66 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



the town-hall building, where there is mostly a large 

 ball-room, used also for theatricals and meetings the 

 principal hotel. It was so in Wexio too, as Linnaeus 

 remembered. A smaller house, with its modest ' Ruin 

 for Resande,' with supper, was soon found. It had been 

 light enough to write long after nine o'clock, but the 

 excited Carl found so much to record that he lighted his 

 candle and sat up late to finish the journal of his travels. 1 

 Through life he kept a careful diary, not so much of 

 personal occurrences as of his observations. He slept 

 like a fossil. 



Carl had told the people to call him early. He had 

 no watch a possession well-nigh indispensable in 

 Sweden, where you never know in summer when to 

 get up, nor when to go to bed, for daylight is no clue : 

 in winter it is worse, for the darkness is then as 

 perplexing as the overbright daylight in May and June. 

 But it seemed, from the many noises of a town, to be 

 nine or ten when he awoke. They must have forgotten 

 to call him. Land of the great Gustavus, could it be 

 that Swedes could thus forget a guest and break their 

 promises? At length they knocked. They called it 

 six. ' I don't believe it,' muttered Carl ; ' the people 

 are too wide awake in the streets for Whitsun week.' 

 People do not keep such outrageously early hours in 

 Sweden as in Germany : the daylight keeps them up 

 later at night. 



The market was being held in the open place before 

 1 This one, alas, exists no longer. 



