DALECARLIAN JOURNEY 
101 
Mora, where they stayed over the following day, 
enjoying the hospitality of the seventy-five-year-old 
sub-dean, Johan Emporelius, father of the zoologist 
of the party. After looking over his fine library, and 
noting the local dresses and customs, they saw 
through the rectory window a young cuckoo in the 
nest of a wagtail, and the foster-parent feeding the 
young. 
On the 9th they bade farewell to the liberal rector, 
climbed Gafshusberg, passed by Vestberg (having 
no time to visit it), and late in the evening, after much 
wandering and trouble in crossing a river, they came 
to Prestgarden. A curious custom here was observed, 
namely on certain pines about 120 lists were nailed 
up; one pine having 56, another 35, a third 14, and 
so on. Each “ list ” was 9 inches long, 3 fingers 
broad, and black with cut letters; they were notices of 
deaths; the oldest date being 1670, thence to the 
present day. Each village had its tree. 
As usual the clergyman took them in; in Alfdalen 
he was Eric Nasman, father of one of the party, and 
the record in the diary is “ hospitalise He was a 
man who kept abreast of the time, and was the first 
to plant potatoes in Alfdalen, sharing them with the 
country folk, to vary their diet of bark-bread, or malt- 
dust bread. Runic letters were still in use here, the 
only spot where this old writing persisted. Hykieberg 
was climbed, described and an inscription cut on a 
pine, 11 July, 1734. In 1722 an academic thesis by 
Z. Holenius mentioned the rare plants found here. 
At noon the march was resumed, and a forest, more 
than thirty miles in extent, had to be traversed to 
reach Sarna; the good road now ceased and a rough 
stony one followed. It was past midnight before they 
reached Sarna, where they were housed at the priest’s, 
Gabriel Floraeus. Next day was Sunday. The 
people here (more allied to the Norwegians than to 
the Swedes) were not on good terms with the inhabit¬ 
ants of Alfdalen, whom they nicknamed “ bellowers ” 
