September 25.
At sun-rise I took my departure from Wasa. The pines in the forest were stripped of their bark, so that vast tracts were covered with nothing but such naked trees. No more was left on each trunk, to the height of three ells or three and a half, than a small strip of bark, about the breadth of four fingers, generally on the north side, to prevent its being ... (here is a word not to be decyphered). The trees are left standing for six or seven years afterwards, and are then cut down close to the roots, being also headed a little above the naked part.
The heads or branches either serve for firing, or, as often happens, are left to rot on the ground.
Three miles below Wasa I recognised the Climbing Nightshade (Solanum Dulcamara). In the town itself I had noticed (Leonurus) Cardiaca, and Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). Near the shore grew Salix oleæfolia with its berries, (Hippophaë rhamnoides). It is known by the name of Finnbær or Surbær, (Finn-berries, or Sour berries). The fruit is situated below the leaves, as in the Alder. The footstalks are two lines long. Berries bluntly oval, of a tawny orange-colour, three or four lines long, smooth, sour, having a watery pulp mixed with ochraceous matter. Seed solitary, roundish-oblong, slightly compressed, obtuse, attached by its lower edge to a membrane which enfolds it. When this cover is removed, the seed itself appears brown and polished, having a longitudinal groove at each side. The fishermen eat these berries bruised,
by way of sauce to their fresh fish, but I thought them rather too acid.
September 26.
I passed Christina (Christinestadt), but before coming to that place, noticed at Nerpis a very extensive tract of land, which had formerly been a fine meadow, the soil being extremely good. But at present it was so entirely overrun with tumps (originally perhaps formed of Carex cæspitosa) that it produced little or nothing. These tumps were crowded almost over one another, and were overgrown by Polytrichum (Hair-moss), which had come to its full stature, and rendered most of them nearly black. There was scarcely room for the cattle to make their way to any food between the tumps.
In the passages of all the houses hung nets, used for catching bears. These are made of ropes of Lindenbast, (the inner bark of the lime-tree, Tilia europæa,) full as thick as a bridle or rein. The meshes
when stretched are each three quarters of an ell wide. The height of the net is equal to the stature of a man. Such nets, supported by poles, are set up in a line of one hundred fathoms in extent, the lower side close to the ground. The bear is driven into them by the people hunting him on all sides.