than in other countries, though it may appear so from the price of each horse. The roads, he admits, are excellent, but "between Helsingburg and Stockholm, a distance of near 400 English miles, nothing that can be considered as an inn is to be found."

Having described Gottenburg, the fecond city in Sweden, our author conducts us to Trolhätta, the cataracts and canal at which place he describes in the following words:

"Trolhätta is a place where the admirers of natural beauties, if they could be tolerably accommodated, would be tempted to stop for several days, as it is scarcely possible in less time to have any satisfactory view of the famous cataracts, and the canal, which is one of the boldest and most amazing works of the kind in the world. The cataracts are a series of cascades formed by the river Götha, which issues from the lake Wennern, and being united after many breaks, fall, in its whole and undivided stream, from a height of upwards of sixty feet, into an unfathomable abyss of

water.

"The canal of Trolhätta has been wrought through the midst of rocks, by the means of gunpowder. Its object was to open a communication between the North Sea and the lake Wennern, by continuing the navigation where the Götha, dashing down in cataracts, ceases to be navigable. All the bar-iron of Nericia, Warmerland, and other provinces, is transported in small boats across the lake of Wennern, and along the Götha, as far as the falls. By means of the new canal, the water carriage is prolonged beyond the cataracts to where the Götha becomes again navigable, and from thence the goods are easily conveyed

on the river to Gothenburg. The obvious importance of such a cut had long attracted the attention of the Swedish government, and they employed immense sums, at different times, during almost a whole century, for the execution of it; notwithstanding which, this vast enterprise proceeded so slowly, and with so little effect, that it seemed to mock every human effort of strength or skill. Its actual accomplishment was reserved to teach a very important lesson to governments, and all great bodies of men, that though any undertaking should languish and fail under their direction, yet it may be quickened, and may succeed, when it becomes the interest of individuals not to embezzle the general stock ; when their fortune depends on their entering minutely into all the details of labour and expense, and on bringing the work as speedily as possible to a just and happy conclusion. Aa association was formed of Gothenburg merchants, and others; a joint stock was raised; the privilege of a toll on the future canal was granted and secured by government; shares in the eventual produce were sold at higher and higher prices as the work advanced; and in the course of five or six years the work was completed. The length of this canal, on which there are nine locks, is nearly three miles; the width 36 feet; the depth, in some places, nearly 50. Basins are formed, at convenient distances, for various purposes, which it is unnecessary to enumerate. It is not easy for any oue to form an idea of the difficulties that were to be surmounted in the formation of this wonderful canal, unless he had been an eye-witness. The spectator now views the smooth level as if it

had been so always, and loses sight

of

of the heights and rugged substances through which it was necessary to penetrate before that level could be effected. I saw the canal not only when it was accomplished, but in its laborious progress towards completion. This canal, undertaken and begun by Charles XII formed part of a grand plan meditated by G tavas Vasa, and attempted by some of his successors, for joining the Baltic with the North Sea, by means of a communication cut through the kingdom. If ever a canal should be extended from the lake of Wennern, which is the largest in Sweden, being about 500 miles long, and 75 broad, by Orebio, to the lake of Hielmar, the Swedes may then, by a conjunction of this Lake with that of Mälar, through the sluices of Arboga, transport all kinds of merchandize in the same vessel from Gothenburg to Stockholm. Thus a passage would be opened between the North Sea and the Baltic, and, among other advantages, the duty of the Sound would be avoided. The canal of Trolhätta may justly be considered as in some respects characteristical of the Swedish nation; for it represents them as they are, prone to the conception of grand enterprises, and distinguished by mechanical invention. As a work of art, and of bold and persevering design, it is not too much to say, that it is the first in the world, even the duke of Bridgewater's canal in England, and that of Languedoc in France, not excepted."

Mr. A. was under considerable difficulties in procuring a lodging on his arrival at Stockholm, there being, properly speaking, no inns in the town. His topographical account of the capital is accurate and detailed;

his description of a winter scene, illustrated by an engraving, is extremely curious to an inhabitant of the more southern latitudes.

"The grand and most distinguished feature in the locality of that city, namely, being situated on islands amidst gulis and lakes, is destroyed by the ice. The same water which divides the inhabitants of the differ. ent quarters in summer, unites them in winter. It becomes a plain which is traversed by every body. The islands are islands no longer; horses in sledges, phactons, and in vehicles of all sorts, placed on skates, scour the gulf, and lakes, by the side of ships fixed in the ice, and astonished, as it were, to find themselves in such company on the same element. Those lakes which in summer were brightened by the clear transparency of their waters reflecting every ob ject on their banks, and presenting the animated picture of skiffs, oars, and small sails, are now turned into a place of rendezvous for men and children mingling in one throng. They walk, slide, fly about in sledges, or glide along on small skates. In the exercise of skating, they display great dexterity and address, and amuse the spectators with the case and quickness of their various movements; darting forward with the speed of arrows, turning and returning, and balancing their bodies according to inclination and circumstances, in such a manner, that it is sometimes difficult to imagine what can be their principle of There is no part of this great mass of water that is not arrested and subdued by the frost, except the cur rent under the north bridge, and on the south near the king's, stables. Here the water, which during the keenest frost dashes and foams with

