red feet in length by
at least sixty in width, though we have no statistics at hand by
which to verify these figures. The city has a population of over a
hundred and eighty thousand, covering an area of five square miles,
and taken as a whole it certainly forms one of the most cleanly and
interesting capitals in Europe. It is a city of canals, public
gardens, broad squares, and gay cafes. It has two excellent harbors,
one on the Baltic and one on Lake Maelaren. Wars, conflagrations,
and the steady progress of civilization have entirely changed the
city from what it was in the days of Gustavus Vasa,--that is, about
the year 1496. It was he who founded the dynasty which has survived
for three hundred years. The streets in the older sections of the
town are often crooked and narrow, like those of Marseilles, or of
Toledo in Spain, where in looking heavenward one does not behold
enough of the blue sky between the roofs for the measure of a
waistcoat pattern, but in the more modern-built parts there are fine
straight avenues and spacious squares, with large and imposing public
and private edifices. Here as in most of the other Scandinavian
cities, in consequence of various sweeping fires, the old
timber-built houses have gradually disappeared, being replaced by
those of brick or stone, and there is now enforced a municipal law
which prohibits the erection of wooden structures within the
precincts of the city proper.

Stockholm is the centre of the social and literary activity of
Scandinavia, hardly second in these respects to Copenhagen. It has
its full share of scientific, artistic, and benevolent institutions,
such as befit a great European capital. The stranger should as soon
as convenient after arriving ascend an elevation of the town called
the Mosebacke, whereon has been erected a lofty iron framework and
look-out, which is surmounted by means of a steam elevator. From this
structure an admirable view of the city is obtained and its
topography fixed clearly upon the mind. At a single glance as it
were, one overlooks the charming marine view of the Baltic with its
busy traffic, while in the opposite direction the hundreds of islands
that dot Lake Maelaren form a wide-spread picture of varied beauty.
The bird's-eye view obtained of the environs of the capital is
unique, since in the immediate vicinity of the city lies the primeval
forest, undisturbed and unimproved. This seems the more singular when
we realize how anci