eye, from whatever
point he beholds her, we never wearied; but we began at last to tire of
our ice-olation, and to look forward to the reopening of the Gotha
Canal, as a means of escape. Day after day it was a new satisfaction to
behold the majestic palace crowning the island-city and looking far and
wide over the frozen lakes; the tall, slender spire of the Riddarholm,
soaring above the ashes of Charles XII. and Gustavus Adolphus, was
always a welcome sight; but we had seen enough of the hideous statues
which ornament the public squares, (Charles XII. not among them, and the
imbecile Charles XIII. occupying the best place); we grew tired of the
monotonous perambulators on the Forrbro, and the tameness and sameness
of Stockholm life in winter: and therefore hailed the lengthening days
which heralded our deliverance.

As to the sights of the capital, are they not described in the
guide-books? The champion of the Reformation lies in his chapel, under a
cloud of his captured banners: opposite to him, the magnificent madman
of the North, with hundreds of Polish and Russian ensigns rustling above
his heads. In the royal armory you see the sword and the bloody shirt of
the one, the bullet-pierced hat and cloak of the other, still coated
with the mud of the trench at Fredrickshall. There are robes and weapons
of the other Carls and Gustavs, but the splendour of Swedish history is
embodied in these two names, and in that of Gustavus Vasa, who lies
entombed in the old cathedral at Upsala. When I had grasped their
swords, and the sabre of Czar Peter, captured at Narva, I felt that
there were no other relics in Sweden which could make my heart throb a
beat the faster.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MANNERS AND MORALS OF STOCKHOLM.

As a people, the Swedes are very hospitable, and particularly so toward
foreigners. There is perhaps no country in Europe where travellers are
treated with so much kindness and allowed so many social privileges.
This is fortunate, as the conventionalities of the country are more
rigid than the laws of the Medes and Persians. Nothing excites greater
scandal than an infraction of the numberless little formalities with
which the descendants of the honest, spontaneous, impulsive old
Scandinavians have, somehow or other, allowed themselves to be fettered,
and were not all possible allowance made for the stranger, he would have
but a dismal time of it. Notwithstanding these habits have become a
second nature,