The Prefecture of Piteå

Straight after that I arrived and found a room at once. I had just gone to bed when I saw light on my wall and feared fire. But when I looked through the window I saw the red of the sunrise that I had not been expecting for some considerable time yet. The cock began to crow and the birds to sing – but summer still did not want to arrive.

16th. I went 3/4 of a naile north of the old town in the morning to examine a spring that was thought to show signs of minerals. It seemed to me no more than an ordinary cold spring, for there was no sign of taste, scum or ochre there.

A steep hill called BREDVIKSBERGET lay on my road. I climbed it with a great effort and, towards the top, found ravens’ and crows’ wings and hares’ feet etc. in the crevices. I said to my companion: “Look, an owl has had a nest here”. Having ascended a little further and reached the next rock crevice – behold! I caught sight of 2 of them in a cave. Their eyes shone like fire and the irises held a light that had no external source, like rotten wood or fish or glow-worms. They were as big as small geese and, as I did not dare touch these owlets with my hands, I poked them with a stick. Only then could I see that they were almost fully fledged chicks even though they could not fly.

17th. Even though I went about busily, there was nothing in particular to see apart from a sort of spittle on the grass everywhere. The common people call it frog-spit and, when you wipe it off, a small insect is left behind; flesh-coloured, like a small grasshopper though still immature – a sure sign that that is what it will become even though it has not yet learnt to do leg-kicks.4 I wiped off this liquid and let the creature sit there. An hour after I had arrived there was once again a sort of frothy bubble, which demonstrates that the insect blows out this froth itself, thus protecting itself against the strong heat of the sun which would otherwise quickly cause its delicate skin to dry out.

A short while later a whole herd of cattle came running by. Even the scrawniest cows – those you would hardly think could walk – were running like deer in a field. The poor man gets horns here.5 With their tails curled up they ran, ran, ran until they came at last to a pool where they came to a stop, seeming to have found safe sanctuary from the enemy. I hurried over to see who it was that was driving them harder than either the whip or Death himself could have done. There I saw the same thing as I had observed farther south ie. ‘Oestrus’ [Warble-fly]. Our natural historians confuse ‘Oestrus’ with ‘Tabanus’ [Horsefly] though they are as different as hares and bears. The horsefly, species ‘Tabanus’ and a particularly troublesome fly, harasses the cattle a good deal, but the warble-fly frightens them as if it were the devil himself. The warble-fly does not settle on the animal’s body but between the larger and smaller hooves on the foot, for this insect seldom or never flies more than 1 1/2 to 2 feet above the ground and usually at only about 4 inches. The cattle run until they are able to get their feet into water or a bog and then they are safe from injury from the fly. The insect is an Ichneumon fly and looks like a ‘Crabro’ [wasp]. It is yellowish and has a spike that sticks right out at its tail-end.

18th. Sunday. A farmer’s daughter was brought to me – she was 1 1/2 years old and blind. They asked me whether it was cataracts. I examined the eye and found that it was quite clear, just like a healthy eye, and I was on the point of concluding that it was amaurosis. But I soon found that it was not that either, for the child loved to stand in the light by the window. I observed, however, that the eyes made very strange convulsive movements and that, when the child was spoken to and wanted to look, its eyes turned up so that only the whites were visible. The child had been born that way. I asked the mother whether she had seen anyone turn or twist their eyes like that when she was pregnant. “Yes”, she says, “I saw my mother or mother-in-law who was dying at the time and, not wanting to desert her, I sat with her until her death struggle was over”. Thus these tears. I think, therefore, that the child was not actually blind but that the focus in the eyeball lay so far to the side that the eye could not see except when it was directed according to the source of light – in much the same way as we observe in people with a squint. The natural position of the eye in this patient was below the upper eyelid, but the child could see with half the eye because half the pupil emerged when the eyelid was raised. I wonder what the cure is? I know of none, unless specially ground glasses might help. I advised them to place the cradle with its foot to the source of light so that, with an effort, the child might force its eye to receive the sweet light of day now while everything is still flexible. That is the way Bartholin cured people with a squint.

When the thunder and heavy rain began to ease towards 4 o’clock in the afternoon, we travelled to the new town of Piteå where I visited a number of gardens to see which plants could endure the intolerable winter. I found ‘Poterium’ [Salad Burnet], ‘Balsamita’ [Costmary], some small ‘Quercus’ [oak] grown from seed sown last year (most of them were killed by frost), and a couple of apple trees with a little shoot above the ground. The apples came to nothing.

19th. I set off early by sea to see what rare plants could be found in the archipelago. The water was fresh 7 miles out into the firth because of the many rivers that flow in from the land on all sides, thus diluting the salt water with their untainted mountain water.

I did not find any special plants however carefully I searched. On the shore, where the water often encroaches 20 to 25 yards in the winter, there was a white alder wood and a thin layer of vegetation in which grew ‘Trientalis’ [Chickweed Wintergreen] and ‘Mesomora’ [Dwarf Cornel] so that the shores were all white with flowers.

There was a great deal of talk here about trolls and hills – for example, Svinberget between the new and the old towns. Also about lakes and fishing places where you catch nothing unless you arrive at them accidentally. And about witchcraft used to prevent return visits by thieves etc. But it was all lies, as could be discerned partly from the stories themselves and partly by the way they were told.

At LÅNGÖRA, 5 miles from the old town of Piteå, I found a fine ‘Corallorhiza’ [Coralroot Orchid] in full bloom, which I have never seen before; it is very rare and, if you find one, you certainly will not find a second one.

20th. Today I came across 2 kinds of previously undescribed fish.

21st. Departed from the old town of Piteå and arrived in the evening in the new town of LULEÅ.

The heaths were all white with ‘Linagrostis spica erecta’ [Hare’s-tail Cotton-grass] and ‘spicis dependentibus’ [Common Cotton-grass].

The bogs were white with ‘Ledum’ [Labrador tea]; ‘Chamaemorus’ [Cloudberry] was starting to disappear.

The forests were white with ‘Trientalis’ [Chickweed Wintergreen] and ‘Mesamora’ [Dwarf Cornel], which were now beginning to go over and be replaced by cranberry, blaeberry, ‘Melampyrum’ [Common Cow-wheat] and ‘Geranium’ [Wood Cranesbill].