This then is the state of things which obtains in this year of grace amongst the fjelds and forests of Northern Norway and Sweden, and as a consequence the Lapps are slow of increase. Over the border, however, in Lapland proper, and in Russian Lapland, their numbers rise appreciably every decade, though it is perhaps hard to decide which are genuine Lapps and which belong to a mixed race. In the extreme east of their territory they are apt to intermarry with the Samoyedes; and I think it is a significant fact that the outer garments of the two races--the Lapp _matsoreo_, and the Samoyede _militza_--are both fashioned on the same cut. In Russian Lapland there is an obvious intermixture with the Russian _moujik_, and in Lapland proper they naturally marry largely with the all-pervading Finn.
The inhabitant of Lapland is not so light-fingered as his more western brother, perhaps because there is less opportunity of pilfering. And he does not make himself so unpopular, because there are fewer aliens for him to get unpopular with, and no one goes out regularly to shoot him as a domestic nuisance. In fact the Lapps we were in contact with (and the Finns, too, for that matter) never stole any of our particular properties; though at the same time it should be confessed that we had remarkably little worth stealing, as the whole of our outfit after Enare (including the clothes on our backs) was not worth a couple of sovereigns, and we did keep a remarkably sharp eye on even the few trifles we had.
The life these aboriginal people lead in Arctic Lapland is undoubtedly hard, and at times they rub shoulders very closely with starvation. But they have got constitutions, built up through countless centuries to endure the privations and (what to a more delicately nurtured race would be) the hardships of their life; and from the number of very old people we saw everywhere through the country, it was plain that the orthodox threescore years and ten was by no means the average limit for the life of an Arctic Lapp. Children there were, too, in all abundance. It was a notable fact that scarcely a woman did we see of child-bearing age without a babe at breast; and though a large percentage of this progeny did not endure the chills of a second or a third winter, enough pulled through to keep the race on the steady increase in numbers. This weeding-out process also obviously did much to counteract the evils of consanguineous marriages, and so maintain the standard of physique. It was one of Nature's balances. Without it the Arctic Lapps would increase for a while abnormally, and then they would dwindle, and in a few centuries they would be gone.