Till far into the nineteenth century the Scandinavian countries had the bad distinction of being the most drunken in Europe: Linnæus as a scientist called attention to the national danger of drink. That Swedes and Norwegians are now the most abstemious of Europeans is a striking comment on the early Victorian maxim: "You can't make men sober by Act of Parliament."[127]
So heavenly are the environs of the city that they could not easily be spoiled; the Swedes have made the very most of the lavish gifts of Nature to add to the delights of their capital. They are not infected with a mania for cutting trees and building mile-long lines of slate and brick, nor apparently is every landowner consumed with a burning zeal to pile as many dwellings as he possibly can onto each square inch of ground. Parks are numerous and beautiful, largely because the woods are left alone.
Of the nine islands the largest except one and by far the most interesting is Djurgarden, so called because there was a deer-park in days gone by. A great part of its area is still left alone, forming a park almost unrivalled in the world. Wide stretches of primeval forest, miles of rockbound coast lapped by the rippling waters of the lake. At Skansen, midst the woods on elevated ground, is a splendid museum in the open air. Among the trees one keeps discovering all sorts of interesting things. Log houses with old furniture in which Swedes dressed as their fathers dressed play on musical instruments used of old. Other old cottages, moved from far, are boulder-built, turf-roofed, and hard mud-floored. Animals in cages, which are partly cut in rock, old Runic stones, old gravestones, old milestones are there too.
And in parts the aborigines are housed, just as if in their native wilds. A wonderful people are these Lapps. For more than a thousand years they have lived in close proximity to one of the most cultured of all races, with which they have had constant intercourse and trade; yet here they are, exactly as Tacitus describes the Fenni, untaught barbarians and a standing contradiction to Rousseau's theories about the noble savage. Modern anthropology smiles at Dr. Johnson's crude remark, "One set of savages is like another." Nevertheless the huts of the Lapps seem strangely to reproduce the general atmosphere of those of the South African Kafirs.[128] The way in which the Lapps have so long resisted the seductions of civilisation is all the more remarkable in contrast with their near cousins the Finns.
On the highest land, called Bredablick, rises a tall tower from which may be enjoyed a view that is one of the most individual upon earth. Miles and miles of rolling woodland, chiefly pine and birch, spread in almost endless folds and display almost every shade of green. Arms of water stretch away in all directions till in many cases they become so narrow that they are lost among the trees; the broad end of Mälar, myriad island lake, suggests itself on the western horizon, and, the very last thing one would naturally expect to see amid the silent woods, rises the great modern city with its towers and spires and domes and factory chimneys—the Venice of the North. Round the far horizon stand peaceful, peakless hills.[129]
A few miles north of Stockholm, far enough away to be beyond the furthest suburb of the town, a beautiful park slopes down to where the now narrowing and now widening Edsvik runs into the land. The property was once owned by Prince Ulrik, son of Charles XI., and from him has its name, Ulriksdal. Some of the most characteristic features of the scenery of two continents seem to be epitomised in the district all around. By the eternal forest of northern trees, and the constant clearings in glacial boulder-earth for farms, with wooden house and barn, by electric trolley cars and muddy roads, New England is recalled. Wide heather-covered wastes and gnarled old firs, thatched buildings here and there, do much to suggest the delightful landscapes of old Scotland.
Presumably it is the best of the land that has been cleared for crops, though it is not always very easy to declare why one acre is bearing artichokes[130] and the next one is left to the woods.
Approached through grand avenues of maple and lime and oak, surrounding three sides of a squared pierced by three tiers of windows, and surmounted by a black clock turret, smaller than many English country houses, is the Ulriksdal summer palace of the Swedish kings. It was erected in the seventeenth century by the renowned Field-Marshal Jacob de la Gardie, he who became the husband of Ebba Brahe, dearly loved by Gustavus Adolphus, to whom she was betrothed, though never wed. For the great king, whom half Europe in arms could not withstand, was unable to resist the pressure of his mother, intriguing queen, who would not have royal blood allied with common human clay. And by his German princess wife, whom he could never love, the king had no other child than the erratic Christina, brilliant and irresponsible as Mary Queen of Scots.
At this palace in 1871 the famous American explorer of Africa, Paul Du Chaillu, was received by King Charles XV. with Arcadian lack of ceremony that was rather disconcerting to the American conception of what royalty should do. The explorer could get no attention at the front door, but eventually raised some underling by going within and shouting up the stair. This official looked over the balusters and asked the intruder what he wanted. The king, he averred, was not at home, but when he learned that an invited guest stood there, he admitted that the monarch of two kingdoms was within. His Majesty was found at last, working on a picture in his shirt-sleeves, for he was a landscape painter of repute. As soon as he saw Du Chaillu approaching he proceeded to put on his coat.