i86 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



In this journey he found the aspect of the country 

 greatly changed. The sea-wind drives the vegetation 

 inland. He calls Gothenburg the most beautiful town 

 in the whole kingdom, and rather smaller than Upsala. 

 It would astonish him to see it now, with its 77,000 

 inhabitants, while Upsala has not 16,000. It is seated 

 on the Gothic Elbe (Gotha Elf), this northern Ham- 

 burg, the most European city of Sweden. Then it had 

 only the appearance of a small Dutch town, having 

 been built by the Dutch settlers in 1621. He admires 

 its quays, gardens, and natural-history collections, 

 especially the fauna, headed by a fine eland. 



A director of the East India Company here gave 

 him a bird-of-paradise, and other people gave him 

 many other natural curiosities insects, corals, nautilus 

 shells, crystals, and treasures from foreign parts which 

 he names at full length, and which he packed care- 

 fully and sent home. People seem to have paid him 

 much attention ; he says, ' the learned Bishop Wallin 

 gave himself the trouble to come and learn ' of him. 

 He devoted the next two days to describing the natural 

 history of the neighbourhood. He gives a long list of 

 plants, including the thrift, 1 growing in part of the 

 dried morass by the outfall on the battery island of 

 Billingen, which is not covered by the feeble tides of 

 the Kattegat. The sea-thrift strangely interests natu- 

 ralists. Linnaeus always notices it, and Kingsley is also 

 anxious about it. He calls it ' one of those things 

 1 Statice armeria, or Armeria maritima. 



