14 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



eighteen tours dark to six hours daylight, and it is often 

 impossible to get into the forest for weeks on account of the 

 snow, and if you can, there is scarcely anything to shoot. Of 

 all gloomy forests commend me to a northern pine forest 

 late in autumn or winter. Before the frost sets in, these 

 northern forests have a dreadfully aguish feel. Scarcely a 

 bird of any kind is to be seen, and the only sound we hear is 

 the measured fall of the woodman's axe, or the chattering of 

 flocks of crossbills, as they flit from cone to cone in search of 

 food. We hardly ever see a game bird at this season, except 

 it may be a few black cock perched on the highest tops of 

 the birches. All nature out of doors seems to be wrapped in 

 a deep unwaking slumber. The sledging now is often, how- 

 ever, first-rate, and bleak as the prospect may be without, 

 there is nothing cold within doors. Every country house is 

 now thrown open ; glad reunions of families and social meet- 

 ings of friends celebrate this festive season. The tinkling 

 of the sledge bells ring cheerily through the frosty air, and 

 nowhere are the hospitable rites of old Father Christmas 

 more strictly observed than in these northern climes. The 

 winter is, however, a busy season in the middle and north of 

 Sweden for the forest-owner and farmer, and good sledging 

 at this time is all important to the Swede, who has any tim- 

 ber to get out of his forests or iron ore to transport from the 

 mines. In a snowy winter the tops of the fences are scarcely 

 apparent above the frozen snow. Gates are all thrown off 

 their hinges ; high roads are now little heeded, and short 

 cuts are made across the country for sledging over the snow 

 and frozen lakes as straight as the crow can fly. 



In 1862 we had a bad winter in Wermland, without 

 any snow (and this is always bad for the rye, but it is 

 worst of all when it snows a little, then thaws and freezes) ; 

 and in 1863-64 no snow fell till early in February, 

 and our deepest falls of snow were in the middle of 

 March. The new moon in January came in on a Saturday 

 with sharp cold, and as is usually the case here with a Satur- 

 day's new moon, the weather was the same for three months. 

 The cold, however, was never very intense, rarely more than 



