account, they would find that travelling in Sweden with one’s
own equipage, not to mention the circumftance o f its extreme
inconvenience, is, on the whole, more expenfive than in any
other country o f Europe, except perhaps in England. The countries
in which I have found it ealielt to travel, that is, where convenience
is moft happily united with cheapnefs, are Auftria and
Bohemia, particularly the latter. I am not conlcious o f any tendency
to either lll-humour or prejudice • I only declare matters
o f fad: that have come under my own obfervation, and under
that o f many other travellers. I f fome have travelled in Sweden
with greater advantages than myfelf, I can only fay that they
have been more fortunate : but I mull Hill maintain, that thofe
impediments which I have defcribed, are extremely difagreeable,
and not to be met with in any other part o f Europe.
Another comfort for travellers* much boafted o f by the natives,
and reprefented as peculiar only to their country, is, that at
every poll houle a regiiler is put into your hands, under the denomination
o f a day-book, in which travellers let down their
names, their Hate or condition. o f life, whence they came, and
whither they are going ; and i f they have been fatisfied or other-
wile with the poililion, or rather the pealant. But it is, in my
opinion, rather to be conlidered as an inconvenience: for it is, in
fad, a mere formality, that occafions a walle o f time without remedying
any one o f the evils that may be recorded and complained
of. When a traveller fets out on a journey through Sweden,
under the erroneous notion o f its being a wild and barbarous
country,
"country, buried under everlafting fnow and ice, without inns,
poll-horfes, or roads, he may be furprized to meet with many
public regulations and ellabliihments which he did not exped ;
but when, on the other hand, he fuffers himfelf to be impofed on
by the groundlefs fuppofition o f finding in that country fuch accommodations
as in France or England, he will be miferably disappointed.
It would not be very wide o f the mark to lay, that
the truth lies, as ufual, between the two extremes, but inclining
rather to the fide which is unfavourable.
- In order to make the journey from Hellingburg to Stockholm
more interelling, you ihould take the route o f Gothenburg
and Trolhatta. Before you come to Gothenburg, you pals
through Warberg, a fmall village with a fortrefs, lituated on the
edge o f the lea. Here the Swedilh government confined the
famous General Peckling, fulpeded o f being an accomplice in the
murder o f Gullavus III. This man was o f the party in oppofi-
tion to the king in 1 " 5 6 , being at that time in the pay o f Ruffia,
In 1762, when he had become a penfioner o f France, he was
on the fide o f the court. In 1772, when having the rank o f
colonel in the army, he betrayed an intention to excite his regiment
to mutiny; but he was arrelted at Enkoping, conducted to
Stockholm,* and after the death o f Gullavus, ihut up in the
* According to the author o f the Life o f Catharine II. and the Travels o f Two
Frenchmen, he was taken to Gripiholm, and confined in the cattle, which ferved
formerly as a prifon for Eric X IV . T h is however is a mittake. T h e cattle o f
Gripiholm is at prefent Utterly uninhabitable, having neither roof nor cafements.
fortrels