Germany; but the beverage had been so rarely called for
that it had grown sharp and sour, and we hurried back unsatisfied.

A space about six feet square had been cleared out among the butter-kegs
in the cabin, and we sat down to dinner by candle-light, at three
o'clock. Swedish customs already appeared, in a preliminary decanter of
lemon-colored brandy, a thimbleful of which was taken with a piece of
bread and sausage, before the soup appeared. The taste of the liquor was
sweet, unctuous and not agreeable. Our party consisted of the captain,
the chief officer, who was his brother-in-law, the Pole, who was a
second-cousin of Kosciusko, and had a name consisting of eight consonants
and two vowels, a grave young Swede with a fresh Norse complexion, and
our two selves. The steward, Hildebrand, and the silent stewardess, Marie,
were our attendants and purveyors. The ship's officers were rather slow
and opaque, and the Swede sublimely self-possessed and indifferent; but
the Pole, who had been condemned to death at Cracow, and afterwards
invented cheap gas, was one of the jolliest fellows alive. His German was
full of funny mistakes, but he rattled away with as much assurance as if
it had been his native tongue. Before dinner was over, we were all
perfectly well acquainted with each other.

Night had already set in on the Baltic; nothing was to be seen but snow;
the deck was heaped with freight; the storm blew in our teeth; and the
steamer, deeply laden, moved slowly and labouriously; so we stretched
ourselves on the narrow bunks in our hut, and preserved a delicate
regard for our equilibrium, even in sleep. In the morning the steep
cliffs of Moen, a Danish island, were visible on our left. We looked for
Rugen, the last stronghold of the worship of Odin in the Middle Ages,
but a raw mist rolled down upon the sea, and left us advancing blindly
as before. The wind was strong and cold, blowing the vapory water-smoke
in long trails across the surface of the waves. It was not long, however,
before some dim white gleams through the mist were pointed out as the
shores of Sweden, and the _Carl Johan_ slackened her speed to a snail's
pace, snuffing at headland after headland, like a dog off the scent, in
order to find her way into Ystad.

A lift of the fog favored us at last, and we ran into the little harbor.
I walked the contracted hurricane deck at three o'clock, with the sunset
already flushing the west, looked on the town and la