a great

a great noise through the arches of the bridge, sends up majestic clouds of vapour to a considerable height in the atmosphere, where, in the extreme rigour of winter, being converted by the intenseness of the cold into solid particles, they are precipitated down through their weight, and presenting their surface to the sun, assume the appearance of a shower of silver sand, reflecting the solar rays, and adorned with all manner of colours. In the interior of Stockholm, throughout all its different quarters, every thing in winter, in like manner, undergoes a sud den change. The snow that begins to fall in the latter weeks of autumn, covers and hides the streets for the space of six months, and renders them more pleasant and convenient than they are in summer or autumn; at which seasons, partly on account of the pavement, and partly on account of the dirt, they are often almost impassable. One layer of snow on another, hardened by the frost, forms a surface more cqual and agreeable to walk on, which is sometimes raised more than a yard above the stones of the atreet. You are no longer stunned by the irksome noise of carriage wheels, but this is exchanged for the tinkling of little bells, with which they deck their horses before the sledges. The only wheels now to be seen in Stockholm are those of small carts, employed by men servants of families, to fetch water from the pump in a cask. This compound of cask and cart always struck me as a very curious and extraordinary object, insomuch that I once took the trouble of following it, in order to have a nearer view of the whimsical robe in which the frost had invested it, and particularly of the variegated and fantastical drape

ry in which the wheels were covered and adorned. This vehicle, with all its appurtenances, afforded a native of Italy a very singular spectacle; the horse was wrapped up, as it seemed, in a mantle of white down, which, under his breast and belly, was fringed with points and tufts of ice. Stalactical ornaments of the same kind, some of them to the length of a foot, were also attached to his nose and mouth. The servant who attended the cart had on a frock, which was encrusted with a solid mass of ice. His eyebrows and hair jingled with icicles, which were formed by the action of the frost on his breath and perspiration. Sometimes the water in the pump was frozen, so that it became necessary to melt it, by the injection of a red hot bar of iron. I have attempted to make a drawing of this carriage; but it is difficult for art to imitate the operations and effects of the frost; displayed in the various appearances of the ice, its transparency, and the fantastical beauty of its embroide ries, are not easily copied. For the purpose of rendering the design more interesting, I have chosen the pump at the bridge near the mint; this gave me an opportunity of introducing into the piece that edifice which was very near the house called Rossenadleska, where we lodged, and formed an angle of the strect leading to the square of Riddarhol men. In the same plate I have added a representation of one of those small sledges that are used for the conveyance of goods or luggage from one place to another, which are peculiar, I believe, to the city of Stockholm. Neither men nor women carry any thing on their heads or shoulders, but employ these sledges, which they push on before them,

When

When they come to a declivity, they rest with their left hip and thigh on the sledge, and glide down to the bottom with a velocity which, to a stranger, appears both astonishing and frightful, guiding, all the while, the motion of the sledge with their right foot. The address with which they perform this it is not easy for any one to conceive who has not witnessed it. If you add to the objects which I have been describing, the curious appearance of the many different pelices that are worn with furs on the outside, you will imagine what a striking scene the streets of Stockholm, in winter, present to a foreigner, especially to one that came from the southern part of Europe.

"In the winter of 1799, I beheld at Stockholm a spectacle of a very uncommon nature, and such as I never, in all probability, shall see a second time. It was a sugar house on fire in the suburbs, on the south side of the city. The accident being announced by the discharge of cannon, all the fire-engines were immediately hurried to the aid of the owners. The severity of that win. ter was so great, that there was not a single spot near where the water was not frozen to the depth of a yard from the surface. It was necessary to break the ice with hatchets and hammers, and to draw the water from the well. Immediately on filling the casks, they were oblig. ed to carry them off with all possible speed, lest the water should be congealed, as in fact about a third part of it was by the time it was brought to the place where it was wanted. In order to prevent it as much as possible from freezing, they constantly kept stirring it about with a stick; but even this operation had only a partial effect. At last, by

the united power of many engines, which launched forth a great mass of water, the fire was got under, after destroying only the roof, the house itself being very little damaged. It was in the upper stories of the building that the stock of sugar was deposited; there was also many vessels full of treacle, which being broken by the falling in of the roof, the juice ran down along the sides of the walls. The water thrown up to the top of the house by the engines, and flowing back on the walls, staircases, and through the windows, was stopped in its downward course by the mighty power of the frost. After the fire was extinguished, the engines continued for some time to play, and the water they discharged was frozen almost the instant it came in contact with the walls, already covered with ice. Thus a house was formed of the most extraordinary appearance that it is possible to conceive; it was so curious an object, that every body came to gaze at it as a something wonderful; the whole building was incrusted from top to bottom with a thick coat of ice; the doors and windows were closed up, and in order to gain admission, it was necessary, with hammers and hatchets, to open a passage; they were obliged to cut through the ice another staircase, for the purpose of ascending to the upper stories. All the rooms, and what remained of the roof, were embellished by long stalactites of multifarious shapes, and of a yellowish colour, composed of the treacle and congealed water. This building, contemplated in the light of the sun, seemed to bear some analogy to those diamond castles that are raised by the imagination of poets. It remained upwards of two months in the same state, and

was