GOTHEBORG.
“A cautious guest,
When he comes to his hostel,
Speaketh but little;
With his ears he listeneth,
With his eyes he looketh,—
Thus the wise learneth.
“No better burthen
Bears a man on his journey
Than observation:—
No worse provision
Bears a man on his journey
Than frequent drunkenness.”
_High Song of Odin the Old._
Early rising is not pleasant at sea. Captain Basil Hall may talk of the
joyous morning watch if he likes,—but there is nothing joyous in washing
decks, and that is what most ships are occupied with at that hour. The
Parson did not make his appearance on deck till after breakfast, and he
was the first of the party.
The steamer was now approaching the end of her voyage, for the land,
closing on both sides, showed the estuary of the Gotha. Most of the
party were not sorry for the conclusion of the voyage, enjoyable as the
earlier part of it had been; for the steamer,—after coasting all the way
to Christiania, where the party had supplied themselves with carioles
for their land journey, which, with their wheels unshipped, were stowed
away snugly forward,—had taken her course, southward, over the tumbling
Skagarack—a part of the world notorious for sea-sickness.
All the morning long, preparations had been going forward for making a
creditable appearance on arriving in port, and the discomforts of the
early-risers had been considerably increased by a very liberal use of
the holy-stone,—an amusement which, as the men were still employed in
blacking the rigging, gave promise of an early repetition.
Slung from a block at the mainmast head was a small triangular stage,
made of three battens, on which sat a very dirty individual with a pot
of slush before him and a tarring-brush in his hand, with which he was
polishing off his morning’s work on the shining mast.
Seated on the bitts below was a sturdy Norwegian, who, as if disdaining
the compromise usually adopted by the coasting inhabitants, appeared in
the caricature of a full-dressed Tellemarker, with a strip of jacket like
a child’s spencer, of orange tawny wadmaal, great loose blue trousers
with a waistband over his shoulder blades, crimson braces, and two
strings of silver bullets dependent from the collars of a very dirty
shirt. He was caressing a particularly ugly dog, which he called Garm,—an
appellation which proved him to be what in England would be called a
fast man; it is much as if an English young gentleman were to call his
dog Satan. He was haranguing, of course, on the vast superiority of
Norway to Sweden, and the infinite degradation which the former country
had received from the union of the crowns,—that being not only the most
favourite topic of Norwegian declamation, but, in the present instance,
at all events, the most injudicious and unsuitable subject in which to
exhibit before so mixed an audience.
They behaved, however, exceedingly well, and rather trotted him out, much
to the disgust of Torkel, who had sense enough to perceive what was going
on, and would have infinitely preferred their beating him: after vainly
endeavouring to draw his countrymen away, he had walked forward, and was
looking moodily over the bows.
“As for the Swedes,” said our judicious friend, “they are nothing better
than swindlers. I have, for my sins, to go to Gotheborg every year, to
lay in stores for the winter, and I am sure to be cheated. We don’t let
Jews land on our shores, and I must go to Gotheborg to find them.”
“Well, but we have no Jews either.” said a bye-stander; “they do not come
to us, they go to the Free Towns.”
“You are all Jews; the real Jews don’t go to you, that is very true, but
it is because they know that the Gotheborgers are hogs, and their law
does not allow them to have anything to do with unclean animals. Yes, you
are all swine together. Why, I tell you a Norwegian dog would not touch
anything Swedish. Come here, Garm!”—and he pulled out of his pocket a bit
of ham, evidently filched from the breakfast table.
Here the Parson thought he detected a glance of intelligence between
Captain Hjelmar and the man at the mast-head, who, much amused, had left
off his work to listen.
“Come here, Garm!”—placing the tempting morsel on the deck.
The dog wagged his tail, evidently preparing to seize it.
“Svenske!” said the man. The dog, who had been well trained in this
common trick, turned up his nose with apparent disgust, and refused the
meat.
“There!” said he, “I defy any Swede among you all to make a true
Norwegian dog eat a bit of it. Garm knows what you all are, don’t you,
Garm?”
Just then, by the merest accident in the world, the slush-kettle got
unhitched from the stage above his head, and came tumbling over on the
deck, and in its descent, taking the unfortunate Norwegian on the nape of
his neck as he was leaning forward to caress his dog, pitched the whole
of its contents between his jacket collar and his back.
