6 
TRAVELS 
land ftage-coachcs are found in all directions, fo that you may 
with eafe travel to whatever quarter your inclination or bufinefs 
calls you. Even where there are navigable rivers and canals, thefe 
carriages abound at every hour of night and day. As to the com- 
parifon which the adv ocate of the North draws between the inns 
of Sweden and thofe of Italy, I fliall not difcufs its truth or falfe- 
hood, as I might be fufpected of partiality for the latter, which is 
my native country. I fliall only obferve, that between Helfin- 
burg and Stockholm, a diftance of near four hundred miles,* 
nothing that can be confidered as an inn is to be met with : 
whereas there is no part of Italy where, in the fame fpace, you 
would not come to fifty towns, in neatnefs and elegance, and 
every comfort of life, equal if not fuperior even to the capital 
of Sweden; that in Italy, the South perhaps excepted, it is im- 
poffible to travel twenty miles without meeting with an inn, whilft 
there is not fo much as one to be found in Stockholm itfelf; that 
a fmall village in Italy is better provided with all the neceffaries 
and conveniencies of life, than the mod; eminent provincial towns 
of Sweden : in fliort, I fliall anfwer the Swedifh author to whom 
I allude in his own words: “ If any one wifh to travel through 
“ Sweden with tolerable eafe, he will do well to provide himfelf 
“ with a carriage, as well as with bread and wine, and other provi- 
“ fions,” which precautions are certainly quite unneceffaryin Italy.f 
* Italian or Englifh, which are nearly the fame. 
f The fame Swedifh writer fays, “ that if Don Quixote miflook all the inns 
“ he met with for caftles, in Sweden he would have miltaken all the houfes for 
“ inns.” There is not any country however with which I am acquainted, where 
the houfes have lefs the appearance of inns than in Sweden. 
