268 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



On the 29th he describes Ystad (on his second 

 visit). It has two churches one a town church, dating 

 from the thirteenth century, the other a Hosier or 

 hospital church founded in 1267. Though there were 

 two surgeons in the town, medical science was in a bad 

 way for lack of Materia Medica. Divers animals were 

 kept in the surgery (Apotlieke) occupying the place ol 

 drugs. Linnasus soon improved this. The shore also 

 occupied his attention. From the dangerous Sand- 

 hammer reef, some seventeen miles east of Ystad, the 

 low coast of SkSne runs east and west for about seventy 

 miles. Ystad is now a town of 7,000 inhabitants. 



From Ystad he returned to Lund, then (July 1) to 

 Krageholm, and Kyssegard, and Sofdeborg, a lately- 

 restored palace belonging to Count Piper, surrounded 

 by the sunny parks and shady glades of Sofde forest. 

 Linnaeus admires the plasterwork of the great saloon on 

 the ground floor. 'It is a masterpiece,' he says, f and, 

 though it has stood one hundred years, is as fresh as the 

 first day it was modelled. The subjects are from Scrip- 

 ture and Heroic history ; the figures not a bit like plaster, 

 but like beings floating in the air.' He proceeded it 

 was quite a procession, for a cavalcade of admirers always 

 accompanied him to Everlof, Hackeberga, and Toppe- 

 g&rde (another seat of Count Piper), and back to Lund 

 again. Thence, leaving that part of the country, having 

 looked into its dyes, its curiosities, and its potentialities, 

 he went to Barseback on the Sound, and Landscrona. 



Until the railway (round by Esslof Junction) was 



