WASTGOTA RESA-ROUND LAKE VENERN 169 



west front shows a long and changeful history. The 

 church is built on an ancient foundation of granite 

 blocks, after the manner of most Swedish buildings, 

 from a wooden outhouse to Lund Cathedral. All the 

 eaves and roofs are sheathed in copper, and every 

 buttress is roofed with the same, in sheets which project 

 and give the same amount of shadow that a coping- 

 stone would afford. The outer pinnacles are chimneys 

 necessary in this climate. The interior is of white 

 stone, and peculiar in its low vaulting and its deeply 

 groined roof, from which hang massy candelabra. The 

 first shock of novelty over, this copper-sheathed church, 

 with its old Romanesque tower, grows upon one, for all 

 the Renaissance barbarism of its copper-sheathed spire. 

 Linnaeus must have looked at it, for this conspicuous 

 object was just then newly erected. This tall steeple, 

 310 feet high, and the loftiest in Sweden, is a valuable 

 landmark in the intricate navigation of some branches 

 of the Malar Lake. It is visible right across to the 

 Thorshalla River. The two church towers can stare at 

 each other, for Thorshalla's is the loftiest scaled spire 

 in Sweden. 1 



The gardens now in June are full of fruit blossom. 

 Cowslips are still plentiful. It is like early May in 

 England. The windows are full of handsome florists' 

 plants in bloom ; cacti, Japan lilies, &c. Westerns is 

 one of the few places in Sweden where vegetables for 

 the market are grown in quantity enough to be talked 

 1 H. Marryatt. 



