I

shriek of the drowning, and danced in the surge of the billow, and sang in the howling wind! have seen it all, and seen the Wolf-witch, with her jaws dropping blood, pursue her ghostly flight over this vast lonely lake of untrodden ice,—seen it all, while the learned principal of a mechanics' institute thought I was dreadfully mistaken in his country, and wished me to acquire more precise information.

Wettern is ninety or ninety-five English miles long, but so much narrower than its sister lake that its banks can almost always be seen with clearness; its average width is fifteen miles. Its elevation is 295 feet above the sea; so that, on this water journey, we are continually ascending one part of it and descending the other. The lake is in some places immensely deep, to which cause, perhaps, is owing the peculiar greenness of its waters-green as those of the Baltic. Its exposure to the north and south winds which sweep its surface, is said to be the cause of those sudden squalls which render it so often fatal to the poor fishermen, and small vessels that ply their trade upon it.

Its uncertainty was indeed remarkably vivid in my mind while the principal of the mechanics'

institute was criticising a brief description of it which I had given on a former occasion—that is, at the midsummer tide :-

"Night came on; the still and glorious night of the North. We got out upon the mystic and beautiful Wettern. The moon rose, so clear and calm, mingling its light with that which was scarcely the twilight of day, but more like a softened day itself. Not a breath stirred the clear, bright atmosphere. The upper deck was empty. I crept from my hut when others had gone to theirs. I sat there alone, and felt the influence of a strange, a somewhat solemn sceneWettern, by the calm brilliance of that midnight light."

Such was the paragraph; and still does the same heart offer deep thanks to the great Author of all good, who, with all that has been taken, has left one unimpaired source of joy-the power to love, and to feel the beauty of His works.

But now, how different is the scene, how very changed the feelings of the passenger! Stormy and cruel Wettern, where is thy loveliness now? Shrouded in gloom; with white foam cresting thy billows, and a miserably howling wind sweeping on right in our teeth; so must we cross thee in September, 1851.

Well, the captain has made all tight for the night. He had driven us up to close quarters, and there was no hope of our reaching Stockholm till the fourth day of our journey was ended; but all of a sudden he takes his resolution, rushes up on deck, clad in tarpaulin from head to foot, his legs buried in long boots. This looks like a boisterous passage of Wettern. Orders are given, and we start with a rapidity which I can only compare to the "changing horses" of that glorious old Hirondelle stage coach that used to run between Cheltenham and Liverpool in days gone by. The "dead lights" are put up. You remember, perhaps better even than I do, when J. first went from home in the days of his youth, and wrote back an awful account of a storm in the Bristol Channel; you remember when that letter was read at home, and from house to house in our neighbourhood, what fresh bursts of emotion followed the words, "the dead lights were put up, and we prepared for a watery grave." What mysterious things "dead lights" were to me then! Another child might have simply asked what they meant; but I puzzled out my own meaning, and always represented to myself the "dead lights" at sea showing the wretched sufferers how to inter themselves in a watery grave.

And thus braced up for a storm, we heaved and struggled over Wettern; with its waves lashing over us, with the wind howling, and not a ray of light entering the saloon, where, after all, it was found there had been a place vacant, though not one of the lady passengers had departed from the non-interference system by mentioning it when the ill-tempered Flika of the Stockholm chose to be silent.

And so leaving myself asleep in the cabin on stormy Wettern, in the autumn of 1851, I return to myself just at the moment when we are passing Motala, in the bright Midsummer time, when nature was so fair to me, and all else so very dark.

And Motala is famous for its iron works, and has become almost dear from the kindness of the interesting family whose charming mansion overlooks the canal, along whose pleasant banks the boat is passing. Mr. Fraser, a Scotsman, and the father of the present occupants, was the original designer of these great works. The celebrated Admiral Platen, the constructor of the canal, whose grave is in the immediate neighbourhood, induced Mr. Fraser to try his skill, first, in clearing the bed of the river, by means of a machine he had constructed. I visited this place

again, and shall return to it on paper also; this is only a note in passing.

And so, in midsummer-time, we passed that pretty lake, named Boren, gemmed with green islets and rocks, and came to Roxen, where there are eleven locks to be passed, for the canal is here descending a hill 70 feet above the level of the lake: this canal is called the West Göta.

The passage of the locks give time to the travellers to visit old Wreta-kloster, as the conventual church of Wreta is still called. It is an interesting place, but sadly deformed, as all the old Swedish churches are, by being protestantized in a most ungainly manner, and filled with boxes and galleries in all directions. The chapels and their tombs still remain as they were. Among these the one dedicated to the noble house of Douglas-the last scion of which still lingers in the soil to which it was transplanted in the warlike times of Gustavus Adolphus-is naturally the most interesting to us. The "Bloody Heart" is displayed on the emblazoned arms. The last deceased member of that noble family rests without the church, but just beside the door. I looked at the plain tomb, and somehow the idea that it looked as if doing penance there came across my