Stockholm the Venice of the North--Life and Color of the Swedish
Capital--Manners of the People and their King.
STOCKHOLM, _September 13, 1902_.
While wandering about the city I have not taken a guide. A guide or a
courier is to me always a very last resort, but I have followed the
movement of the crowd, and enjoyed the being lost in it, immersed in
it, becoming one with it, while yet so separate. I could not read the
signs, nor understand the speech. I could only see. My vision became
my one guiding sense. My eyes became abnormally alert. Color and form
and action,--I caught them all. And what I saw, my mind held fast.
Thus I wandered on through many quaint and ancient _Gatans_ (streets)
past _Plats_ and _Torgs_ (open squares), and over _Bros_ (bridges),
and yet I felt secure and well assured that, returning, I should find
my way safely back. I knew each corner of a street, each square, each
unusual sign, each building of strange design, even as at home I have
often wandered alone among the wild mountains and forests with nothing
for a guide but my eyes, the sun, and my knowledge of moss and tree.
Thus has my early training always served me well in foreign lands
and cities, where speech was strange, and I myself unknowing and
unknown.
[Illustration: THE SHORE OF LAKE MAELAREN, STOCKHOLM.]
My first quest was a bookstore, a map, and an English or French or
German-worded guide book, which would tell me of what I saw. By great
good luck, I happened immediately upon the object of my search. I saw
a window holding maps. I entered a small shop, and found it the
"Bureau" of the "National Tourists' Union," with German spoken
perfectly. This bureau is maintained by the enterprising citizens of
Stockholm, and for most moderate cost gives information to tourists,
and publishes a series of fine maps, showing every road and lake and
mountain and town and inn in Sweden. I bought a set of the maps and
one in particular of the city. Thus fortified I was now perfectly
equipped.
Our few days' sojourn in Stockholm has taught me to like the Swede,
although he is quite lacking in the hearty frankness of the Norsk.
Stockholm has always been a spot where men have congregated, and has
been a city known as such these last eight centuries, ever since
Birger Jarl made it the seat of his pirate power. It holds the passage
between the lakes Maelaren, which stretch far inland and now form the
eastern section of the great Gotta system of canals reaching across
Sweden to the Kattegat and Atlantic Ocean, and the deeply indented
waters of the Baltic Sea, thus being a natural place of rendezvous and
commerce; it was a place easy of access before men had roads and
mostly traveled by boats. Here the Kings of Sweden have always set
their capital, and the history of Stockholm is the history of the
Swede himself.
In past ages, disorders and massacres and open murders have drenched
with blood her streets and her great public squares, and Stockholm's
dungeons have their tales of horror and wickedness to tell. She was
cruel and turbulent when Sweden herself was harsh and savage, she is
now equally serene and contented under the liberal rule of enlightened
King Oscar II, and is become one of the best-ordered and most
beautiful cities of the world. By reason of the many islands within
her limits, she is called the "Venice of the North," and by reason of
her cleanliness, the substantial character of her modern buildings,
and the efficiency of her municipal government she is termed the
"Edinburgh of the Baltic." Stockholm is more scientifically advanced,
and more modernly wide-awake than are the German and English cities of
to-day. She has a fine and bountiful water supply, an elaborate and
efficient telephone system, and is probably more thoroughly and
effectively illuminated by electricity than any city in Europe. The
older quarters of the city are well paved and scrupulously clean; in
the newer sections are blocks of stately buildings of modern design,
and wide boulevards and avenues paved with asphalt and squares of
stone. Her public buildings, her numerous _Plats_ and _Torgs_ and
lovely parks are all exquisitely kept.
We spent one delightful morning crossing the wide stone bridge of
Norrbro, and viewing the Royal Palace, the State Apartments, and
Royal Library, and the fine old church of Riddarsholm, which is the
Westminster Abbey of Sweden, her Pantheon, where lie entombed the
bones of Gustavus Adolphus and the ashes of Charles XII, and members
of the House of Vasa, along with other illustrious Swedes. The old
church is of red brick, topped by a curious wrought-iron steeple, and
is the shrine to which come all patriotic Swedes, there to contemplate
the departed glories of their fatherland.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF RIDDARSHOLM.]
Of an afternoon, we visited the famous Djurgaard (deer park) and then
went on to the park called Skansen, where are gathered a most
interesting collection illustrative of the ancient Swedish way of
living, as well as examples of the ancient industries, exemplified by
charming lively peasant girls clad in their divers Provincial
costumes. We then also climbed the tower set upon the hill, whence
spread out before us a superb vista of the city and its many islands
and surrounding waters, and wide-sweeping woods and forests. We also
crossed among the islands upon dapper electric launches which ferry
between, and then came back to dine in a fashionable restaurant under
the Grand Hotel near the quay, where were small tables, and where sat
men in dress coats and handsome women in evening dress--generally
high-necked--and we were given fresh strawberries--this September
13th--and savory mutton chops and fresh-grown peas, and fruits and
ices.
