CHAP. Turnip field on a house. once to the ground, where, falling upon stones, we expected to see it dashed to pieces; but it made its escape, without any apparent injury, to another tree of equal height; and, again running up the stem, no sooner reached the top than it precipitated itself as it had done before. We found a clean and excellent inn at Tännäs'. A cooling and delicious delicacy presented itself the roof of to our parched palates upon our arrival here, and in a place where we should last have looked for it this was nothing less than a whole crop of turnips growing upon the top of the house, and covering all the roof of the inn. Garden vegetables are hardly ever seen in Sweden; and with the exception of a few potatoes, we had been so long strangers to any thing of this kind, that pine-apples could not have been more grateful. We all ate of them greedily, both in their crude state and boiled; telling our host not to be anxious in procuring for us any other provisions. Upon the highest mountains which commanded this passage into Norway, we observed beacons stationed, to give alarm in cases of invasion. The situation of one of those (1) Travellers who may follow us in this route will always understand, when we speak favourably of the accommodations, that we carried beds with us; without which it would be almost as unadvisable to undertake a journey in Scandinavia as in Russia. III. beacons, opposite to Tännäs, was extremely CHAP. grand: the spot on which it stood appeared to be inaccessible, and its height was prodigious; overlooking the Sion Låssen, a noble lake formed by the junction of the Ljusna and Tännä rivers, which here unite, and spread over a fine valley. There are seventeen families at this place, who keep a great number of cows and horses. Valley. It was the morning of a glorious day when we left Tännäs: excepting upon the highest points of distant mountains, there was not a cloud in the sky. This was a fortunate circumstance for us; because the scenery surpassed all that we had seen since we left Angermannland. Having ascended a mountain, as we traversed its summit, we commanded, towards the south, a valley of such extent and beauty, spreading Beautiful wide below us, as it will be difficult to describe. The opposite mountains were many leagues distant; and from the heights, over which we passed, the most immense forests descended in one prodigious sweep of woodland, with towering trees o'er trees, down into the profoundest recesses of this valley; where, amidst the tufted groves, appeared the glittering surface of intervening waters; and beyond rose, as boldly as it fell from the spot where we viewed it, the same succession of unbroken primeval vegeta Sion. III. CHAP. tion;-woods, tenanted only by wolves and bears and wandering elks, and all the savage animals of these vast wildernesses, reaching up the sides of all the distant mountains; whose summits, black and naked, as if casting off the cumbrous load of timber which veiled their sides and bases, shone clear in æther, or were concealed within their caps of clouds. Descending from this magnificent prospect, another equally striking was presented. The southFunnesdal western extremity of a lake, called the Funnesdal Sion, appeared in a profound abyss of woods, locked by mountains: beyond this piece of water, and high above all other summits, towered the precipitous ridges of the Norwegian Alps, giving to this mountain barrier between the two countries a character of grandeur which is not exhibited by the same.range in any other part of it, or by any other mountain scenery in Sweden; although, after all, it cannot be compared with the Alps dividing Italy from Switzerland. Many of their tops were resplendent with. beds of snow, which remains unmelted throughout the year, but did not exhibit the splendour and brilliancy of the snow-clad summits of the Helvetian barrier. At the village of Funnesdalen our passports were demanded. Here we found an inn, superior in its accommodations to that we had so recently quitted at Tännäs. Just CHAP. before we reached the village, a road turning off to the right was said to conduct to the ironfoundry, distant about two English miles: this we did not visit. It The village of Funnesdalen, like that of Luongosby, consists of a number of straggling wooden huts, widely separated from each other. occupies the north-western extremity of the Funnesdal Sion. Farms, beautifully situate in other parts of the lake, are seen surrounded by lofty precipitous mountains; one of which, north of the village, rises almost perpendicularly, yet upon its craggy rocky steep it is ornamented with hanging pines to the height of 800 or 1000 feet. The circuitous position of the mountains around Funnesdalen makes the village appear as if it were placed within a vast crater, at the bottom of which is the Funnesdal Lake; and upon its shores, the farm-houses and huts of the peasants. The land is chiefly kept for pasture and hay; the lake during summer supplying the inhabitants with fish, and their corn coming from Jamtland and the more fertile parts of Herjeådalen'. We were detained at Funnesdalen, (1) "The inhabitants of Funnesdalen have their corn from Jamteland and Helsingland: they sell butter and cattle. There are here twenty four III. CHAP. for want of horses, not only the rest of the day after our arrival, but so late on the following morning, that we could only reach a solitary and most wretched hovel, called Malmagen, distant fourteen miles; situate upon a small lake near the source of the Tännä, in the midst of the Norwegian Alps, which barely afforded shelter during the night. We left Funnesdalen about ten o'clock A. M. and crossed a mountain called Flotta Fjal. The retrospective view of the scenery we have before described was very fine from its summit'. Sept. 18.-Upon the summit of Flotta Fjal, we estimated the temperature of the atmosphere four families, each family keeping about ten or twelve cows; and there are about thirty horses in the whole village. Day-labour, if victuals be allowed, costs only eightpence English, or twelvepence without victuals. They are all their own landlords, and pay very few taxes of any kind. The Clergyman receives his tenth of every thing, even of the fish they take from the lake. The whole of one man's taxes, who kept twelve cows, amounted only to four rix-dollars annually." Cripps's MS. Journal. (1) Towards the higher parts of Flotta Fjål, where all vegetation excepting the Betula nana and the Rein-deer Lichen might have been expected to disappear, we were surprised to see the large stem and seedvessels of the Hyoscyamus niger; also the Parnassia palustris, still in flower, together with Comarum palustre, Pedicularis Sceptrum Carolinum, and sylvatica; and many beautiful species of Saliz. LINNEUS mentions the abundance of the Andromeda hypnoïdes on all the Alps; but we had difficulty in finding a few specimens of this beautiful little plant. For Botanists also, we wish to add, that we never found the Pyrola uniflora, as a vulgar plant, in any part of Sweden. It was so rare, that we seldom saw it; and the places where a few specimens were found have been already noticed. |