been shipped within a few months to England,
to allay the threatened famine there; and the animals in the country
were starving from the deficiency of all kinds of grain. The pastures,
we could ourselves see, were dry, and in many parts burnt to chaff,
while the present summer beginning with oppressive heat, and the
preceding one having been equally unfavourable to the pasturage, the
scarcity of food was severely and fatally felt by all cattle.

"Every thing, Sir," said the man, "would have gone on well, had the king
forbidden corn to be sent to England, for Sweden can feed its
inhabitants; but when we send away any part of the crop, we feel the
loss very much."

"Have you ever suffered so much before?" one of us asked.

"No, Sir," he replied; "the Swedes are poor, and very little satisfies
them. We feel not famine ourselves, but the animals do; and if they die
now, at the beginning of summer, for want of food, what will they do
when the long winter comes? There--there's another," he said, as we
drove past another horse stretched near a hedge on the road, and
struggling faintly for life.

"Your horses will be exterminated," I said, "if they are neglected in
this wholesale fashion."

"Why, Sir," answered the Swede, "horses are not of much use in Sweden,
for the agriculture of the country is carried on so differently to what
it is in England, that a family, with their own hands, can plough and
sow a sufficient quantity of land to supply their wants through the
winter; and we don't buy and sell corn here, for we all have our few
acres. The farmers, therefore, allow the horses to starve, in order to
apply the food they would consume to the preservation of cows and
sheep."

The country through which we travelled appeared dreary in the extreme:
its level, sandy surface being nowhere varied by the pleasing undulation
of hill and dale. This is not the general aspect of Sweden, I know; but,
perhaps, I perceive this deficiency the more, being so lately arrived
from Denmark, where the landscapes are soft and beautiful, while the
natural gloom of its forests is relieved by the calmness of its lakes.

We reached Falkenborg at twelve, and, by dint of much loud knocking,
awoke the people at an inn, or cabaret, where we slept. The following
morning, as soon as it was light, we went to fish in a river near the
town, but encountered the same good fortune of which we had hitherto
made no complaint, considering that the mere sport