THEOUGH CONTINENTAL EUEOPE. 
847 
especially the Prussian and the Saxon, as well as their higher institutions of 
learning are the best in the world; and these constitute a foundation on 
which her statesman may securely build. 
Originally, it was from Berlin that I had rather thought to turn backward 
toward Paris. But when once so near to their borders, the seductive calls 
of the usually neglected Scandinavian and other northern states—of Hoi* 
stein, of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, of Finland, Russia and Poland— 
were not to be resisted. And so, regardless of imperial programmes, I left the 
Prussian capital only the day before the certain arrival of the royal heads 
of the two great eastern powers, and made my way to Hamburg, to Lubeck 
and Copenhagen; spending parts of three days at the beautiful Danish 
capital,—in the University, the Thorwaldsen Museum, the Royal Palace, the 
Exchange and the work shops,—and then pushed on across the waters of the 
Baltic to Malmo and Lund, in Sweden; stopping at the latter place long 
enough to examine the different departments of the ancient University; 
then northward, through a dreary and rather barren looking country to 
Yongkoping ; thence to Falkoping; westward to Gottenbnrg on the Kategat, 
(where I found an Americanized Swede, running, what is probably the largest 
existing establishment for the framing and shipping of wooden buildings to 
many parts of the Scandinavian world); thence across the Kategat and Skager 
Rack to Christiania, the handsome and prosperous capital of Norway, seat of 
the only Norwegian university—a flourishing institution with ;the usual 
faculties and nearly a thousand students. I greatly desired to travel from 
here northward into the interior, but my limit of time forbade, compelling a 
postponement of that interesting journey to some other day. 
My eye now rested on Stockholm, “Venice of the north,” the location of 
the chief polytechnic, nautical and agricultural schools of Sweden, and upon 
Upsala, a little farther north, seat of the other one of the two royal Swedish 
universities, and home of the great Linnaeus, once a professor there. A 
Norwegian railway and stage-coach, my own legs, and finally the Swedish rail¬ 
ways all proved good servants, and in due time my plans were realized. 
I had come to what I had thought of as a bleak and uninviting city ; and 
lo ! the charms of Geneva, Genoa and Venice combined were there to en¬ 
chain me ! Like Venice, Stockholm is buiit upon islands, with so many in¬ 
lets of the bay on every hand that it, too, seems to have risen out of the sea, 
though to a greater height, so that the rocky foundations on which the city 
rests are bold and conspicuous. The palace of the king is an immense quad¬ 
rangular structure, nearly as conspicuous as the palace of the Doge would be 
on the high hills of Genoa. Other magnificent public buildings are visible 
from every point, and the general effect is remarkably fine and picturesque. 
The desire was there to spend the cool (I may almost say cold, for I had con¬ 
stant need of my overcoat), and bracing summer; but the northeastward limit 
of my travels was yet more than five hundred miles farther on, and ere Iliad 
time to remonstrate with the fates, I found myself on board the elegant little 
steamer Aura, gliding over the dark waters of the Baltic sea, and among its 
