44
JOAN OF ARC.
The Laplander beholds the far-off sun65
Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,
While yet the stern and solitary Night
Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn
With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam
Guiding his course, or by Niemi's lake70
Or Balda-Zhiok,[1] or the mossy stone
Of Solfar-Kapper,[2] while the snowy blast
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge
Making the poor babe at its mother's back
Scream in its scanty cradle:[3] he the while75
Wins
- ↑ Line 71 Balda-Zhiok. i.e. mons altudinis, the highest mountain in Lapland.
- ↑ Line 72 Solfar-Kapper: capitium Solfar, hic locus omnium, quotquot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religiosoque cultui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs, semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quern curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus præaltis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat.Leemius de Lapponibus.
- ↑ Line 75 The Lapland women carry their infants at their backs in a piece of excavated wood which serves them for a cradle; opposite to the infant's mouth there is a hole for it to breathe thro'.
Mirandum prorsus est & vix credibile nisi cui vidisse contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastos montes, perque horrida et invia tesqua, eo præsertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem autem infantem, si quem habeat, ipsa mater in dorso bajulat,
in