Captain Hjelmar rated the man severely for his carelessness in spoiling
his decks, and, ordering him off the stage, directed the boatswain to put
his name into the black list. The man, however, did not seem much cast
down about it, but slid down the greasy mast with a broad grin on his
countenance, while the Norwegians carried their discomfited companion
forward to purify him; and Garm, profiting by the confusion, proved a
traitor to his country, by not only swallowing down the Swedish ham, but
also by licking up as much as he could of the Swedish slush that had
poured from the head and shoulders of his master on the Swedish deck.
The coast of Sweden and the banks of the Gotha below the town, offer a
striking contrast to the lovely scenery they had left. There are the
rocks and the fringing islets, as in Norway, but here they are all flat,
and most of them absolutely bare. The coasts, too, where they could be
seen, exhibited ledges of rock and wastes of sand, with just enough
cultivation to make the desolateness painful, by connecting it with the
idea of people living there. Eider ducks would dive before them, and
wild-fowl in little knots would cross their course, and hoopers would go
trumpeting over their heads, with their white wings reflecting the sun
like silver, and dippers of all sorts would play at hide-and-seek with
the waves, and seals would put up their bullet-heads to gaze at them as
they passed. The water is always beautiful when the sun shines directly
upon it; but the eye must not range so far as the shore, for no sunshine
could gild that.
There was a good deal of life, and traffic too, upon the waters, for
Gotheborg, the nearest port to the Free Towns and to all foreign
trade whatever, as well as the outlet of the river navigation, may be
considered the Liverpool of Sweden.
As they proceeded the scenery slightly improved: the right bank began to
be dotted with houses and small villages, wretched enough compared with
the picturesque places on the other end of the Skaggerack, but at all
events showing signs of life. At length they became continuous, and at a
couple of miles distance, the three churches of Gotheborg, with the close
cluster of houses, came into view. The anchor was dropped opposite to the
fishing suburb of Gammle Hafvet, and a shore-going steamer came alongside
to receive the passengers; which steamer, much to the fishermen’s
delight, contained their old friend Moodie, who, on hearing that the
Norway packet had been signalized, had gone to meet her on the chance of
seeing them.
Moodie was a singular character,—a cadet of good family, and brought
up to no profession; he had been from his childhood passionately fond
of field sports, in all of which he excelled. At an early age he had
become his own master, with a good education, some usage of the world, a
handsome person, a peculiarly active frame and sound constitution, and
two hundred a year, _pour tout potage_. Rightly judging that England
afforded no fitting scope for his peculiar talents, without the imminent
danger of a committal for poaching, he had expatriated himself to
Ireland; which country, he had, in a sporting point of view, thoroughly
studied, and made himself completely master of its resources; he knew
when every river in the whole island came into season and went out, and
the best and cheapest way of transferring self and encumbrances from
one point to another. He knew the times at which the woodcocks and the
snipes would arrive, and the out-of-the-way places at which they may be
safely shot; he could give a catalogue _raisonnée_ of all the wayside
public-houses in sporting localities, and was hand-in-glove with half
the disreputable squireens of Ireland. Certainly, he bagged more grouse
annually than many a man who pays a rent of five or six hundred a year
for the privilege of supplying the London markets.
It was on the Erne that the fishermen had met him, and Moodie being an
extremely well-informed and gentleman-like man, besides being a thorough
sportsman, they had struck up with him what might be called an intimate
acquaintance, which, now that they met as Englishmen on a foreign land,
might be considered an intimate friendship.
It was the railroads, and the consequent invasion of the cockneys,
which had expatriated Moodie from his adopted country; people began
to preserve, too, and to let their fishing and shooting-grounds; even
the Erne was not what it had been, and Moodie, whose whole belongings,
besides his live stock in the shape of dogs, were contained in two
portmanteaus and as many gun-cases, packed them, and one morning found
himself standing on the quay of Gotheborg.
If, instead of the coast of Sweden, it had been the coast of the Cannibal
Islands, Moodie would soon have found himself at home; but here he had
letters of introduction, and Karl Johann, who had a high opinion of the
English, was very anxious to get an infusion of English blood among
his Swedes. Moodie’s peculiar talents, too, which in England might have
consigned him to the county jail, in Sweden found their legitimate
outlet; he soon found a beautiful little country house on the banks of
the Gotha; had no difficulty in renting the exclusive right of fishing
for some miles above and below it; paid the rent and all expenses of
boats and boatmen, and put a handsome sum into his pocket besides, by
supplying Gotheborg with lake salmon (salmo ferox). He then got the
rangership of a royal forest, by which he kept his numerous hangers-on in
what he called butcher’s meat, and traded with the Zoological Gardens and
private collections in the wild beasts and birds of the country, by means
of which traffic, he had furnished himself with the choicest collection
of sporting fire-arms and fishing tackle to be found in the north.
