going to see the country." He laughed long and
heartily at such an absurd idea, got up in a hurry, and went to bed
without saying another word. We had a supper of various kinds of
sausage, tough rye bread, and a bowl of milk, followed by excellent
beds--a thing which you are sure to find everywhere in Sweden.

We drove off again at half-past six in the morning moon light, with a
temperature of zero. Two or three miles from the town we passed the
mounds of old Upsala, the graves of Odin, Thor and Freja, rising boldly
against the first glimmerings of daylight. The landscape was broad, dark
and silent, the woods and fields confusedly blended together, and only
the sepulchres of the ancient gods broke the level line of the horizon.
I could readily have believed in them at that hour.

Passing over the broad rich plain of Upsala, we entered a gently
undulating country, richer and better cultivated than the district we
had traversed the previous day. It was splendidly wooded with thick fir
forests, floored with bright green moss. Some of the views toward the
north and west were really fine from their extent, though seen in the
faded light and long shadows of the low northern sun. In the afternoon,
we passed a large white church, with four little towers at the corners,
standing in the midst of a village of low red stables, in which the
country people shelter their horses while attending service. There must
have been fifty or sixty of these buildings, arranged in regular
streets. In most of the Swedish country churches, the belfry stands
apart, a squat, square tower, painted red, with a black upper story, and
is sometimes larger than the church itself. The houses of the peasants
are veritable western shanties, except in color and compactness. No wind
finds a cranny to enter, and the roofs of thick thatch, kept down by
long, horizontal poles, have an air of warmth and comfort. The stables
are banked with earth up to the hay-loft, and the cattle enter their
subterranean stalls through sloping doorways like those of the Egyptian
tombs.

Notwithstanding we made good progress through the day, it was dark long
before we reached the bridge over the Dal Elv, and of the famous
cascades we saw only a sloping white glimmer, between dark masses of
forest, and heard the noise of the broken waters. At Elfkarleby we were
allowed twenty minutes for dinner--boiled salmon and beefsteak, both
bad. I slept after this, until aroused by the old Sw