BOOKS.
THE LAND OF THE AURORA BOREALIS.* THESE are very valuable and very enjoyable volumes, yet in one respect rather provoking also. The reader of them has but to refresh his memory by a re-perusal of such works as Mr. Rae's White Sea Peninsula and Linnmus's naive Laebesis Lapponita, to see that Mr. Sophus Tromholt has pro duced a thoroughly honest and a thoroughly original book, suggestive neither of padding nor of piracy. But in his obvious desire to please the British public, he has fallen, or rather forced himself, into some errors of style. In trying to avoid what he terms "pedantic prolixity" and "tedious erudi tion," this "distinguished savant," as his " editor " no doubt quite correctly terms him, resorts to "light and rapid strokes." Lightness and rapidity are all very well in their way and in their place, but not the hideous " fun " which in too many places does duty for them. It is a calumny on the reading public of these islands to suppose that they enjoy vulgarities such as "slipping out a big D" in pages that deal with the realities, and even the grandeur, of Nature. The Englishman of Continental caricature, who smokes cigars in cathedrals, and cannot appreciate the glories of the Midnight Sun without help from a brandy-flask, may or may not be a tradition. But he is not the sort of person to take an interest in the Aurora Borealis, or in the manners and religion of the Lapps; and Mr. Tromholt might have spared himself the trouble of trying to amuse him with slang from Mr. Gilbert's operas, or in dwelling on the selfishness of a wretched merchant who keeps brandy to himself under the pretext of its being oil. Mr. Tromholt evidently considers it a good joke to refer those curious as to his personal appearance "to his portrait as he appears on the last page of this work," which portrait is that of an individual whose face is hidden behind a photographic apparatus.
Under the circumstances, this is not so much a joke as an, impertinence. It is not possible altogether entirely to acquit the " editor " of this work, Mr. Carl Siewers, of responsibility.
for its blemishes. Mr. Tromholt, indeed, warned him not " to kill him in the translation, even if his ideas should seem. bizarre?' But he confesses to having "effected alterations and pruning." It would have been well for these volumes if Mr. Siewers had " effected " a good deal more.
When Mr. Tromholt chooses, he can refrain from dancing literary hornpipes for the delectation of imaginary British spectators, and be perfectly concise. He is so in his Preface,. when he states the origin, scope, and special claims of his book :—
"It was," he says, "as participator in the work of the International Polar Research Expeditions of 1882-1883 that the author visited the most distant regions of the European Continent. His. task was to effect observations of the remarkable phenomenon known as the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, and, principally, in conjunction with the Norwegian station at Bossekop, in Finnmarken, and the Finnish one at Sodankylii, in the very heart of the wilds of Finland, to effect measurements for determining the height of thephenomenon above the earth's crust. He chose, as the most favourable spot for his researches, the lonely and desolate Lapp settlement of Kontokseino, far beyond the pale of civilisation on the Russo. Norwegian frontier. He took with him thither a photographic apparatus, by the aid of which the light in these high latitudes has delineated the accompanying illustrations, which may contribute to enhance the interest and promote the instructiveness of the book. Asregards the former, he may be permitted to point out that they form the sole complete collection of its kind in existence of life, people, and nature in the Land of the Lapps and Kvmus."
Mr. Tromholt's mission was, to some extent, the working-out from the Norwegian stand-point of what is commonly known as " Weyprecht's Plan" of circum-polar observation. Weyprecht, the well-known discoverer of Franz Josef Land, some years ago, developed the idea of separating geographical from physical Polar research, and suggested that there should be established round the Pole a chain of International observatories, so placed that they could be reached with out difficulty during occupation, fitted with the best scientific instruments for the study of geo-physical science, and in charge of specialists. Weyprecht's plan was adopted at the International Meteorological Congress in St. Petersburg, in 1880; and between August 1,1882, and September 1, 1883, a number of countries maintained eleven such stations—the original number was twelve—where there were conducted a series of exhaustive researches into the meteorological and magnetic conditions of the Polar regions, which, as Mr. Tromholt truly says, marks an epoch in the history of science. The Norwegian Government selected
for their station Bossekop, in the southern corner of the Alteufjord, lying in 70 deg. N. lat., or about 1,500 miles from the
North Pole, yet sheltered by "a small bay lovely as one of the highly-praised lakes of Italy,—dreaming, smiling in the balmy summer air, which has not the heart to raffle the crystal surface, and surrounded by a wreath of green, grey, and brown mountains with soft outlines." Thither Mr. Tromholt proceeded from Bergen in the autumn of 1882; and thence, in order better to study the Aurora Borealis, he penetrated to the Lapp settlement of Koutokmino. With Koutokaaino as his head-quarters, he made excursions by reindeer pull; through the land of the mountain Lapps. He subsequently made his way to the Finland station, Sodankylii, and made the acquaintance of the Kvaens. The book closes with a spirited account of Mr. Tromholt's
return to the region of civilisation by sea, in the course of which he beheld the glories of the Midnight Sun, picked up a bunch of