Besides which, Moodie had become a public character. Sweden has its wild
beasts as well as its ordinary game,—he who destroys a wolf or a bear is
a public benefactor, and Moodie had a peculiar talent for tracking them.
Every farmer within a hundred miles of Gäddebäck would pull off his hat
to him; but that is not saying much, for a Swede is always pulling off
his hat, and if he had nothing else to pull it off to he would be making
his salaams to the cows and sheep.
It was not a great deal of Gotheborg the fishermen saw that evening;
their experience of the country was confined to a march by the shortest
road from the landing place to Todd’s Hotel, and their subsequent view
to a sort of Dutch interior, of which pipes, tobacco, bottles, glasses,
juniper beer of native manufacture, and thin vinous importations from
Bordeaux, made up the accessories; but the fishermen had much to inquire
after, and Moodie had much to tell.
Breakfast, always a luxurious meal in the north, at least, in summer
time, on account of the quantities of berries and the abundant supply of
cream, brought a visitor,—a young artillery officer, a friend of Birger,
by name Dahlgren, and by rank Count, who had his quarters in the inn,—for
the Swedish officers have no mess like ours, but lodge permanently in the
hotels, paying a fixed sum per week, and dining at the _table d’hôte_.
Like Birger, he was a painter, but whereas the guardsman exercised his
art simply as an amateur, or at most, in the public service of his
country, his friend, Count as he was, exercised his as a profession, and
as a means of eking out his scanty pay.
There would be a grand review that afternoon, he said, and it would
be well worth seeing, for Gotheborg is the great artillery station of
Sweden, and the Commander-in-Chief, with his staff, who were on a tour
of inspection, had arrived by the canal steamer from the new fortress of
Wanås, on the Wetter.
This piece of information, which the artilleryman detailed with great
glee, was received by Birger with a wry countenance, as certain to detain
him within doors as long as the General remained at Gotheborg,—for it
will be remembered he was at that very time unable to join his regiment
on account of _pressing family affairs_.
This did not affect the others, so, leaving their friend to amuse himself
as best he might, by improving his sketches or watching the magpies from
the window, they started, under the pilotage of their new ally, for a
tour of observation.
Whatever else Gotheborg is famous for, certainly the most remarkable
thing in it is its flocks of magpies,—birds which, in our country, are
extremely wild, and by no means fond of town life. Gregarious, in the
proper sense of the term, they are not, but they are as numerous as
sparrows in London, very nearly as tame, and much more impudent. This
by no means arises from any affection which the inhabitants have for
the bird—for magpies are ugly and mischievous all the world over, and
quite as mischievous in Gotheborg as anywhere else,—but from a popular
superstition they are under the especial protection of the devil—and
truly the devil cares for his own: they build their nests and bring up
their young under the very noses of the schoolboys; they feed them with
stolen goods, filched from every kitchen,—and often and often, among the
delicacies of the season, they regale them with spring chicken of their
own killing. But no one molests a magpie; Heaven only knows what would
be the consequences of killing one; and, though Government has set a
price on their heads, they sleep in safety, under the protection of their
great master.
The town ought to be handsome, but it is not; the description would look
well on paper. A great broad canal through the centre, with quays all the
way on both sides, as at Dublin, only twice as broad, forming a very wide
street; and from this five or six similar canals, similarly furnished
with quays and streets, branch off at right angles. The banks of all
these canals are planted with trees, and arranged as shaded footways. All
this sounds as if the place ought to be pretty, but, though every word of
this is true, the reality falls far short of the ideas it conveys. The
houses are mean and low, and, the windows being flush with the sides, the
whole appearance is pasteboard-like and unsubstantial, which the reality
is not. The Swedes build their wooden houses in very good taste, and they
harmonise very well with the scenery, but they should stick to that—_ne
sutor ultra crepidam_: let not the carpenter aspire to be a mason. Every
house, large or small, in town or in country, has very large panes of
glass,—the very cabins have them; the glass is as bad as bad can be,
full of flaws and waves, and very thin besides; even this produces a bad
effect; besides, it is impossible to admire the finest of towns, when
walking over streets so roughly paved that eyes and thoughts must be
continually directed towards the footing.
