WlSTGOTA RESA ROUND LAKE VENERN 177 



whitewashed ; it was the ruthless taste of those times). 

 The organ decoration, he says, is fine which seems to 

 speak less for the music ; but LinnaBus did not care for 

 any music excepting that of birds. Midsummer Day 

 is still very popular for weddings; the newly-married 

 couples go about all wreathed and garlanded : one often 

 meets a gay bridal party. From here Linnaeus worked 

 eastward to Skara, where he admires the old Zoological 

 Garden to the south-east of the town, and ' the fine 

 church, great and high,' which the passing traveller 

 by train views only as a pretty twin-spired church 

 with deeply-buttressed square towers. Skara is a 

 place that has seen better days ; it was once a famous 

 episcopal town, and this is its cathedral, consecrated in 

 1151 ; and before that Skara was the centre of heathen- 

 dom in Gotaland, just as Upsala was in Svealand. The 

 cathedral is, with the exception of the miniature 

 cathedral of Husaby, the oldest in Sweden. It was 

 restored in a mixed style, to make it as nearly like 

 Upsala as possible, when Upsala set the fashion to 

 Swedish builders. There are two square Romanesque 

 towers at the west end, and two sharply-pointed spires 

 at the chancel end. The interior is unspoiled by restor- 

 ation. Going still eastward, making for the Billingen 

 Range, Linnaeus passed Brunsbo (June 26th), Skarf, and 

 Hojentorp, where he found tobacco successfully grown, 

 and panish and English sheep kept, and a shepherds' 

 school that is, a school for shepherds to learn their 

 business. We have no such institution; our notion of 

 VOL. II. N 



