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LIFE IN SWEDEN.

CHAPTER I.

MORN on the waters! But, surely, Childe Harold never bade his native land good night, or good morrow, from the deck of a steam-boat that left St. Katharine's Wharf, London!

I suppose the sun rises on the Thames at London Wall, as well as everywhere else; but one is not conscious of the fact. Here we have lain all the noisy hours of a summer-night: now the daylight spreads, though the sun is not seen. What great gloomy walls, what dark frightful buildings! This is London, the heart of the world's commerce. But now the day-spring spreads. Up goes the roaring steam; the Captain's voice is heard; and a sweet child in a berth before the table I write at,

VOL. I.

B

opens her soft eyes and says "We have had a nice quiet passage to Ostend."

Such a passage, little innocent, may thine be over all the waves of this troublesome world! But that may not be; we must brave the storm ere we enjoy the calm.

Now we are off; steaming our slow way through boats and barges, and stately merchantmen bringing goods from afar. Now the deck is thronged with cloaked, bearded, tobacco-breathing men; muffled, weary, anxious-looking women. I could fancy myself anywhere but on an English steamer, if it were not for the perplexed looks of the Steward, who, even in these days of universal communication, has not acquired the art of making himself universally understood, nor of understanding, perhaps, as many tongues as were heard originally among the workmen of Babel. Certainly in that art the English of his class are not preeminent. Who that remembers a poor French Garçon when his country was first invaded by the English after the peace, will not admit the fact?

The Stewardess is evidently his point of support; she tells me she speaks French; she looks lively and confident, and walks round saying to each non-speaking passenger-"Tea-tay?

ascertain the

coffee-cof-fey?" and then, to number she is to prepare for, she puts out one finger and says "Oon;" two fingers, and says, "Doo." And the passengers, in their own several tongues, answer her precisely in a similar way, saying the number, and telegraphing it in fingers.

Stewardess is triumphant; but, with a woman's wit, having opened the way for one of the superior tribe, she leaves him to indulge his pride in pursuing it; only giving a word of parting advice in her native speech as she resigns office; "We means yes, and yau means yes," she says, "and when they say 'We' or 'Yau,' do you bring them something to eat or drink; they will always keep eating or drinking if you keep giving it to them; I know their ways, I do."

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Our passengers are coming from the Great Exhibition; they say they choose this passage down the Thames, because there is so much trouble about luggage on the English railways; and then they ask if you have ever gone by Dover, and if it is much dearer. Foreigners are so afraid of appearing to save in England; at home they would tell you the plain reason for taking one way or the other.

Scarcely two of these people speak the same language as natives; but, somehow, I hear the same subject always discussed-money; the representative terms for which appear intelligible in every tongue. Francs, guilder, guilden, florin, rix-dollar, or pound sterling, with many other subdivisions of the generic term, are heard on every side. The enormous number of these coins taken from them by the Londoners is the theme of discussion, not of complaint; no one complains of expenditure in England. Everything is dear in England; they have gone there with that notion, and brought it away with them. It is a mistake which the English who choose to spend their money in foreign lands, or in foreign purchases, willingly perpetuate. The fact no longer exists; England, taken altogether, is as cheap a land to live in as any other. Luxuries, still, are rather expensive,. and beyond a doubt, to enjoy life thoroughly, one can live better elsewhere; but the enjoyments of the poorer classes in other countries do not consist in the acquisition of what the English consider luxuries; the English who live abroad do not know how to enjoy life as the good folks among whom they choose to reside like to do in some respects they have no national

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