THROUGH SWEDEN. 
4i 
(ant and convenient than they are in fummer or autumn; at 
which (eafons, partly on account of the pavement, and partly on 
account of the dirt, they are often almoft impaffable. One layer 
of fnow on another, hardened by the froft, forms a furface more 
equal and agreeable to walk on, which is fometimes raifed more 
than a yard above the Rones of the ftreet. You are no longer 
(tunned by the irkfome noife of carriage-wheels; but this is 
exchanged for the tinkling of little bells, with which they deck 
their horfes before the fledges. The only wheels now to be feen 
in Stockholm are thofe of (mail carts, employed by men ler- 
vants of families to fetch water from the pump in a calk. This 
compound of cart and calk always (truck me as a very curious 
and extraordinary object; infomuch, that I once took the trouble 
of following it, in order to have a nearer view of the whimlical 
robe in which the fro(t had invefted it, and particularly of the 
variegated and fantaftical drapery in which the wheels were co¬ 
vered and adorned. This vehicle, with all its appertenances, 
afforded to a native of Italy a very lingular fpectacle. The horfe 
was wrapped up, as it feemed, in a mantle of white down, which 
under his breaft and belly was fringed with points and tufts of ice. 
Stalactical ornaments of the lame kind, fome of them to the 
length of a foot, were alfo attached to his nofe and mouth. The 
fervant that attended the cart had on a frock, which was en- 
crufted with a folid mats of ice. His eye-brows and hair jingled 
with icicles, which were formed by the adlion of the froft on his 
breath and perfpiration. Sometimes the water in the pump was 
Vol. I. G frozen. 
