38 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



25,000 tons of copper yearly; now, however, it 

 has gradually decreased to a quarter of that 

 amount. At nine the next morning we started 

 by the railway to Gefle, a clean, neat seaport town 

 on the Bothnia, about sixty miles to the east, and 

 by taking this route, instead of going by Stock- 

 holm, we saved a considerable bend. We reached 

 Gefle by one ; the train was slow and made many 

 stoppages, but all things were conducted with as 

 much order and regularity as on an English line* 

 I remarked that all the engines and carriages 

 were English. Gefle is one of the principal sea- 

 port towns in Sweden, containing about 9,000 

 inhabitants, well-built and clean, with neat granite 

 quays, and presents a strange contrast to the 

 dingy little town we had left in the morning. A 

 good trade is carried on in the summer, both 

 with England and America. I had two or three 

 naturalist friends in the town, upon whom I called 

 — one of them a keen oologist ; and the sight of 

 his cabinet, enriched with many rare Lapland 

 eggs, given to him by the late Mr. Wooley, on his 

 way from Lapland, only made me the more anxious 

 to reach that (to the naturalist) " promised land." 

 We were told now we should have no sledging, as 

 the roads were bad, for eight Swedish miles out 

 of the town, and such was the case. This was 

 annoying : we had hitherto travelled comfortably 



