d
the air keen; but the harbour was free from ice and the canal open, and
our winter isolation was therefore at an end. A little circulation
entered into the languid veins of society; steamers from Germany began
to arrive; fresh faces appeared in the streets, and less formal
costumes--merchants and bagmen only, it is true, but people of a more
dashing and genial air. We were evidently, as the Swedes said, leaving
Stockholm just as it began to be pleasant and lively.

The steamer left the Riddarholm pier at midnight, and took her way
westward up the Malar Lake to Sodertelje. The boats which ply on the
Gotha canal are small, but neat and comfortable. The price of a passage
to Gottenburg, a distance of 370 miles, is about $8.50. This, however,
does not include meals, which are furnished at a fixed price, amounting
to $6 more. The time occupied by the voyage varies from two and a half
to four days. In the night we passed through the lock at Sodertelje,
where St. Olaf, when a heathen Viking, cut a channel for his ships into
the long Baltic estuary which here closely approaches the lake, and in
the morning found ourselves running down the eastern shore of Sweden,
under the shelter of its fringe of jagged rocky islets. Towards noon we
left the Baltic, and steamed up the long, narrow Bay of Soderkoping,
passing, on the way, the magnificent ruins of Stegeborg Castle, the
first mediaeval relic I had seen in Sweden. Its square massive walls, and
tall round tower of grey stone, differed in no respect from those of
contemporary ruins in Germany.

Before reaching Soderkoping, we entered the canal, a very complete and
substantial work of the kind, about eighty feet in breadth, but much
more crooked than would seem to be actually necessary. For this reason
the boats make but moderate speed, averaging not more than six or seven
miles an hour, exclusive of the detention at the locks. The country is
undulating, and neither rich nor populous before reaching the beautiful
Roxen Lake, beyond which we entered upon a charming district. Here the
canal rises, by eleven successive locks, to the rich uplands separating
the Roxen from the Wetter, a gently rolling plain, chequered, so far as
the eye could reach, with green squares of springing wheat and the dark
mould of the newly ploughed barley fields. While the boat was passing
the locks, we walked forward to a curious old church, called Vreta
Kloster. The building dates from the year 1128, and