86 KEW, ST. PETEESBUEG, AND MABOOCO 



trained like pyramidal standard trees and covered with gorgeous 

 masses of bloom ; the Ardennes country, so different from the 

 rest of the route to Berlin, is like Derbyshire, with rocky wooded 

 glens, brawling streams and so forth, while the entrance to 

 Stockholm is through miles of rocky wooded islets and long bays 

 like the Kyles of Bute, clothed with luxuriant forests, and the 

 rocks carpeted with mosses and wild flowers, especially lilies 

 of the valley, anemones and yellow tulips. As for the city : 



If you can imagine 5 or 6 St. Peter's Ports of Guernsey on as 

 many rocky headlands fingering in and out in all directions, 

 some into the sea on one side, others on the other side into 

 the fresh water lake, you have some idea of Stockholm. 



To his mother also he makes a point of mentioning an inter- 

 yiew with the Princess of Wales and Princess Alice at Sans 

 Souci, and their kindly recollections of his father. 



On the forty-four hours of train from Berlin an unexpected 

 fellow-traveller made himself very friendly ; this was General 

 Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol, who had been feted in 

 England some five years before, ' a grand old fellow,' full of 

 wounds and honours ' lame of both legs an English bullet 

 in one, and a French in the other, which shattered the bones ; 

 he has a huge hole in the neck, caused by a bayonet thrust, and 

 a wound through the bridge of the nose, from a Turkish poniard.' 

 At St. Petersburg, thanks to the vast distances and the 

 imperfect arrangements of the secretary to the Congress, it was 

 difficult to find several friends to whom they had introductions, 

 but they met with a warm welcome from Hooker's second cousin, 

 Dr. de Wahl, and General Manderstjerna, who had married 

 another second cousin of his, a de Eosen, and who, as A.D.C. 

 to the Emperor, ' was immensely useful to us nothing indeed 

 can exceed the kindness of these Scandinavians and Scythians.' 

 The inefficient secretary, who had taken too much upon his 

 own shoulders, to the disgust and effacement of the well-known 

 Eussian botanists, had made no sort of preparations 



to receive us, or to introduce us, or in any other way to put 

 us en rapport with the Eussians. We tumbled into the city 

 and continued for the best part of a week unknown and 



