174 
TRAVELS 
neys, with whatever they have got for the market, of three or 
four hundred Englifh miles. They have been known to travel 
with their fledges about two hundred miles in ten or twelve days. 
As there is generally no other mode of travelling in Sweden, or in 
the North, during the winter, than by means of fledges, the va¬ 
riety of them is fo great, that when .the time arrived deflined for 
us to purfue our journey northward, our variety of choice of fe- 
veral kinds was not a little perplexing. They were not only dif¬ 
ferent in ornament and form, but alfo in their conflrudtion and 
manner of accommodating the traveller. When a perfon under¬ 
takes a long journey in an unufual manner, his prudence never 
fuffers him to believe that enough has been done ; and embarraff- 
ments are encreafed through an over anxious multiplication of 
the meafures that are adopted for avoiding them. But there 
were really fome circumflances that obliged us to be very cir- 
cumfpebt and nice in our felection of the Hedge that was to 
carry us in our intended expedition from Stockholm towards the 
north. The great and covered fledges, built like the body of a 
carriage, and placed on fkates, are certainly the warmefl, the moA 
fociable, and in every refpect the moft commodious ; but thefe 
were by no means adapted to a journey through Finland. Here 
it is neceflary to have fledges of a certain determinate width, 
fuch as can be drawn by one horfe along the narrow roads, or 
.rather in the ruts or tracks of this country. In many places the 
roads arc bordered on both fides by fnow to the height of five 
.or flx feet, forming as it were two ramparts, between which you 
arc 
