LETTER XXVI

Augsburg, January 20th, 1781
FOR these ten days past have I been traversing Lapland: winds whistling in my ears, and cones showering down upon my head from the wilds of pine through which our route conducted us. We were often obliged to travel by moonlight, and I leave you to imagine the awful aspect of the Tirol mountains buried in snow. I scarcely ventured to utter an exclamation of surprise, though prompted by some of the most striking scenes in nature, lest I should interrupt the sacred silence that prevails, during winter, in these boundless solitudes. The streams are frozen, and mankind petrified, for aught I know to the contrary, since whole days have we journeyed on without perceiving the slightest hint of their existence. I never before felt the pleasure of discovering a smoke rising from a cottage, or hearing a heifer lowing in its stall; and could not have supposed there was so much satisfaction in perceiving two or three fur-caps, with faces under them, peeping out of their concealments. I wish you had been with me, exploring this savage region. Wrapped up in our bear-skins, we should have followed its secret avenues, and penetrated, perhaps, into some inchanted cave lined with sables, where, like the heroes of northern romances, we should have been waited upon by dwarfs, and sung drowsily to repose. I think it no bad scheme to sleep away five or six years to come, since every hour affairs are growing more and more turbulent. Well, let them! provided we may but enjoy, in security, the shades of our thickets.