98 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



one would get up and ride off at two in the morning to 

 see this gold-mine now. 



On May 24 they came to Wexio, which was more 

 interesting. Here Linnaeus took his companions to 

 see his old school and the gymnasium, revisiting his old 

 haunts, ' remembered with the freshness of yesterday.' 

 Any old functionaries still attached to the place may 

 well have been astonished to see the bad boy of the 

 school come back in honour and glory, at the head of 

 a state-directed scientific mission. He called on Dr. 

 Rothman, who must have been delighted with the 

 result of his kindness to Linnaeus as a boy. The 

 party stayed here till deep into the 26th, taking up 

 their night-quarters at Lenhofda, where a storm obliged 

 them to remain till 3 P.M. on the 27th, beguiling the 

 time with their collections and notes on the dyeing 

 materials they had found in the mosses, and noticing 

 the country candles, here made from the Lichen cande- 

 lariuSj growing on old walls. Here they saw oaks, 

 growing unusually tall and straight for Sweden. 



It is a pity, Linnaeus says, that the oak, the most 

 useful tree in the kingdom for shipbuilding, besides its 

 other uses, in Sweden grows very crooked and knotty, 

 rarely so tall and slender as the foreign oaks. They 

 pushed on to Kalmar without sleep, arriving there at 

 six in the morning. A week of Swedish travel is as 

 good as a fortnight elsewhere, owing to the long days. 

 The town of Kalmar afforded them a good view of castles, 

 batteries, trenches, redoubts, and other fortifications ; its 



