184 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT 



vantage of spacious outer anchorages in Lumpar Bay 

 and Led-Sund. The only access from the southward 

 is the passage we have described, which, though offer- 

 ing sufficient depth of water, is difficult to navigate, 

 from its intricacy and narrowness. The northern en- 

 trance, straitened by the position of Presto Island, 

 may be easily defended. Thus it may be seen that 

 a naval power possessing one shore of the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, and coveting the other, as well as a pre- 

 ponderance in the Baltic, could not establish a more 

 politic base of operations. 



Landward, the position was equally advantageous. 

 Natural enclosures restricted its defence within nar- 

 row limits. At the distance of a few miles, an arm 

 of the sea, in conjunction with a chain of lochs, ran 

 from north to south, and almost isolated the promon- 

 tory on which the fortresses stood, leaving only here 

 and there a narrow causeway as means of communi- 

 cation. Nearer, a similar enclosure offered a second 

 barrier. A third may be said to exist in a rocky 

 ridge which stretches from a point of the northern 

 entrance to the sea-shore, forming almost a line of 

 circumvallation. Art had fixed on this last as the 

 point for its defences. At either extremity of the 

 ridge was built a round tower, and below, on the sea- 

 shore, stood the main work, a large fortified barracks. 

 These three formed an irregular sort of triangle, of 

 which the main work was the apex. On the shores 

 of Presto Island, opposite the northern tower, or Fort 



