to 26 deg. below
zero. We were happy and jolly at getting fairly started for Stockholm at
last, and having such mild (!) weather to travel in. The difference in
our sensations was remarkable. We could boldly bare our faces and look
about us; our feet kept warm and glowing, and we felt no more the
hazardous chill and torpor of the preceding days. On the second stage
the winter road crossed an arm of the Bothnian Gulf. The path was well
marked out with fir-trees--a pretty avenue, four or five miles in
length, over the broad, white plain. On the way we saw an eruption of
the ice, which had been violently thrown up by the confined air. Masses
three feet thick and solid as granite were burst asunder and piled atop
of each other.

We travelled too fast this day for the proper enjoyment of the wonderful
scenery on the road. I thought I had exhausted my admiration of these
winter forests--but no, miracles will never cease. Such fountains,
candelabra, Gothic pinnacles, tufts of plumes, colossal sprays of coral,
and the embodiments of the fairy pencillings of frost on window panes,
wrought in crystal and silver, are beyond the power of pen or pencil. It
was a wilderness of beauty; we knew not where to look, nor which forms
to choose, in the dazzling confusion. Silent and all unmoved by the wind
they stood, sharp and brittle as of virgin ore--not trees of earth, but
the glorified forests of All-Father Odin's paradise, the celestial city
of Asgaard. No living forms of vegetation are so lovely. Tropical palms,
the tree-ferns of Penang, the lotus of Indian rivers, the feathery
bamboo, the arrowy areca--what are they beside these marvellous growths
of winter, these shining sprays of pearl, ivory and opal, gleaming in
the soft orange light of the Arctic sun?

At Sangis we met a handsome young fellow with a moustache, who proved to
be the _Lansman_ of Kalix. I was surprised to find that he knew all
about us. He wondered at our coming here north, when we might stay at
home thought once would be enough for us, and had himself been no
further than Stockholm. I recognised our approach to Nasby by the
barrels set in the snow--an ingenious plan of marking the road in places
where the snow drifts, as the wind creates a whirl or eddy around them.
We were glad to see Nasby and its two-story inn once more. The pleasant
little handmaiden smiled all over her face when she saw us again. Nasby
is a crack place: the horses were ready at once, and fi