The Argosy — page 235: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

218 About Norway. seeing the nature of the demand, her face beamed with smiles, and going over to her husband, amidst small convulsions of laughter, she explained to him with intense fun and merriment the offer that had been made to her. Finally, she threw her arms round the little girl, and, looking up, shook her head, decidedly intimating that such a bargain was out of the question. None of these Lapps were more than four feet high, iIshabien in body as they were aboriginal in face. Certainly their dress showed them off to the least advantage. But it was picturesque in its ugli- ness, and in harmony with the people and their surroundings. Rude trowsers or leggings of reindeer skin, tied round the legs with cord, and a long coat or blouse of the same, tied round the waist: warm clothes, no doubt, but stiff, shapeless, and by no means handsome. ‘The women were dressed much in the same way, and the smooth faces of the men made it somctimes puzzling to distinguish between them. At length bargains were terminated and curiosity was satisfied. For my own part, sufficiently encumbered with a pair of shoes, I wondered what would have been the consequence if the woman had taken me at my word and sold the child. Luckily the maternal instinct-(and indeed the paternal, too) is one that may be almost reckoned upon all the world over. Herr X. invested in some skins, which one of the Lapps packed in a sack, threw over his shoulder, and accompanied us on our return to the steamer: a quaint and curious little figure. Disappointment at not seeing the deer having been energetically expressed on our first arrival, two of the Lapps went off and Cisappeared amongst the hills. We now caught sight of them struggling and toiling down the mountain side with two of the animals. The more they pulled the ropes one way, the more the animals tugged and struggled the other, until we thought their very horns would come out. Large and beautiful these horns were, and so were the eyes ; but the deer, shedding their coat, did not look the romantic and lovely creatures of one’s imagination. They were so wild, too, that the softness of the eye was turned to fierceness, They refused to stand still for a moment, and started at the least touch. On the whole their more familiar acquaintance was voted a mistake. They had looked far more grand and majestic travelling over the snow at the top of the North Cape. There, in full freedom, unrestrained, and in the beauty of their heads, crowned with magnificent horns that stood out like the branches of a tree, the grace of their move- ments and general appearance was not to be mistaken. The men who had brought down the two reindeer —it had not taken them ten minutes to do the work—demanded fifteen shillings in payment, a sum representing amongst the Lapps about — -ten times the amount it does with us; and because only ten shillings was given to them, they went off into a diminutive but very decided rage, bubbled up and boiled over, and made as much chattering as an (ECO) iy Gomicbooks