56 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



manliness in these bare feet and brawny arms ! What 

 a contrast between the weatherbeaten sailor who boasted 

 he drank twenty-six horns from sunrise to sunset, and the 

 landsmen he had lately consorted with, feeble creatures, 

 tired weak, hesitating, flabby, nervous, gouty but yet 

 superior men, albeit with the best part of manhood 

 about them borne down by the masses of their own 

 learning ! Linnaeus rejoiced in the crisp health-giving 

 breeze, in which he seemed at home again after the 

 flat stagnant air of Holland. They sailed with fair 

 wind and weather to the Kattegat, 1 where the breeze 

 drove them within sight of the quivering coast-line of 

 Sweden and its low rocky girdle on the rim of the 

 sapphire sea; when suddenly the wind dropped and 

 they rolled about helplessly in the blue trough of the 

 waves, until it presently shifted to the opposite quarter 

 and carried them back upon the Jutland shore. The 

 cup of arrival was dashed from his lip ! 



Carl's diary shortens this part of his tale to a single 

 line : after a passage of five days from Rouen to Helsing- 

 borg, the wind shifting at the Kattegat and altering the 

 course of his journey, he says ' he landed at Helsing- 

 borg ; thence to Stenbrohult to see his aged father.' 



He leaves us to find out how he did it how he got 

 to Helsingborg from the Kattegat ; and if Stoever is 

 right in saying he went through Jutland, I can trace 

 for you his route. This is Denmark. What a different 

 landscape to the rock-bound coast of Sweden oppo- 

 1 Called after the old word Kati, a boat. 



