8 SWEDISH SUPERSTITIONS 



knowledge of this country, that is, as to its extent and rel- 

 ative location of cities and states. This is not to be won- 

 dered at, for the same I believe is true as to the general 

 American knowledge of the localities in Sweden ; and 

 what care we here for the relative position of such hard- 

 sounding names of Swedish counties as Bohuslau, Dalsland, 

 Westergotland, Ostergotland, Kalmar, Skaue, and Smal- 

 and ; so you must not think that we Swedes are very ig- 

 norant and verdant because we do not know the geography 

 of the United States, and this the more, as in our Swedish 

 school atlases, Sweden and Norway occupy a couple of 

 double pages, whereas only a small portion of a page is 

 devoted to the whole of North America, and we naturally 

 come to the conclusion that distances in the United States 

 are small as compared with Sweden, and it is only by 

 travelling through the United States that we get a proper 

 idea of the vast extent of the country. I make this expla- 

 nation that you may understand what follows : about 

 fourteen years ago, when I left Sweden for the United 

 States, a number of friends called on me and said they had 

 heard I was going to Boston, U. S. A., and would I be so 

 kind as to take a letter and message with me for some re- 

 lation or friend of theirs. Oh, yes. I took about twenty- 

 five letters addressed to persons in Illinois, Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota, and New Sweden, Maine, my friends saying 

 that such places were not far from where I was going, 

 and they and I had an idea that they were all suburbs of 

 Boston, and that it would be a pleasure to deliver the let- 

 ters in person. 



When I arrived in Boston, I met an American gentle- 

 man to whom I had a letter of introduction, and after tak- 

 ing dinner with him, he asked me what I meant to do. I 

 said I was going to work in a day or so, but that I had 

 first a number of letters to hand round to friends in the 

 suburbs of Boston, and I would be obliged to him if he 



