, makes use of the bladders of the reindeer. In them he carries the milk mixed with water which is his daily beverage. Whenever he sets out on a journey, he harnesses a pair of reindeer to his sledge.
This nomadic race, which formerly occupied a part of Sweden, is now much diminished in numbers. Thirty years ago their number, counting all that could be found in Russian, Norwegian, and Swedish Lapland, only came to twelve thousand.
The sedentary Laplander is usually some poor reindeer proprietor, who having ruined himself, and being unable to continue the life of a wandering herdsman, becomes a beggar or a servant. If he has still a little money left, he settles down on the sea coast, and turns fisherman, while his wife spins wool. His existence in the midst of men of a different race is then a solitary one. He is a regular pariah, despised by both Swede and Norwegian. His hut, his dress, his customs, are all different to those of the people amongst whom he has taken shelter. His children are not allowed to marry into any of the neighbouring families, and he is utterly and entirely alone amid strangers.