2 4 8 DETAINED A T FITTJE. [Chap. XIV.
behaviour, which would naturally be construed by the Swedes into insolence.
It is owing to things o f this kind, of no apparent consequence
in themselves, but o f very great consequence on account of the
impression which they make upon the people, that Great Britain is so
unpopular with most nations upon the continent, and that the French,
with all their injustice and tyranny, are upon the whole more acceptable.
There is something in human nature which leads men to resent
insolence much more than injustice. There is hardly any person who
would not rather forgive a man who robbed him of his money than a
man who treated him as a fool. In most Englishmen who travel, as
far as I have had an opportunity of observing them, there is an unaccountable
wish to let foreigners, with whom they associate, know
that they despise them. The thing which surprised me most upon
such occasions was, that the people among whom they were bore with
them so long. I was once sitting in the pit of the theatre François at
Paris, when two Englishmen, drunk I presume, seated in the front
row o f the second boxes, insulted the whole audience for several minutes,
and made a noise that drowned that of the actors on the stage.
The audience bore with them for some time merely because they were
foreigners : at last four soldiers were sent into the box, who carried
the culprits out o f the house without any disturbance,
W e left Stockholm about a quarter after five in the evening. For
though horses had been ordered at'one o’clock, such are the unaccountable
delays that take place in towns, that it was past five before they
made their appearance. Our first stage was to Fittje, a Swedish mile
and a halfj or ten English miles south west from Stockholm. On our
arrival at this place, we were informed that no horses could be procured
for fourteen hours. So that our first day’s journey proved a very short
one. Here I met a Russian courier, who was on his way to Stockholm,
and who was likewise detained all night, though he had offered
the most exorbitant price for horses, i f they could be immediately procured.
He came up to me the moment I arrived, and accosted me in
English, offering his services to carry any thing for me to Stockholm,
with so much kindness, that I could not help considering his conduct
Chap. XIV.] STAGES TO NVKOPISTG. 249
as flowing from the predilection o f the Russians for the inhabitants of
Great Britain.
Sodermanland, the province into which I now entered, is o f considerable
extent. It is bounded on the north by the lake Malar, on
the east by the Baltic sea, on the south by the province o f East Gothland,
and on the west by Nerike. Its greatest length from east to west
may be about loo miles, and its greatest breadth from north to south
about 55. It is entirely primitive, and consists, as far as my observations
went, of gneiss rocks, interspersed here and there with some beds
o f mica-slate, and primitive limestone. My rate of travelling through
this province was so slow, that I had abundance o f leisure for mineralo-
gical investigations. The rocks at Fittje, where I was so long detained
for horses, were gneiss, with uncommonly large crystals o f felspar.
The stages from Stockholm to Nykoping, the first town on our way,
were as follows:
Swedish miles. English miles.
F it t je ................" . . . ' l-i ...................... io
Sodertelje .............. 2 ......................... 1 3-j-
Pilkrog ......... 2 134
Lilia Oby ............. .. 1 6J
O b y ..................i . . . 1 ......................... 64.
Svárbro.................... 2 ......................... 1 3'4 ’
N y k o p in g ................ 24-........... 144.
1 1 .4- 77,4
The weather was cold, but dry, calm, and enlivened by sun-shine,
very like October weather in England ; so that had it not been for the
shortness of the days, and the necessity of travelling part o f the road in
the dark, this part o f the journey would have been the most pleasant
of my whole travels in Sweden. Sodermanland is as finely variegated
-with lakes as any other part of Sweden that I have seen, while the surface
of the greatest part o f the province is as unequal as the country
round Stockholm, and indeed pretty similar. It is well wooded, but
not a forest, and the autumnal dress of the trees added to the interest
2 K