owed in the rocky
strata of the hills, to which the country people have given the name of
"The Giant's Pots." A clergyman of the neighbourhood, even, has written
a pamphlet to prove that they were the work of the antediluvian giants,
who excavated them for the purpose of mixing dough for their loaves of
bread and batter for their puddings. They are simply those holes which a
pebble grinds in a softer rock, under the rotary action of a current of
water, but on an immense scale, some of them being ten feet in diameter,
by fifteen or eighteen in depth. At Herr Hedlund's house, I met a number
of gentlemen, whose courtesy and intelligence gave me a very favourable
impression of the society of the place.

The next morning, at five o'clock, the steamer Viken, from Christiania,
arrived, and we took passage for Copenhagen. After issuing from the
_Skargaard_, or rocky archipelago which protects the approach to
Gottenburg from the sea, we made a direct course to Elsinore, down the
Swedish coast, but too distant to observe more than its general outline.
This part of Sweden, however--the province of Halland--is very rough and
stony, and not until after passing the Sound does one see the fertile
hills and vales of Scania. The Cattegat was as smooth as an inland sea,
and our voyage could not have been pleasanter. In the afternoon Zealand
rose blue from the wave, and the increase in the number of small sailing
craft denoted our approach to the Sound. The opposite shores drew nearer
to each other, and finally the spires of Helsingborg, on the Swedish
shore, and the square mass of Kronborg Castle, under the guns of which
the Sound dues have been so long demanded, appeared in sight. In spite
of its bare, wintry aspect, the panorama was charming. The picturesque
Gothic buttresses and gables of Kronborg rose above the zigzag of its
turfed outworks; beyond were the houses and gardens of Helsingor
(Elsinore)--while on the glassy breast of the Sound a fleet of merchant
vessels lay at anchor, and beyond, the fields and towns of Sweden
gleamed in the light of the setting sun. Yet here, again, I must find
fault with Campbell, splendid lyrist as he is. We should have been
sailing

"By thy _wild and stormy steep_,
Elsinore!"

only that the level shore, with its fair gardens and groves wouldn't
admit the possibility of such a thing. The music of the line remains the
same, but you must not read it on the spot.

Th