ioo THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



isle of Oland acts as a defence to the sound, which is 

 usually calm as a glassy lake. Linnaeus wrote a long 

 letter to his wife. 



We had better weather than Linnaeus had in travelling 

 from Wexio to Oland, journeying thither at just the 

 same time of year. The sun made it warm but not 

 oppressive. The ground becomes less broken soon after 

 leaving Wexio, and beautified with pools and meadows; 

 at Aryd a lovely stream flows beneath limestone ledges 

 by a blue lake, whose surrounding boulders are covered 

 with green velvet moss. The scenery grows wilder 

 again as we pass another lake to the east ; and again 

 another lake with islands, red wooden houses, and a 

 timber-station, with boats ; and Hofmantorp so fresh and 

 pretty with its blue waters, the tall chimneys of its 

 factories half hidden among the fir trees ; another and 

 another lake appear, forming a chain of sapphires through 

 the land. Here the stones have less of the moraine 

 character and more that of the natural rock dis- 

 integrated by generations of fir trees. Then the hills 

 become rugged, and on the crisp sparkling lake is 

 Lessebo, another timber-station, busy with donkey- 

 engines and small trucks on a line to run in the sawn 

 planks, &c. Many ofthe people here wear sabots. 



We talked to two girls from the Swedish colony in 

 Chicago, who were just now travelling home to see their 

 friends. One of them had been six years in America, 

 and wore all her best fashionable clothes. The other 

 girl, who spoke English less well, had lived on a country 



