WASTGOTA RESA ROUND LAKE VENERN 165 



as Professor Linnaeus left his house in the Svartbacks- 

 gatan on Thursday, June 12, 1746, taking the good 

 Enkoping road, in a direct line from his own house. He 

 set out on horseback, for he meant to ride to Westerns 

 and get on his ground as speedily as he could, leaving 

 the further manner of his route for circumstances to 

 determine. He proposed to travel great part of his 

 way on foot, for, * as every naturalist knows, one's 

 power of observation is comparatively limited on 

 horseback. When the eye is carried forward by an 

 external agency, and its motion is not altogether regu- 

 lated by the will, many minute objects are too imper- 

 fectly seen to convey a definite image, and, however 

 often one may dismount, many slight suggestions that 

 would be tested on foot are allowed to pass without 

 verification.' l On foot one is one's own master and has 

 one's eyes at command. Even nowadays, with trains 

 and steamers convenient, or presumed to be so, cross- 

 country travelling is always tedious and difficult in 

 Sweden ; for, once off the main lines of rail or boat, 

 one gets involved in a mesh work of junctions that do 

 not fit and boats that do not run ; where the chances 

 are that the very thing one most reckoned upon as a 

 motive power is siting that is, shut up immovably. 

 One hundred and fifty years ago the rate of travelling 

 must have been incalculably slow, except in winter, 

 when, land and water being all one white marble 

 crust of ice and snow, the lakes and rivers presented 

 1 Hooker and Ball's Travels in Morocco. 



