328 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



guns, and above all for the old woman as a guide. We 

 found the real Hammarby at last, and were shown over 

 the house, left as the Linnaeus family had left it. 



M. Pontin says, l On account of some unknown 

 family arrangements made by the descendants of Lin- 

 naeus, this house has never been occupied since his 

 decease.' This is a mistake : his widow continued to live 

 at Hammarby, and we were shown the bedroom that she 

 occupied in the ground floor after her widowhood. But 

 he is right in describing the sensations experienced on 

 entering this house which, with its furniture, has 

 remained undisturbed for about a century as compar- 

 able to those felt on crossing the threshold to the atrium 

 of an excavated house in Pompeii. ' All the surround- 

 ing objects are relics and recollections of bygone times, 

 consecrated in a sanctuary for future generations.' 



Linnaeus's Hammarby, as it is still fondly called by 

 the natives, is a group of three wooden houses painted 

 red, with white doors, shutters, and sash-bars, set round a 

 small square garden plot facing the south, commanding 

 a rich and happy prospect of meadows and gardens, 

 from among which peep the village roofs, the land- 

 scape further cheered by cattle and great hayricks. The 

 domain is sheltered by a crescent of pine woods from all 

 northern points ; the distant fir woods in the horizon 

 also break the force of the wind sweeping upwards from 

 the plain. Upsala lies away to the right, north-west. 

 This landscape, though not the perfect scenery that 

 Linnaeus considered it, is charming as the western light 



