NINTH LETTER
Which tells of Swedish lakeland; the commodious craft on which one sails through it; with some side remarks on the coinage of the country and the honesty of the people. Returns to the four great lakes, and tells of hill-climbing by steamer and going down hill by the same route across Vettern and Venern until the falls of Trollhätten and Gotenburg are reached.
Lake Venern, June 20.
My dear Judicia,
While I am sailing across this magnificent lake I must indite another epistle to you, telling you of the fascinations of Swedish lakeland. There will be plenty of time, too, to write you all about it, for Lake Venern is eighty miles long, the largest lake, if I am not mistaken, in all Europe, and our steamer traverses almost its whole length. Let me advise you, if you ever have another long holiday, to spend it among Sweden’s lakes. You have seen the Swiss lakes more than once, and the Italian lakes and the Cumberland Lake region of England, but in many respects Sweden’s lakes surpass them all in size, in picturesqueness, and in the convenient and delightful way one may get from one to the other. It is true that there is no Mount Pilatus in Sweden, or Monte Rosa, but there are other charms which fully make up for the lack of the mountain scenery one finds in France and Italy. And as for the little “waters” which one finds in Cumberland, they pale into insignificance beside these great reservoirs of the purest, most translucent water on the earth’s surface.
But the great advantage that they have over every other lake region in the world is that you can see all the great lakes in a three-days’ journey without leaving the very comfortable steamer on which you embark at Stockholm.
At Lucerne you can have a fine excursion on the Vierwaldstättersee, but, unless you come back by land, you must return by the same route to Lucerne. Your steamer cannot climb the hills and get over into Lake Geneva, or strike across country and find its way into Lake Thun and Lake Brienz; but that is just what you can do in Sweden. You can journey clear across the lower end of Scandinavia, from the Baltic to the Kattegat, passing through a continuous succession of the most delightful scenes, through rivers and canals, across lake after lake, past ancient castles that will tell you the whole story of Sweden, until at last you come out on the western sea and land at Sweden’s second greatest city, Gotenburg. In this journey you even climb some considerable hills without leaving your stateroom, unless you choose, or your comfortable seat on the steamer’s deck, and at some places in your journey you are more than three hundred feet above your starting point on the Baltic, or your arrival point on the Kattegat.
But let us begin at the beginning, for this journey is worth describing in detail. To begin with, the craft on which we set sail is no little motor boat or steam launch, as you might imagine when I tell you of its ability to climb hills, but a very substantial and commodious little steamer, with quite elegant staterooms, upholstered abundantly in red satin, and with two wide berths and ample toilet accommodations.