travellers or tramps, they have many customs that are unusual enough to seem sometimes funny, and always curious.

A CHRISTMAS SCENE IN SCANDINAVIA.

The boys of Scandinavia have very good times; there is excellent fishing nearly everywhere, and water suitable for boating is not far distant from any home. In some parts of the country the water is frozen during nine months of the year, but in part of this time the skating is good, without any danger of the ice breaking; and when the snow hides the ice, it covers the hills—and such hills! High, steep, and well covered with snow, a hill in Norway or Sweden is the place of all places for coasting, for even on the roads there is very little danger of meeting a wagon while rounding a curve, or of dashing unexpectedly across a railroad track just as a locomotive comes thundering along. Besides, the favorite method of coasting over there is about ten times as exciting as that which is enjoyed here, for the boys descend hills on show-shoes. These shoes resemble the American snow-shoe about as closely as a miniature yacht resembles a chip with a splinter mast and paper sail. They are narrow instead of broad, so a person wearing them does not look awkward, or tire easily, and they are just about as long as their owners are tall. In using them the wearer slides his feet instead of lifting them, and if he wants to hurry, he pushes himself along with a couple of sticks, the lower ends of which are wrapped or shod so that they push against the surface of the snow instead of sinking into it. To descend a hill, the wearer places his feet close together, the shoes being exactly parallel, squats as low as possible, and lets himself go. If the hill is long and steep, he reaches the bottom about as rapidly as a bird could. This style of coasting seems so ridiculously easy that boys sometimes try it slyly rather than wait until their fathers can get time to teach them, and the usual results are a scratched face, and a general bruising all over. The least variation of either shoe from a position parallel to the other shoe is sufficient to cause all of these discomforts, and sometimes more, for occasionally when a boy leans forward a little too much in going over a snow-covered stone or other "bumper," he starts for a somersault which is only prevented by the toes of the shoes burying themselves in the snow, and suspending the boy by the feet with his face downward.

American boys who do not like to go to bed would in Northern Norway or Sweden imagine they had a capital excuse for sitting up, for no boy of spirit can endure to retire by daylight, and in a part of the far Northern summer daylight does not end at all during the twenty-four hours, and even during the month preceding and following this strange period there is only an hour or two of darkness. For a day or two the sun may be seen at midnight, and during several months the only way of discovering bed-time is to look at the clock. This wealth of daylight has some disadvantages; for while it lasts, the mosquitoes never sleep at all, but attend strictly to business, and when they alight upon a toothsome boy, their conduct is gluttonous to a disgraceful degree. It is an unsettled question, however, whether the boys do not object even more to retiring during the winter nights, which are as long as the summer days. In midwinter, day dawns at eleven o'clock, and night follows within two hours; but the moon and stars shine brighter than they ever do here, and American boys would consider it sinful to waste such splendid opportunities for skating or sleighing.

The operation of dressing in cold weather in the far North is so elaborate that it is difficult to understand how a deliberate boy or girl in Lapland can be ready for breakfast before dinner-time. First, two suits of thick woollen under-clothing are put on, and over these goes a shirt of reindeer-skin, with cloth bands to fasten at the wrists; sometimes two of these shirts, or kaptas, are worn, and a reindeer-skin vest beneath them. The trousers are of reindeer-skin also. Two pairs of heavy woollen stockings are worn, and the child who puts these on when they are damp is sure to have trouble with his feet. Around the feet a peculiar grass, well dried, is carefully wound, and over all this goes the shoe. Buttons and hooks and eyes are scarce in Lapland; all clothing is fastened by strings, and it is dreadful to think of all the "hard knots" that Lapp children have fumbled over while too sleepy to be amiable.

REINDEER AND PACK, WITH LAPP DRIVER.

One special distinction is enjoyed by the Lapp boy and girl over all other children in the world: each is sure of owning a reindeer if the family live in the reindeer region. When a child is born, a deer is set apart for him at once, and by the time the pride of the family is old enough to drive, his animal will have been trained for him. How much time and trouble this training has cost, the boy never can realize until he becomes a man, and breaks deer to harness himself. It would seem to any sensible person that as the harness consists only of a collar, a thong (or trace), and a single rein, the animal might easily become accustomed to them, particularly as the sleigh has neither pole nor shafts; but the deer does not regard the subject in the same light. He forgets whatever he learns, just as if he were a lazy school-boy. Even after two years of education he seldom can be depended upon to do the right thing at the right time.

It would never do to tell a Laplander the story of Santa Claus's famous team of reindeer, for as one of the species is all that a skillful driver can manage, how could any old fellow manage so many? The only point of resemblance between a reindeer sleigh and other sleighs is that they are all made to run on the snow, for the Lapp sleigh is really a boat, short, narrow, and graceful, and it rests on a broad keel instead of two runners. It closely resembles in appearance and size one-half of a canoe. It holds but one person, who must divide his attention between driving the deer and acting as ballast. The driving is the easiest part of the work, because when the animal is fairly started, he goes straight ahead, and there are no street corners in Lapland. There are curves, however, and as a spirited deer will travel fifteen miles an hour, and can not be coaxed to slacken his speed, it is about twice as hard to keep the sleigh on a level keel in rounding a well-beaten curve of the road as to avoid capsizing while "jibing" a small boat in a brisk breeze. The reindeer makes no trouble in the stable, for he never enters one. He prefers to find his own food, which consists almost entirely of moss. This may be under the snow, but he knows how to dig his way down to it; and if the snow is deep, the only way of finding a deer that is wanted is to go from hole to hole. As the moss grows very slowly, moving-days are frequent in Lapp families, for the people must go wherever the deer can find food.

To juvenile collectors of antiquities and curiosities, Scandinavia is the rarest land in the world. Not only are there many arrow-heads, something like those once used by the American Indians, but the swords, shields, spears, and armor of the earlier inhabitants are often found. But the list does not end with these: Wisby, a Swedish city, was many hundred years ago the centre of trade in Northern Europe, and many thousands of coins and jewels found there came from far-away places like Greece, Rome, Persia, and India. Still more, the famous sea-rovers, known as Northmen or Vikings were mostly from Norway and Sweden, and when they