276 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



all its oddity and bustle, and realise the old-world scene 

 in full perfection in the morning when the market- 

 places are overflowing and streaming with colour and 

 picturesque confusion. On the hill-top is erected a sort 

 of scaffold staircase with benches, whence one can enjoy 

 the view. The prospect from Chimborasso is of a mass 

 of bright red roofs on the opposite hill, individualised 

 by the white-gabled window-dotted fronts of houses, 

 set in a forest of leafage melting into blue distant 

 meadows, where two rivers the Trave and its tributary 

 meet as they mingle with the verdure. The spires and 

 pinnacles rise out from among the foliage and the town- 

 roofs to the sky. Plenty of life and activity is going on 

 below, its buzz mingled with murmur of windmills and 

 sounds of trains and carts, of birds, and bells, and boats. 

 Now we may recross the river to the town, ascending 

 the hill, first on the side of the well-nigh deserted cathe- 

 dral, which is always under repair, and always needs it. 

 Its tall thin spires are so much out of the perpendicular 

 that they would look atrocious in a drawing ; for one's 

 reputation's sake one must straighten them and make 

 them more untruly true. To stand under these spires 

 is one of the risks of travel. It feels less dangerous 

 - inside, where one does not see them. There are some 

 remains of early coloured glass by the painter of the 

 cathedral windows of Florence 'that most singular 

 master who, in this art, was known in the world,' who 

 was brought for this purpose ' from distant Liibeck on 

 the Northern seas.' 