There is a capital market, and the canals bring the hay, and the fuel,
and all other heavy articles from the interior, to the very doors of the
houses. It was singular to see floating haystacks and faggot piles—for
so they looked, the hulls of the boats being completely hidden by their
freight,—towed up in strings by the little steam-tugs, and moored to the
quays. If Gotheborg is not a prosperous town, Sweden will not support
one at all, for it is impossible for any situation to be more favourable
for trade. The river itself forms a secure harbour, its only fault being
that vessels of heavy draught cannot anchor within a mile of the town.
The interior water communications comprehend all the midland provinces,
and the landing and shipping of goods is as easy as art can make it;
besides, it is the outermost port of the whole country.
The markets, certainly, are well supplied, especially that of fish, both
salt and fresh-water. Beef and mutton are among its articles of export
to the southern coasts of Norway, and there is not a bad display of
vegetables for so northern a country. The quantities of spinach which
are seen everywhere, and which mingle with every dish, rather surprise
the traveller, till he finds out that the sandhills which he has seen
on each side of him all the way up the river, are covered with it,
growing wild—wild as it is, English garden spinach is not at all better
flavoured. Singularly enough, melons are plentiful; one would almost as
soon expect to meet with pines in these latitudes,—but the short summer
of Sweden is peculiarly favourable for them.
The trade of the place does not look very lively, and the bustle in the
streets is nothing at all like that of Bristol or Liverpool. What little
stir there was just then, seemed to be rather military than mercantile.
Dirty, slovenly-looking artillerymen, with ugly blue and yellow uniforms,
putting one disagreeably in mind of the _Edinburgh Review_; overalls
patched extensively with leather that terribly wanted the blacking-brush;
and dingy steel scabbards, that did not know what emery-stone was, were
clanking about the streets, followed by little crowds; and groups of
officers were standing at the doors of the hotels and lodging-houses.
Evidently a review was not an everyday business.
The Parson and Captain were soon deserted by their military cicerone,
who left them, to prepare for his part in the military display, having
directed them into the street that leads to the scene of action. This
was a large meadow, or small park, to the east of the town, rather a
pretty promenade, enclosed with trees, which was now crowded with people.
Towns, especially trading towns, are not remarkable for costume. The
people, seeing such a variety of foreigners, get to be citizens of the
world themselves, and so lose their nationalities. But there were a few
fancy dresses, too, from the country round; short round corduroy jackets,
sometimes a sort of tartan, too, but which invariably had rows of
buttons sewed as thick together as they could stand. Among the women, a
handkerchief was frequently tied round the head instead of a bonnet; but
every one, almost, carried his or her bunch of flowers, an article which
abounded in the markets; these were very often carried in the hats, or
stuck through the knots of the kerchiefs.
And now the bugles of the artillery were heard, and the rumbling of
wheels, and the trampling of horses, as battery after battery rolled
into the park. The Swedes call them horse artillery, but they are, in
reality, only field batteries; for of horse artillery, properly so
called, that most beautiful of military toys, they have none. Their guns,
twelve pounders, are drawn by six horses, each of which carries a man. In
bringing the guns into action, the off-man of each pair dismounted, and
these were joined by three others, whose seat was on the limbers. These
are hardly men enough to work so heavy a gun, allowing for the casualties
of action, but on emergencies the driver of the middle pair also lends
his services.
There was nothing showy in the review, the manœuvres of which were
confined to advancing and retreating in line, and forming column, and
deploying into line again; but all at a foot’s pace, or at a very slow
trot. They had no idea of changing front, or retreating in echéllon, or
any of those showy manœuvres in which the prolong is used. In fact, so
far as display went, it was a very slow affair indeed; the men, however,
seemed to know their work pretty well, and though individually dirty
and slovenly and without the well set up carriage of our own soldiers,
they bore, as a body, rather a soldier-like appearance. They ride very
forward, absolutely on the horse’s withers—this is said to give the horse
greater facility of draught; and it may, but at all events, it gives a
most awkward and unsoldier-like appearance to the men, which is in no
way improved by the manner in which they carry their swords—the elbows
sticking out at right angles to the body, and their knuckles thrust into
their sides, as if they had a pain in their ribs.
