Report of a Journey Around the World. 



53 



of Stockholm and were set down at a commodious hotel with an 

 outlook over the harbor to the royal palace beyond. The beauty 

 of this fine northern city was enhanced by the delightful spring 

 weather, and the June days were at their longest — more hours of 



daylight for our work 

 than either of us had 

 ever seen before. Per- 

 haps the city was in 

 gala-day attire for the 

 approaching Olympic 

 games, but certainly I 

 never saw a cleaner city. 

 While the Royal Pal- 

 ace was right in front 

 of our window balcony, 

 a building of more im- 

 portance, to us, was 

 across the channel to 

 the left, the National 

 Museum. It was a short 

 walk from the hotel, and 

 on the way we came to 

 the masterpiece of the 

 Swedish sculptor J. P. 

 Molin, a bronze group of 

 the Baltespannare (belt 

 duellists), where the 

 combatants were bound 

 together by their belts 

 and fought out their 

 quarrel with knives, much as the Australians of the present day 

 fight with stone knives. The sad tale is told in four reliefs on the 

 pedestal. A few steps beyond is the museum (Fig. 47) completed 

 in 1866, and within the entrance stand, very appropriately the old 

 Scandinavian gods Odin, Baldur and Thor. I do not know of a 

 more complete object-illustrated early history of a people than has 

 been assembled here. The present Director, Dr. Oscar Montelius, 



is well known through the scientific world as a most worth}- suc- 



[201] 



48. OSCAR MONTELIUS, DIRECTOR. 



