OLAND AND GOTHLAND 125 



in Holland, where they keep their hats on. The clergy- 

 man wore large full lawn sleeves, and a cope of crimson 

 velvet massively embroidered with a gold cross. The 

 altar also had a cross, and the lamb and flag. As the 

 people were filing out, I noticed they were all well- 

 behaved, and all alike ugly, with a knob at the end of 

 the nose, and with high cheek-bones a sort of Russian 

 features. They are less usually fair than the Swedes. 

 The clang of unmusical bells helps out the somewhat 

 Russian feeling of the place so outlandishly ancient, so 

 feudal, so un-Swedish, unless with a dash of Charles XII. 

 a warlike place, such a contrast to Borgholm, so amus- 

 ingly picturesque withal, having a muddle of every old- 

 fashioned idea pent up within its walls. One might make 

 fifty illustrations for a book in Wisby alone. How the 

 little Goths enjoy sliding down the stone-shoot by the 

 carefully dovetailed stone steps that lead from the cathe- 

 dral to the upper streets built on the limestone ledge ! 

 Many of the ladies evidently teach in Sunday-schools; 

 I saw ' klass-bok ' in their hands. We had some trouble 

 to find a church where service was performed, as on 

 approaching some six or seven churches we found them 

 all in ruins, the style Romanesque, or decorated Gothic 

 rightly here so-called, ranging from the thirteenth 

 century onwards. St. Lars and Drotten, 1 within twenty 

 or thirty yards of each other, are both round-arched. 

 St. Lars has huge towers, which were doubtless built for 

 defence. There are no straight streets ; but all dart off 

 1 Holy Trinity. 



