The Prefecture of Piteå

14th. It rained a great deal during the night and also the following day.

The arable fields in the province consist sometimes of humus, sometimes clay, sometimes sand, sometimes a mixture. They give a reasonable yield, however, whatever the weather – except for the cold, which is the ruination of the inhabitants.

There are splendid forests of pine and spruce and an abundance of birch; consequently, there is no part of Sweden more pleasant to travel through in summer. The local people make most of their money from planks sold at 16 silver öre per dozen and from tar at 6 copper daler per barrel.

I wish that those people who insist on disputing the fact that particular plants grow in particular countries would show me the reason why birch, ‘Salix’ [willow], ‘Rubus fragariae’ [Arctic Bramble], ‘Chamaemorus’ [Cloudberry] and ‘Campanula serpillofolia’ [Twinflower] grow so abundantly here.

Also, why ‘Ranunculus’ [Meadow Buttercup] grows so profusely, making whole fields yellow and quite beautiful to behold.

When I reached the inn at SUNNANÅ I could see a great mass of houses by SKELLEFTEÅ church on the other side of a large river. I was ferried over and it was a proper little town of 350 to 400 houses with white chimneys, all laid out in 2 streets with side-streets linking them. They told me that every farmer in the parish had his own house here and that he stayed in it on feast days.

A little farther on I saw a low-lying hill close to the highway. It was completely covered with spruce brushwood and, when I removed some, the hill had clearly been burnt and blasted. It is possible that someone had expected to find ore here but I could see no sign of anything like it. I took a few stones and kept them.

I passed a second inn and, halfway between that and a third inn, I was ferried over a river, just after which an owl appeared and proceeded to fly away from me bit by bit. I took my little gun, however, and at a quarter past 12 – for the night was not in the least dark – risked loosing off a shot. It struck its target, even though the horse was going at full pace, but one side of the bird was shot to pieces so that it could not be stuffed.

While I was writing a description of this owl, a creature came creeping out of it: an insect – a long, bluish-black ‘Scarabeolus’ [larder beetle] with a white belly; its feelers made me certain that that is what it was.2 Its whole body was black with just a touch of blue. Only the chest and belly were white; when touched it lay as still as a moth.

I saw an ‘Oniscus aquaticus’ [water louse] in the water.3

The dean in Skellefteå told me of a Lapp at the last assizes who accused his neighbour of having twice as much land as him without paying any more in tax. The accused consequently became liable for twice as much tax as before. In his annoyance, the latter revealed the existence of a vein of silver ore and, because of this, he was exempted from tax by royal ordinance. He went to the other party and said: “There, you see, now I am exempt from tax and you are not”.

15th. Nothing in particular showed up today. Here and there the sea could be seen close to the road, its melancholy waves breaking against the rocky cliffs, in some places eating away perpetually at islands to separate them at last from the land, in other places manuring the sandy beaches with sludge. The weather was pleasant.

In a bog I found a charming variety (possibly) of ‘Oxycoccus’ [Small Cranberry] that differs only in having extremely thin leaves and smaller flowers and berries; the ordinary sort was growing there untidily but this variant always kept to its proper proportions and never grew to the size of the other. ‘Pingvicula rotundifolia et oblongifolia’ [Sundew and Great Sundew] were growing there too.

I saw ‘Vaccinium nigrum’ [Blaeberry] sometimes with red flowers (as usual), sometimes with pale whitish flowers, but more unusually with yellow. ‘Gale’ [Bog Myrtle] was growing in the bog; I had not seen it in Vasterbotten before.

In the evening before the sun went down there was such a vast quantity of midges that it was unbelievable. It was as if they completely filled the air, especially in the damp meadows. They flew into my mouth, my nose, my eyes, and never got out of the way. It was not that they were particularly malicious biters but there were so many of them that it was impossible to breathe. When I grasped the air I caught myriads of them in my hand but they were all crushed; they were so small that I cannot provide a description of them. The local people called them “knort”.

As the sun went down behind a little patch of cloud I arrived in the old town of PITEÅ. Just before arriving there I had been ferried over a wide river where there was a set of gallows by the landing stage. There were 2 Finns there, bodies whole but headless, who had been broken on the wheel for murdering travellers for their money; and a broken and quartered Lapp who had committed incest.