keys on the North Cape, passed the promontory which has robbed the North Cape of its special glory, as Mount Everest has robbed Chimborazo, and photographed at midnight Vardohus, the northernmost fortress on earth, consisting of "a couple of houses, half hidden behind a parapet, two or three iron tubes, honoured with the distinguished denomination of guns, a flagstaff, a little powder for saluting on the King of Norway's birthday, a commander, and twenty soldiers, who, during peace, find employment as fishermen." We are not quite sure that the scientific portions of this book—in which Mr. Tromholt describes the methods and results of his observations—are not the best of all. They are lucid and unpretentious. Although Mr. Tromholt, like everybody who has seen the Aurora Borealis, breaks into prose-poetry over it,— and his prose-poetry is very much to be preferred to his humour,—he banishes a few illusions concerning it. Every attempt he made to photograph the aurora failed, alike at Koutokwino, at Bessekop, and at Sodankyla, owing to the small strength of light and its limited chemical action. Then,—
" That the aurora should compensate for the loss of the sun is a mere fable, while the belief prevalent that it greatly assists the dwellers in these parts in the dark season, on their journeys or in their work, is a gross exaggeration. Generally, the aggregate amount of light emitted by the Aurora Borealis is so small, that its contribution to lighten the darkness is almost nil, while it must be of an unusual brilliancy to be even seen when the moon is full and the sky clear. For a few moments certainly the light may be very intense, and cast an unusual brightness over the landscape, but these intervals of luminosity are so brief that the light emitted is of no practical value whatever to the inhabitants of the Polar regions. The very greatest amount of light which the Aurora Borealis emitted, or which, in any case, I was able to ascertain daring my entire sojourn in Lapland, may be compared to that of the moon two days and a half after full, when 25° above the horizon and the sky is clear."
The value of Mr. Tromholt's book, so far as the Lapps are concerned, lies in the amplitude of its details. The Lapp himself—the pure Lapp, that is to say—has changed but little since Linnwus visited his country about a century and a half ago, to study, not the Aurora Borealis, but the Flora Lapponiea, and when on one of his journeys he met with a woman of frightful, even of" Stygian " appearance, who seemed a perfect fiend, and addressed him as "miserable man," but turned out, nevertheless, to be a Good Samaritan, at least in intention. Mr. Tromholt studied the ways of the Lapps most minutely, saw them in camp and in "settlement," and even at the Assize Court, and picked up many a story about them in the vicarage at Koutokwino, which, in spite of its dreary situation, must, from a glimpse that Mr. Tromholt gives of its interior, be by no means destitute of cosy comfort. The conclusion Mr. Tromholt comes to is that the Lapp "is a savage, endowed with a mixture of goodness and vice, simplicity and cunning, sensitiveness and cruelty, indolence and energy,—indeed, a true child of nature." The numerous portraits which Mr. Tromholt gives us of Lapps of both sexes and of all varieties—Mountain, River, and Sea—suggest, indeed, a very low order of intelligence. The Lapp is "selfish and 'cute in all his dealings, and easily deceives his customer." His philosophy is, "What you do not care to do to-day, put off till to-morrow, or any future occasion when you may care to do it." He "has also a strong disposition to indulge in the pleasures of life, whether in the shape of a pipe of tobacco, a cup of coffee, or a glass of brandy." Linnwus found the Lapp very fond of brandy, and so did Mr. Tromholt, although he maintains that while his friend gets drunk oftener, he really drinks less, than people who are more favour
ably spoken of. "Combing is an act of cleanliness almost unknown to the Lapp, while the clothes are generally worn till they become rags, or the season demands a change The Lapp is not the least ashamed of eating whilst a hungry man looks on The intercourse between the young of both sexes is perfectly unrestrained." We thank Mr. Trombolt for the exhaustiveness of his study of the Lapp (the Mountain Lapps, by the way, now number 1,500), but, as a mere matter of taste, we prefer the reindeer to his master.
One of the most striking chapters in this book is that in the second volume which describes "The Reign of Terror in Lapland." It is a full—perhaps a trifle too full—narrative of a singular outbreak of superstition mingled with vice and brigandage among the Lapps, which culminated in a frightful tragedy in Koatokasino in the year 1853. A sect arose calling themselves the "Saints," with half-mad leaders, the chief of whom, Aslak Hcetta, a young man of twenty-eight, termed himself the King and God of the Lapps, and declared that the Trinity resided in him. They were from the first violently intolerant, and ultimately formed themselves into a religious army, which attacked Koatokzeino, and murdered the sheriff and leading merchant under circumstances of the most horrible brutality. The vicar and the whole " unbelieving " population were only rescued, after the most barbarous ill-treatment, from the same fate by the courageous inhabitants of a neighbouring settlement, who, although outnumbered by the Saints, offered battle to them, and were finally victorious. Altogether, there is nothing worse in the history of Mohammedanism or Mormonism than this story of the "Reign of Terror in Lapland." Yet even out of this evil a certain amount of good came. One of the younger Saints, Lars Ilwtta, emerged from prison to become the translator of the Bible into Lappish.
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