The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

Roxen Locks.

Another stretch of the canal brought us to Lake Roxen, a wide and beautiful expanse, the passage through it requiring an hour. At the western end of it is the town of Berg, where a hill is to be surmounted by a series of locks, eleven in number, opening one into another, and the process requires so much time that we can leave the ship and make an excursion to an interesting and ancient church in the neighborhood. It is the Vetra-Kloster, Gothic in style, and built in 1128, when Inge II. was king in Sweden, and he is buried in it. The Douglas family of Scotland, in the time of Cromwell, came to this place to find a safe retreat, and they became famous in the wars of Sweden. They are interred right royally in this sanctuary. The mansion they occupied stands conspicuously on the borders of the beautiful lake, commanding splendid views of this lovely scenery. Villages are scattered over a rich country, and the spires of churches pointing heavenward tell the pious hopes of a people whose God is the Lord. The church stands in the midst of a large graveyard, and this is filled with flowers and shrubs and shade trees, and the monumental stones bear dates of great antiquity. The portal of the church was once the prison of a convent which was attached to the church, for this was built when Romanism ruled this region as well as southern Europe. The floor is of stone, and the aisles are of tombstones bearing inscriptions in German, Swedish, and Latin; epigrammatic and striking some of them are, and have silently preached to the passer-by for some centuries. “Mors certa, hora incerta,” and “Hodie mihi, cras tibi,” are not very sententious, but they have their point on a gravestone.

In a stone sarcophagus of very singular form, with a long inscription upon it, lies the body of Inge II.; wooden effigies of unknown personages, divine or human alike unintelligible to me, keep the dead monarch company in his sleep of the ages. Another chapel contains two sarcophagi, in which side by side through successive centuries the royal ashes rest of those whose names are now forgotten, but might be spelled out, if it were worth the trouble. And in another chapel are the tombs of the Scotch Douglases, who fled their own country and found glory and graves, that’s all, in this retired spot in the heart of Sweden. For this is purely a rural church, far from the town and all the busy haunts of men, a fitting place for worship, and a comely spot for graves. It has been used for both, more than seven hundred years. The avarice of man has not encroached upon its acres, nor coveted its stones.

Returning from our excursion, we heard the sound of children’s voices, and were led to a neat school-house in a pleasant enclosure, retired from the street, and being in the pursuit of knowledge we turned in to see and hear. About fifty children were receiving instruction from a master, who courteously bade us enter, and proceeded with his work. All the scholars, and they were of both sexes, were standing, and reading in concert from a history of Sweden. The reading being finished, the teacher put questions to them on the portion they had read, which they answered promptly, and showed lively interest in the lesson. Around the walls were suspended maps of the world and of the several countries, and there were black-boards and all needful appliances, such as would belong to a well appointed school. In the Universal Exhibition at Paris I had seen a Swedish school-house with its furniture, &c., and had remarked that no country made a better exhibition of the apparatus for educating children than Sweden.

Returning from the visit to the Vetra-Kloster, and its graves of the kings and the Douglases, we found that the boat had made its way through the eleven locks and was once more fairly launched on the peaceful bosom of the grand canal. It was the hour for dining, and the table was spread on deck, awnings overhead and at the sides to shelter us from the cool wind while eating. The Swedish dinner, even on a canal-boat, was good, preceded by the inevitable schnapps and radishes and other appetizers, and followed by a tolerable soup, fine fish, veal, puddings, and various trimmings needless to mention. I give you the bill of fare merely to show that there is enough to eat all the world over, and that you are not likely to suffer for want of comfortable food, even on a canal in the heart of Sweden.

We pass through many villages, each with its venerable church, and houses shaded with overhanging trees, farms well tilled, and now smiling with growing harvests and heavy clover. I saw no Indian corn, though I looked for it often. Probably the warm weather is too short-lived for the crop to ripen. No women were working in the fields. But we came to a drawbridge, and whistling for some one to open it, a woman ran from her house with the lever in her hand, ground away as for dear life, and by the time we reached it the draw was open for us to pass through. The poor woman was exhausted by the severe exertion, her lips were white as snow, and she looked ready to faint as we glided by her, and the pilot gave her a caution to keep a better lookout next time.

And now we cross another lake, Boren by name, the most beautiful of any we have yet seen. This frequent change from the monotony of the canal to the lovely scenery of these lakes, imparts a charm to the journey across the country which we did not anticipate. We now come to Motala, where the greatest Swedish iron-works are located. An English company has possession of one of the most valuable iron-mines, and the Swedish government has set up a vast establishment here for the building of locomotives, iron-clad steamers, monitors, &c., which are said to be equal to any that are made in the world. The boat had to lie here for freight long enough for us to go through all the works, which were freely open to our inspection.

We enter Lake Wetter, one of the largest lakes in Europe. We are soon out at sea, at least so far that we cannot see the land. It is very rough, with high wind. One of the sailors assured me that old salts, for whom the ocean itself had no terrors, are sometimes made sick by the pitch and toss of Lake Wetter. We touch at Wadstena, a large town from which our good ship takes its name: a place of great importance in the commerce of the country, with shops on the docks, like those of a seaport. What I supposed were bags of grain, lying in great heaps to be taken on board, proved to be dried peas, and they, with beans, must be largely grown in these parts. In the suburbs of the place were elegant residences, with fine parks and beautiful gardens, old and wide-spreading trees, flower-beds and ornamental shrubbery, some of them evidently public resorts for the people, and others the appendages of private residences. Wealth, culture, and enjoyment were thus revealed, and I had that pleasure which so often greets me in travel,—the consciousness that a new and strange people, whom I shall probably never see again, are taking just as much comfort in life, and working out the ends of living just as well as the inhabitants of other lands with whom we are more familiar. The Swedish peasantry live well, generally, and are not exposed to the evils of want, as the hard-working classes in Poland and Russia. Labor is cheap, and provisions are cheap also. The houses of the well-to-do people are often made with double windows; they are rarely more than one story high, the ceilings are low, and thus they are more readily kept warm in winter. Indeed, I am assured that the inhabitants in these northern countries, including Russia, often suffer more from heat than cold in their houses during the severe weather of their cold season. Education is generally diffused in Sweden, nearly all being able to read and write; and, taken as a whole, the people being moral, industrious, frugal, and contented, what could they have more?

The captain came to my cabin, where I was writing, and asked me on deck to see the sunset and the loveliest view as we approached the village of Forsvik. It stands at the head of a small lake, and is embosomed with field and forest—a sweet picture; the manor-house, whose owner is also at the head of the iron-works, is large and elegant. Here we pass into the canal again, and through a dense forest, the banks of the canal being bold and rock-bound, and we just graze them as we pass; indeed, we seem to be more on land than water; and in fifteen minutes we have cut through the woods, and rush out into another lake, coming soon to the highest level between the two seas. We are three hundred and twenty feet above the sea level, all of which has been surmounted by locks, and now we must begin the descent by the same means, seventy-five locks in all being required to take us up from one sea, on one side of Sweden, and set us down in another sea, on the other side.