94 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN&US 



after being one of the largest and handsomest towns 

 in Sweden, it is now a mere village with picturesque 

 ivy-covered ruins and five hundred inhabitants. The 

 massive silver doors of one of its churches were carried 

 off in 1187 by the Esths to Novgorod, where they 

 may now be seen. Numbers of the white-capped 

 students of Upsala are to be met cruising about this 

 part of the lake and river nowadays. Rail and steamer 

 both aid their peregrinations. 1 



The grass here grows vividly green, and the trees 

 are fine and flourishing. Presently (we are sailing to- 

 wards Upsala) the foliaged banks subside to a narrow 

 low-shored arm of the lake, looking like a shallow 

 river rather than a lake, lying between water-meadows, 

 until the banks rise again into fir woods and hills 

 clothed with silver birch and the foaming white-blos- 

 somed bird-cherry essentially a Linnsean tree, as it 

 always grows abundantly round his dwelling, wherever 

 that may be. 



At Skogkloster once a forest monastery, now a fine 

 square chateau, with copper-roofed towers at the angles 

 and much magnificence within the water widens out 

 into a broad bay on the left bank, and the channel 

 turns off to the right towards Upsala. The water's local 

 colour is a greenish brown or warm olive, lowered by 

 the sky reflections to a neutral grey. The boat here 



1 The undergraduates wear a white cap with a black velvet 

 band and a small blue and yellow rosette in the centre, symbolic of 

 the Swedish flag. 



