eighteen feet square--is
still extant. In most countries such a relic would be carefully
preserved, and made to answer the purpose of an exhibition to the
visiting strangers; but here no special note is taken of it, and not
without some difficulty could it be found. One intelligent resident
even denied the existence of this object of inquiry, but a little
persistent effort at last discovered the interesting old study at No.
43 Hornsgatan, a few streets in the rear of the Royal Palace, from
which it is about one half of a mile distant.

Every one is amenable to the influence of the weather. Had the same
dull dripping atmosphere greeted us at Stockholm which was
encountered at Bergen, perhaps the impression left upon the memory
would have been less propitious, but the exact contrary was the
case. The days passed here were warm, bright, and sunny; everything
wore a holiday aspect; life was at its gayest among the citizens as
seen in the public gardens, streets, and squares, even the big white
sea-gulls that swooped gracefully over the many water-ways, though
rather queer habitues of a populous city, seemed to be uttering cries
of bird merriment. In short our entire experience of the Swedish
capital is tinctured with pleasurable memories.

CHAPTER XI.

The Northern Mediterranean. -- Depth of the Sea. -- Where Amber
Comes From. -- A Thousand Isles. -- City of Abo. -- Departed
Glory. -- Capital of Finland. -- Local Scenes. -- Russian
Government. -- Finland's Dependency. -- Billingsgate. -- A Woman
Sailor in an Exigency. -- Fortress of Sweaborg. -- Fortifications
of Cronstadt. -- Russia's Great Naval Station. -- The Emperor's
Steam Yacht. -- A Sail Up the Neva. -- St. Petersburg in the
Distance. -- First Russian Dinner.

Embarking at Stockholm for St. Petersburg one crosses the
Baltic,--that Mediterranean of the North, but which is in reality a
remote branch of the Atlantic Ocean, with which it is connected by
two gulfs, the Cattegat and the Skager-Rack. It reaches from the
south of the Danish archipelago up to the latitude of Stockholm,
where it extends a right and left arm, each of great size, the former
being the Gulf of Finland, and the latter the Gulf of Bothnia, the
whole forming the most remarkable basin of navigable inland water in
the world. The Finnish Gulf is two hundred miles long by an average
width of sixty miles, and that of Bothnia is four hundred miles long
averaging a hundred in