I3§ KALM'S ENGLAND. 



fuel, although there also they spun it out with sticks, 

 risqvistar, cut in the hedges. But a couple of Swedish 

 miles, or about 14 English miles from London, and in 

 places to which they had not any flowing water to carry 

 up boats loaded with coals, for the most part bare wood 

 was used, either from the trees they had cut down in re- 

 pairing hedges, or from dug-up tree-roots, or fuel of some 

 other kind, as brackens, Ormbunkar, furze, &c. Tin 

 and silver-gildings soon took a black colour from the 

 coal smoke, if they were not often scoured or cleaned. 

 Statues of former kings, such as those of King Charles I., 

 King Charles II., King James II., looked just as if the 

 image of a nigger or of a crossing -sweeper, en Morians 

 eller Korstens-fajares bild, had been set up, only in 

 royal costume. 



When the snow had lain a couple of days on the roofs, 

 it began to acquire a black colour. The houses were all 

 either blackish or grey from the coal smoke. To a foreigner, 

 and one unused to it, this coal-smoke was very annoying, 

 besvarlig, for it affected the chest excessively, especially 

 at night. I found in my own case that however free I 

 was from cough when I now and again went into London 

 from the country, I got [T. I. p. 164] one always as soon 

 as I had been there a day, which never failed to be the 

 case, even farther on in the summer when the air was warm, 

 and there were not large fires in the town ; but as soon 

 as I left London, and had been two days out in the 

 country, I lost my cough. All who lived far out in the 

 country, and were not accustomed to coal-smoke, even 

 native Englishmen, had the same tale whenever they 

 came up to London on their business. But when any- 

 one had been for a time in London he no longer had so 

 very manifest a sensation of it. Nevertheless, I am not 

 altogether indisposed to believe that this great coal-smoke 

 is even one of the reasons that cause so many in England 