The guns seemed to be very much under-horsed, but perhaps this is more
apparent than real; for the Swedish horses, though small, are strong and
wiry, and their enclosed country is not only not calculated for horse
artillery manœuvres, but does not admit of them. The chances are, that
a whole campaign might be fought in Sweden without the artillery being
required to move faster than at a foot-pace. So far as numbers went, they
mustered at least three times as many guns as can be got together at
Woolwich for love or money at the best of times.
The army of Sweden is very curiously constituted, and it is not easy to
reckon up its effective strength. The regular army does not consist of
above 10,000 men; the guards—than which no finer body of men is to be
seen in Europe,—the artillery, and three or four garrison regiments, who
are stationed at Wanås, in the interior, and Carlscrona, and one or two
other fortresses on the coast.
The militia, which is called Beväring, consists of every man in the
country between the ages of twenty and twenty-five; these have regular
days of exercise, generally Sunday evenings in the summer, which is with
them by no means a popular arrangement, for those are the hours which the
ingenuous youths of Sweden devote to dancing, an amusement of which they
are passionately fond. This really is a much more effective force than
it seems, for the Swedes are natural soldiers; besides which, it gives
them all a habit of drill, which might be rendered serviceable in case of
invasion; for, as every man in the country has been drilled in his youth,
they are all capable of immediately taking their places in the ranks of
the regular regiments. It would be a very great improvement if they were
drilled to ball practice, like the Swiss and Tyrolese, for a Swede is
terribly clumsy with fire-arms, and on a skal, is just as likely to shoot
himself or his comrade, as a bear or a wolf.
But the strength of the Swedish army lies in its Indelta, a description
of force peculiar to that country—unless the military colonies of Russia
be considered a parallel case.
The crown possesses large estates, and these are leased out, like the
knight’s fees in old times, on man service, and for that purpose are
divided into hemmans, each hemman furnishing a man, who has a portion of
it by way of pay—the hemman is not a measure of size, but of produce.
Fertile hemmans are small, waste or barren hemmans are large; and thus
it often happens, when a crown estate has been cleared and brought
into cultivation, though quite as productive as some other estate, it
furnishes a much smaller quota.
The holder of such a property, is then bound to serve himself, if
capable, and to furnish a certain number of efficient soldiers, horse or
foot, according to the size of his estate. The whole country is divided
into military provinces, under colonels; these are subdivided into
districts, under captains, with their proper complement of subaltern and
non-commissioned officers, who are paid by the tenure of certain reserved
farms, which they hold in virtue of their commissions.
Whenever the Indelta is called out—and a third of them assemble in camp
every summer,—the crown tenants of the estates that furnished it are
bound, at their own expense, to cultivate the farms which the soldiers
hold, and to return to them their lands, when they are dismissed from
active service, in the same condition in which they took charge of them,
accounting for any sale of produce which they may have made.
The service of the Indelta is very popular, and for every vacancy there
are at least half a dozen candidates. No application is ever received
without written testimonials from the clergyman of the applicant’s
parish, and no man is ever admitted who has been convicted of any crime.
Many of these crown holdings have been purchased and re-purchased, and
transferred from hand to hand so often, that they are regarded as a sort
of private property, and their tenants very often complain of being
burthened to a greater extent than their countrymen. This, however, is as
unreasonable as that a tenant should complain that in paying rent he is
not on an equality with the proprietor in fee. The sale of crown lands is
merely the transference of a beneficial lease.
So far as the morals of the people are concerned, the patronage of the
Indelta, and the reward it holds to good conduct, act very beneficially;
as to the efficacy of the force, the wars of Gustavus Adolphus and of
Charles XII., may form a pretty fair criterion. The strength of this
contingent to the Swedish army, may be reckoned at 20,000 infantry, and
5,000 cavalry, and has the advantage of being always available.
“You may come out of your hole now, Birger,” said his friend, the
artilleryman, who, arriving hot and dusty from the barracks, was lounging
down the streets, with his jacket open and his stiff military stock in
his hand, a free and easy style of dress, in which an English officer
would think it just impossible to put his nose beyond the barrack gates.
“The General and all his staff are gone in a body to Arfwedsen’s Villa,
so you are safe for to-day.”
“And for to-morrow, too,” said Birger, “for the steamer starts for
Stockholm to-morrow morning early; while you were amusing yourselves, I
have been doing business. As soon as I heard from the sound of your guns
that the General was safe, I stepped down to the quay, went on board the
_Daniel Thunberg_, and engaged two cabins—we will toss up who is to have
the cabin to himself.”
