comforts consist of a back bedroom looking out on a yard, with a dingy four-poster, and two inches of "flue" beneath it;-once abroad, they look on themselves as exiled duchesses.

This inn at Qviström was once the scene of strife and bloodshed in the war of Gyldenløve. The peasants tell of a commander who showed the white feather. After the battle he was missing. On the soldiers seeking the body among the slain, they discovered him crouching beneath a rock: dragged from his hidingplace, he was disgraced and cashiered.

These rocks round Qviström abound in garnets, which stick out from the granite like currants: the natives declare they are too soft to polish. Most likely they have never tried them.

Wolves afforded good sport at Qviström during the last century, but not for all men; certain farmers held the privilege of taking them in snares, but none have been set since 1840, when an old woman, enticed by a leg of mutton, in her eyes far too good to be used as bait, crept one winter night to the trap, was caught, and the next morning found strangled, dead as the mutton she would have stolen.

We were off early in a pouring rain, changed horses once, then approached the Hafstensfiord. A building not unlike a Moorish palace turned out to be a cottonfactory. Drenched with wet, we drive into the city of Uddevalla.

CHAPTER XIX.

Dutch founded city of Uddevalla-Fossils - Baths of Gustafsberg Meetings of Kongelf- Fragment of the true cross; paid by tithes to the clergy-Taking of the city-Bohus castle-Legend of the foundation-A peasant funeral.

UDDEVALLA.

THE exuberant waters of the Bafje river flow through a narrow canal, planted on each side with limes, into the harbour. A square to which the peasants bring their wares for sale-huge pines ready barked for masts; a church-tower on the hill's top, the body of the building at the foot of the rock; a few streets all in confusion: such is Uddevalla. Of one advantage it can pre-eminently boast, and that, its situation. The town is now rising afresh from two fires which, last year and this, have reduced it to ashes. Our hotel escaped -more the pity, for it's dirty beyond hope of reformation. In England an "awful fire" consists of three or four houses; in Sweden whole towns are consumed at once, and will be till more solid buildings are erected; some are of brick, but many fresh wooden ones are in progress. Stone is so hard to cut, home-made bricks are so bad-won't stand the climate-mortar, too, will fall out-what can the poor Swedes do? improve the brick-kilns-find out the reason of this shortcoming? impossible! so, as wood only burns, and insurance is not dear, they stick to it, and will never

give it up till forced by law, as is now the case at Göteborg. Uddevalla was founded by Dutchmen (we will pass over Odinsvold), that queer people who on dry land appear like goldfish on a gravel walk. According to custom, they sought out a handsome quagmire with strong mephitic vapours, drove in piles, then built the city, and built it well.

The horrors of war and repeated burnings did much to destroy its commerce, as did the opening of the canal, and, lastly, the long, sad adieu of the herring tribe. Still it boasts a sugar manufactory as well as the palatial cotton-mill.

At a mile distant lies the stratum of fossil shells for which the neighbourhood is celebrated, in some places fifty feet in depth, chiefly the barnacle tribe.* Then, continuing your course among the rocks, you arrive at Gustafsberg, a nest of wooden houses planted in a garden of deciduous trees by the sea-side: beyond lies a rocky pine-clad hill, cut out in shady walks. The scenery of Wik is wilder far than that of this sheltered spot, but to tired travellers a calm repose of shade, with bees humming their morning song, is drowsy and delightful; we passed the day at Gustafsberg, bathed, and sat on the seats a-jogging. In England or France small shopkeepers and children would have pressed us to purchase fossils or garnets from the rocks; here people are too utilitarian to think of such things. The only stall was for sweetmeats, in which the Swedes excel. The itinerant venders were -first, a man with birch rods, stripped of their peel; next, an old man with rakes; then a woman from

* Balanus tulipa, Uddevallensis, &c.