306 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



stand close before her. The queen was more than once 

 informed that dinner was on the table and getting cold.' 

 Busching could not edge in what he wanted to say. ' She 

 asked him, " Do you think it advisable to enlighten 

 the lower classes ? " Two sides being shown, she agreed 

 that it was advisable to give them useful enlightenment.' 



But to return to her younger days. ' I pass the sum- 

 mer at Drottningholm,' writes the queen, ' which is not 

 only fine, but the most charming palace in Europe.' 

 She talks of her newly-built temple of Amen ' (Hymen). 1 



Here stands the celebrated faience vase from the 

 Alhambra. How it came here no one knows. Could 

 the King of Spain have sent it for Louisa Ulrica's 

 collection as a bribe for exchange of Linnasus ? 



Linnaeus often went to Drottningholm. The summer 

 vacation at Upsala lasts three months, and the winter 

 one six weeks. In these weeks of leisure Linnaaus used 

 to go to Ulrichsdal and Drottningholm. He would 

 very likely often have visited the latter palace on re- 

 turning from his lectures at the Board of Mines at 

 Stockholm, taking his boat from the Riddarholni, where 

 the gulls at noon fly about the sterns of the vessels, cack- 

 ling like a lot of live-packed poultry. It is a delightful 

 excursion on a June day sailing to Drottningholm, with 

 sails glancing in the breezy sunshine, among the change- 

 ful views of lake and promontory on the Malar, bordered 

 with pine-fringed rock smoothed by glacier action, and 

 midway betwixt the pine and stone the golden buds of 

 1 Marrvatt. 