“Why, where’s Moodie?”
“Moodie!” said Birger, taking out his watch, “why, by this time Moodie is
at Agnesberg.”
“And where is Agnesberg?”
“The first stage to Trollhättan. He had transacted his business, and
transferred his herd of deer to the Zoological men before we came, so
he said he would start at once for Gäddebäck, and prepare to receive
us. I rather think there is some bear hunting afoot, for the Stockholm
post came in while you were at the review, and I am sure I recognised
Bjornstjerna’s great splash of a seal, and his scratchy hand. At all
events, off started Moodie.”
“Why! is it not necessary to lay a forebud.”
“Not on the main road; there is traffic enough between this and
Wenersburg to keep holl-horses (retained horses) always at the stations.
He will be at Gäddebäck, I will venture to say, before daybreak.”
“And when do we sail?”
“At ten to-morrow; we can see the falls and the canal before nightfall,
and sleep at Trollhättan to-morrow night; and on the following morning
Moodie is to send his boat for us. And now for dinner, I have ordered it
at the Prinds Karl; Todd’s is a very good house to sleep at, and not bad
for breakfast, but I want to shew you what Swedish cookery is, as far as
you can get any worth eating in the provinces.”
[Illustration: p. 251.]
“Ah! there spoke the guardsman.”
“Well, it is very true, as you will confess, if ever I get you to
Stockholm; is it not, Count Dahlgren?” addressing the artillery officer.
“You dine with us, of course; in with you, and wash off the stains of
war, which are pretty visible at present. You have not more time than you
know what to do with. If we do sail to-morrow, we will make a night of it
to-night.”
“Like our first night at Mosse Eurd?”
“No, hang it, no; not so bad as that;—that was all very well for the men,
but we do not make such beasts of ourselves in this country. I have told
them, though, to put plenty of champagne in ice, and to provide the best
claret they have got; we will be merry—and wise, if possible.”
“And if not possible?”
“Why, then, the merry without the wise.”
Whether mirth, or wisdom, or a judicious mixture of the two prevailed
that evening at the Prinds Karl, need not be related; but the next
morning saw the party on the clean white deck of the elegant little river
steamer _Daniel Thunberg_, dashing along its broad, still stream, between
rows of feathering rushes, sometimes so tall as to eclipse the still
flat and uninteresting country beyond them. Ducks there were, in such
numbers, that the fishermen half repented their engagement with Moodie;
and Jacob, to whom every spot was familiar, kept up an incessant chorus
of regrets, pointing out here a spot where he had made a fortune with the
långref, having hauled up a three-pound eel on every hook,—there a corner
where he had caught a pike so big he could not lift it into the boat, but
was obliged to tow it astern all the way to Gotheborg,—and there a bay
in the rushes in which he had bagged five swans, eight geese, and more
ducks than he could count, at a single shot,—with as many more stories,
equally veracious, as he could get people to listen to; and in fact,
could be stopped by nothing short of that grand event in a Swedish day,
dinner, which, announced by the steamer’s bell, was served with great
magnificence in the saloon.
These little steamers form as luxurious a conveyance as can be imagined;
they are galley-built, that is to say, the quarter deck is two or three
feet higher than the waist; the after part is divided into ten or twelve
little private cabins, each possessing its own port, and each furnished
with its two sofas and its table; the fore part contains the saloon, or
common cabin. They do not carry very powerful engines, but they burn
wood, and are as clean and as free from disagreeable smells as if they
were sailing vessels.
At the locks of Lilla Edet, where a reef comes across the river, forming
a low but very picturesque fall, the fine scenery commences. The fall
itself is singular. The water of the Gotha, fresh from the great lake of
Wenern, which acts as an enormous cesspool, is as clear and bright as
that of the Torjedahl, but with ten times its volume; it slips off the
smooth ledge of rocks as if it were falling over a step; the ledge off
which it slips is seen through it as distinctly as if it were enclosed
in a glass case, for the water preserves its unbroken transparency till
it reaches the bottom, and then spreads out into a broad border of foam,
like a fan with swansdown fringe.
From this point, a very perceptible difference was remarkable in the
run of the current, which retarded considerably the way of the steamer
through the belt of highlands which separates the low tract bordering the
sea-coast from the higher level of Wenersborglan; and it was not till
past five, that the low rumbling, earth-shaking sound of the great falls
began to tremble on the ear.