64 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



houses and stone cottages with thatched roofs, and storks 

 making themselves at home thereon, a view of several 

 handsome country seats of gentlemen and nobles. 



At last Carl really descends once and for all upon 

 the plain of SkSne ; in ten miles more he will be at 

 Lund. He recognises the more fertile landscape of 

 his father's description now, in a vast expanse of sunny 

 green pasture sloping away downward into aerial grey, 

 just marked by hedges, a few windmills, and pollard 

 willows ; and a nearer water-landscape of a still river, 

 full of fish, half shaded by birch and alder not quite in 

 leaf; and, beyond a foam of pear-blossom, a fine reach 

 of blue level distance seaward. 



Carl had turned aside from the road and now stood 

 on the ' Saints' Hill,' from whence the view at sunset is 

 so fine. Before him are the towers of Lund Londinum 

 Gothorum, the London of the Goths superior to our 

 own London in old, perhaps legendary times, when it had 

 200,000 inhabitants and we had less than Lund has 

 now. Lund is situated on the small river HojeS, which 

 was formerly navigable for large vessels. 



From this height Carl can see Malmo and the sea 

 beyond ; yes, and what is that fringe to the right, that 

 range of further distant towers, melting in the horizon's 

 gold ? They are not trees, they are towers the towers 

 of Copenhagen. Now indeed he is a traveller ; he 

 sees another country ! He must sit down to pause and 

 gaze and think. That golden distance seems like his 

 life spread out before him. He sits there at gaze, half 



