144 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



call Troy, is surrounded by a smooth, hill. The road 

 from hence lay across a marsh called by the people the 

 walls of Troy. The sweet gale l and dwarf birch form 

 a sort of low alley through which the road leads. Here 

 and there grew the marsh-violet with its pale grey 

 flowers, marked with five or seven black forked lines 

 on the lower lip ; and in the forests on the other side 

 of the marsh were many kinds of club moss. A quan- 

 tity of stones lay by the road-side, which the governor 

 of the province had caused to be dug up in order to mend 

 the highway. 2 



4 They looked like a mass of ruins, and were clothed 

 with Campanula serpyllifolia [the plant afterwards called 

 Linncea borealis]* 'whose trailing shoots and verdant 

 leaves were interwoven with those of the ivy. On the 

 right is the lake Hamrange Fjarden, which adds greatly 

 to the beauty of the road. I arrived at Hamrange 

 post-house during the night. The people here talked 

 much of an extraordinary kind of tree : no one could 

 find out what it was. Some said it was an apple-tree 

 which had been cursed by a beggar-woman, who one 

 day having gathered an apple from it, and being on 

 that account seized by the proprietor of the tree, de- 

 clared that the tree should never bear fruit any more. 



1 Myrica Gale, the bog myrtle, or Scotch or Dutch myrtle. 



2 There are four kinds of road in Sweden : the Itungsvag, king's 

 road, being the finest ; country road, hdradsvdg (sometimes called 

 by travellers horrid way), most of which are very good ; sockenvag 

 (nick-named shocking way), parish road, which is often bad ; and 

 the byrag, village road, narrow and very rough. Du CHAILLU. 



3 One of the honeysuckle family. 



