eals or other refreshments he has had, makes his own bill and
hands over the amount to the stewardess. In posting, the _skjutsbonder_
very often do not know the rates, and take implicitly what the traveller
gives them. I have yet to experience the first attempt at imposition in
Sweden. The only instances I heard of were related to me by Swedes
themselves, a large class of whom make a point of depreciating their own
country and character. This habit of detraction is carried to quite as
great an extreme as the vanity of the Norwegians, and is the less
pardonable vice of the two.

It was a pleasant thing to hear again the musical Swedish tongue, and
to exchange the indifference and reserve of Norway for the friendly,
genial, courteous manner of Sweden. What I have said about the formality
and affectation of manners, and the rigidity of social etiquette, in the
chapters relating to Stockholm, was meant to apply especially to the
capital. Far be it from me to censure that natural and spontaneous
courtesy which is a characteristic of the whole people. The more I see
of the Swedes, the more I am convinced that there is no kinder, simpler,
and honester people in the world. With a liberal common school system, a
fairer representation, and release from the burden of a state church,
they would develop rapidly and nobly.

Our voyage from Gottenburg to Carlstad, on the Wener Lake, had but one
noteworthy point--the Falls of Trollhatten. Even had I not been fresh
from the Riukan-Foss, which was still flashing in my memory, I should
have been disappointed in this renowned cataract. It is not a single
fall, but four successive descents, within the distance of half a mile,
none of them being over twenty feet in perpendicular height. The Toppo
Fall is the only one which at all impressed me, and that principally
through its remarkable form. The huge mass of the Gotha River, squeezed
between two rocks, slides down a plane with an inclination of about 50 deg.,
strikes a projecting rock at the bottom, and takes an upward curve,
flinging tremendous volumes of spray, or rather broken water, into the
air. The bright emerald face of the watery plane is covered with a
network of silver threads of shifting spray, and gleams of pale blue and
purple light play among the shadows of the rising globes of foam below.

CHAPTER XXXV.

A TRAMP THROUGH WERMELAND AND DALECARLIA.

On leaving Carlstad our route lay northward up the valley of the Kla