Here also I gathered a _Pinguicula_, the fore-part of whose petal was white, the hind-part blue, which is certainly a beautiful as well as singular variety. (See _Fl. Lapp. n. 11._ _P. vulgaris_.)
The trees here produce _Usnea arborea_ (_Lichen plicatus_), which the Laplanders apply to excoriations of the feet caused by excessive walking. They line their shoes with this moss, a practice which might with advantage be adopted by soldiers on a march. The Laplanders also line their shoes with grass, consisting of various species of _Carex_, (especially _C. sylvatica_, _Fl. Brit._). This grass they comb with iron or horn combs, bruising it between their hands till it becomes soft and pliable. When dried they cram it into their shoes, and it answers instead of stockings for defending the feet from cold. (See _Fl. Lapp. n. 328_.)
After much trouble and fatigue, I at length reached Jockmock, where stands the principal church of this northern district, and where its pastor resides.
The clergyman of Jockmock, Mr. Malming, who is the schoolmaster, and Mr. Högling the curate, tormented me with their consummate and most pertinacious ignorance. I could not but wonder how so much pride and ambition, such scandalous want of information, with such incorrigible stupidity, could exist in persons of their profession, who are commonly expected to be men of knowledge; yet any school-boy twelve years of age might be better informed. No man will deny the propriety of such people as these, at least, being placed as far as possible from civilized society.
The learned curate began his conversation with remarks on the clouds in this country, setting forth how they strike the mountains as they pass, carrying away stones, trees and cattle. I ventured to suggest that such accidents were rather to be attributed to the force of the wind, for that the clouds could not of themselves lift, or carry away, any thing. He laughed at me, saying surely I had never seen any clouds. For my part, it seemed to me that he could have never been any where but in the clouds. I replied, that whenever the weather is foggy I walk in clouds, and when the fog is condensed, and no longer supported in the air, it immediately rains beneath my feet. At all such reasoning, being above his comprehension, he only laughed with a sardonic smile. Still less was he satisfied with my explanation how watery bubbles may be lifted up into the air, as he told me the clouds were solid bodies. On my denying this, he reinforced his assertion with a text of scripture, silencing me by authority, and then laughing at my ignorance. He next condescended to inform me that after rain a phlegm is always to be found on the mountains, where the clouds have touched them. Upon my replying that this phlegm is a vegetable called _Nostoc_, I was, like St. Paul, judged to be mad, and that too much learning had turned my brain. This philosopher, who was as fully persuaded of his own complete knowledge of nature, as Sturmius was of being able to fly by means of hollow globes, was pleased to be very facetious at my expense. At length he graciously advised me to pay some regard to the opinions of people skilled in these abstruse matters, and not, at my return home, to expose myself by publishing such absurd and preposterous opinions as I had now advanced.