Saturday, August 17, 1839 Travel Journal

1839

August

Saturday 17

7

11 5/..

Rainy night and morning.  Fahrenheit 64 1/2° at 8 a.m.

Breakfast and paying Mrs. Todd etc. till now, 10 1/4 –

Then wrote out and sent off at 11 by Gross postage paid = 4 – 2/2 Dollars Banco = Banco 1.46.0, my letter to ‘Robert Parker, Esquire, solicitor, Halifax, Yorkshire England.’  Parker’s letter quite right – He or Booth to write to me to the care of Messers Thomson and Bonar, St. Petersburg, which we hope to reach by the middle of next month – Hawkins to pay all expenses and send one barrel anchovies to Lady Stuart, Whitehall, and ask her butler how to direct and forward to Lady Vere Cameron and send another barrel to Lady Stuart de Rothesay, 4 Carlton House Terrace and the other to Lady Duff Gordon, 34 Hertford Street –

Then had to wait for the harness – Not come now at 12.  In agony of impatience – The sadler 2 hours behind his time – Shall have all our horses to pay for – The coachmaker too not come to be paid – A gentleman in the next room passed through, apologized for interrupting us – Got into conversation, but elicited nothing worth mentioning – No game near here – He is going Southwards to Kongsberg (in Sweden) to shoot – My Chronometer 23 minutes too late now at noon, and my French watch 3 minutes too late ––– He says the Prins Carl here is a better eating house than this, but he likes Mrs. Todd and always comes here – We noticed the Prins Carl yesterday as a good looking house about the centre of the town along the canal that runs east and west from the Grande Place – The hotel is to the East of it –

The harness just come now at 12 25/…  At 12 1/2 had the coachmaker –

Off at 12 3/4 from Göthborg.  2 men in front too much for the springs – Took Grotza inside just out of the town –

Fair but cloudy.  

Agnesborg, single house, great deal of small craft on the river – The sails look pretty – Valley narrow, shut in by low bare rock on each side – Patches of corn and grass from foot of rock down to water’s edge –

Nohl, single house here, the valley narrow. and we have left the river (left) – Oats ripe – ditto barley and barley cut near Gotheburg and afterwards all along –

At 4 48/.. leave the Wennersberg road (left), we taking the right branch of the fork – Bulrushes among the corn when not clean, and a sort of thistles, blue bottle, a blueish scabious, ragworts, etc.  Meslin (mixture) of oats and barley – Wider valley since 4 48/.. 

1st firs (right) on the mountainside at 5 1/2 and some firs on both sides the valley.

Rain smartish at 5 for 1/2 hour, then almost fair, but heavy clouds.

Little lake (left) at 6, and fir forest above it – Pretty – And farms and cottages and hill – All around is wooded – Everywhere potatoes.  Store them in a sort of hut a little sunk in the ground and covered over with sods –

From 6 p.m., wider basin-like space and valley before us – Smartish rain again at 6 1/4.  Note the good wood, many-scattered – of Norway and Sweden.

Wadbocka [Vadbacka], single house – Wood as usual and smeared over with red, and near to scattered village, as is not uncommon with these post stationhouses – Heavy rain now from Vadbacka.

Off from there at 6 26/.. in 9 minutes – (now change generally in 9 or 10 minutes ) and all thick all round – Can scarce see a hundred yards before us over beech wood alders and firs and would be picturesque? –

At 7 20/.., enter fir forest.  Water standing and trees mossy and not large – Scotch and spruce –

At 7 25/.. below us (little distance) left, pretty little lake –

At 7 40/.. little lake below us, right – This Norway-like forest and mossy rock would be very picturesque if the clouds would let them –

At 8 get out of the forest – Then openish bare plain – Corn etc.

At the Station at Sollenbrun at 8 35/.. – Good, neat, clean single house – Several travellers arrived before us –

Eggs and milk and Ann made tea for herself (but did not take much) from 9 10/.. to 9 55/.. –

Rainy afternoon and evening.  Fahrenheit 61 1/2° at 10 1/2 p.m.

WYAS Finding Numbers SH/ML/TR/12/0028 and SH/ML/TR/12/0029