The streets at all hours of the day and evening were astir and gay.
The many officers in blue and gray uniforms, patterned after the
German styles, the Dalecarlian girls in their picturesque bright
barred aprons and braided hair, carrying packages and bundles--the
messenger boys of the North--the blue-eyed and yellow-haired men and
women neatly and soberly clad, and the absence of all beggars--we did
not come across a single one,--the multitude of boats, great and
small, constantly moving rapidly up and down and across the many lanes
of water, all these gave animation to the city.
The streets of Stockholm are filled with women, more like the German
towns, while, just as there, scores of sturdy men stand idly around
decked out in soldier's uniform. Rosy-cheeked young women wait upon
you in the restaurants; women armed with big brooms sweep at the
crossings; women come in from the country driving carts loaded with
produce of the farm; and women also largely "man" the small boats that
ply along the waters between the islands. Woman is here as greatly in
evidence as she is in Boston, but of a huskier, heartier type.
Visiting the markets, I found a great profusion of strawberries,
whortleberries, blueberries and others I did not know, and withal,
most of the vegetables my Kanawha garden would yield in June. These
fruits of tree and soil are brought into the city by chunky native
horses hitched to little two-wheeled carts, which horses, when they
reach their destination, are securely halted by a strap or line
passed around their two fore fetlocks, tying the feet tight together,
a treatment an American horse would scarcely endure.
[Illustration: NORRBRO, STOCKHOLM.]
Another day H and I wandered across the Norrbro and beyond the Palace
and down near the Storkyrko Brink, and discovered a curious little
coffeehouse, tucked away up a flight of creaking stairs, in an ancient
building which seemed to be a counting-house below and offices above.
Here were set against the walls little mahogany tables holding three
and four, where plates were laid without a cloth, and ale and beer
were served in tall pewter mugs. We called for the foaming brown brew
and asked for _roed spoette_, our old Danish joy, and lunched
delightfully. The room was filled with big, burly, red-cheeked men,
merchants and sea captains, H thought, from what bits of conversation
she could pick up. A most substantial company they were, who evidently
came here to strike weighty bargains as well as to eat and drink and
smoke. We were doubtless lunching in a well-known and most ancient
rendezvous, much like the historic grill room I discovered in London,
called "Toms," where Dickens' and Mr. Pickwick's chairs are shown to
the visitor, and the waiter will inform you on just what sort of
kidney broil and roasted sausage each made his daily meal.
Stockholm divides with Copenhagen the honors of being the metropolis
of the Scandinavian world, boldly asserting her superiority over
Kristiania, for she is the larger city. She is easily first in Sweden
in all save scholarship and learning--in that, Upsala, the Cornell
and Harvard of the North, holds unrivaled lead.
The fine stores and shops, along such streets as the Dronning Gatan
and Regerings Gatan and adjacent thoroughfares, H declares quite equal
to those of Copenhagen; while in an ancient and narrow alleyway she
discovered a perfect mint of embroideries and linens, articles of
feminine apparel which rejoice her heart.
On our last evening we attended the Royal Opera, occupying a box quite
to ourselves, where we heard good singing and well-rendered music by
the Royal Band, beheld a fashionably-dressed and intelligent-looking
audience, and were stared at by old King Oscar who sat rigid in his
box, and glared at us with a mighty black opera-glass until he had
studied each feature of the stranger guests, and by his persistence
thereby directed upon us the curiosity of every other pair of opera
glasses in the house. The example of the King was quite in accordance
with Continental custom, where the glare of opera-glasses is
astonishingly bold. Nor does the impudent stare stop at that, but in
Stockholm, just as in Paris and Berlin, between the acts very many of
the men rise up, put on their hats, turn their backs to the stage, and
deliberately focus their glasses upon the faces of every attractive
woman in the theater, no matter how near she may be, nor how annoying
this treatment may appear; and often two or three young men will then
compare notes, and unite in a common stare, bold and insolent. To
avoid this unpleasant ordeal, ladies very generally rise from their
seats, leave the theater and promenade in the foyers until the curtain
rises and the impudent glasses are put down.
We have secured tickets and berths for the voyage to St. Petersburg
across the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. We sail to-night, and are
to arrive on Tuesday morning, a voyage of three nights and two days, a
distance of six hundred miles.
We have now visited the three capitals of Scandinavia, Copenhagen,
Kristiania and Stockholm, and have spent a month among these kindred
peoples.
While I had learned in America to esteem the vigor, the intelligence
and the worth of our Scandinavian immigration, no finer race
contributing to the citizenship of the Republic, yet it has been only
when I have met the Dane and Norsk and Swede upon their native soil,
and beheld their noble cities, so alert and clean and modern, and
traversed their hills and valleys, and climbed their mountain heights
and floated upon their _fjords_, that I have learned fitly to admire
and appreciate the grandeur and greatness of Scandinavia.