e, my diameter was about equal to half my height, and I found
locomotion rather cumbrous; while Braisted, whose stature is some seven
inches shorter, waddled along like an animated cotton-bale.

Everything being at last arranged, so far as our limited information
made it possible, for a two months' journey, we engaged places in a
diligence which runs as far as Gefle, 120 miles north of Stockholm.
There we hoped to find snow and a colder climate. One of my first steps
had been to engage a Swedish teacher, and by dint of taking double
lessons every day, I flattered myself that I had made sufficient progress
in the language to travel without an interpreter--the most inconvenient
and expensive of persons. To be sure, a week is very little for a new
language, but to one who speaks English and German, Swedish is already
half acquired.

CHAPTER III.

FIRST EXPERIENCES OF NORTHERN TRAVEL.

The diligence was a compact little vehicle, carrying four persons, but
we two were so burdened with our guns, sword, money-bag, field-glass,
over-boots and two-fathom-long sashes, that we found the space allotted
to us small enough. We started at eight o'clock, and had not gone a
hundred yards before we discovered that the most important part of our
outfit--the maps--had been left behind. It was too late to return, and
we were obliged to content ourselves with the hope of supplying them at
Upsala or Gefle.

We rolled by twilight through the Northern suburb. The morning was sharp
and cold, and the roads, which had been muddy and cut up the day before,
were frozen terribly hard and rough. Our fellow-passengers were two
Swedes, an unprepossessing young fellow who spoke a few words of
English, and a silent old gentleman; we did not derive much advantage
from their society, and I busied myself with observing the country
through which we passed. A mile or two, past handsome country-seats and
some cemeteries, brought us into the region of forests. The pines were
tall and picturesque in their forms, and the grassy meadows between
them, entirely clear of snow, were wonderfully green for the season.
During the first stage we passed some inlets of the Baltic, highly
picturesque with their irregular wooded shores. They had all been frozen
over during the night. We were surprised to see, on a southern hill-side,
four peasants at work ploughing. How they got their shares through the
frozen sod, unless the soil was remarkably dry and sandy, was