Sunday, August 18, 1839 Travel Journal

1839

August

Sunday 18

4

10 3/4

Fine morning, Fahrenheit 60 1/4° at 4 1/4 a.m.

Barley, oats, peas etc.  Niceish, open country about Sollenbrun – Good, small as usual beds.  Ann poorlyish – Paid 4/12 rigsdalers = 2.40.0 Banco – Enough for our boiled milk and 6 eggs and butter and the little bit of brown bread I ate (the tea and sugar our own) – A few house scattered about near the Station and afterwards –

Bäreberg a little hamlet, 1 3/4 miles at 6 3/4 = 1 mile per hour – Still fine, but clouds lowering – Bare, wide-extended, sterile plain country, heathery moor with patches of corn to the little scattered village of Bäreberg.  Neat little whitewashed church a little before coming to the station – Could not sleep there I think – The people going to church – all the men by themselves and all the women ditto in little companies – Very neatly and well clothed – 25 minutes here (at Bäreberg).  We had come faster than was expected – the horses not arrived –

Off at 9 21/.. – Ann and I had breakfasted (had a little of Mrs. Todd’s cold rice pudding at 8 1/2) – Wrote out yesterday afternoon after leaving Bäreberg at 9 21/.., then slept a little, then wrote thus far till now 10 50/.. and we just a fir forest – Scotch and spruce but most Scotch – a relief after the poor, uninteresting country this morning –

We had a little rain at starting, but not for long – The clouds threaten more rain –

Common juniper, cranberries and bilberries, and heather grow everywhere in the forests and on the commons –

At 12, little bit of forest –

At 12 20/.., Lidköping on the Wenner lake – Nice little wooden town with large Grande Place, in the style of Wennerberg but not so large? – Nice view of the lake as we cross the Grande Place, green with grass – Then across wood bridge over good river, then lesser square and good little street to the gate (common square posts) out of the town – Had entered by another such gate – Nice, neat little town – Neat, good (stone?) whitewashed church, the people well dressed – Some gentlemen walking about – Fine, broad expanse of lake, but its boundaries, as far as we can see, sparingly wooded in front of us – Better behind us – and nowhere bold – Hill range gently sloping to the water’s edge in front (left).  Oats green and rye in stook, close together – Better farming or better soil or both just about the town than since close to Götheborg – The lake calm but looks muddyish hereabouts, as if shallow and lying on sand –

Our road now at 12 40/.. (10 minutes from the town), very sandy (red sandy) – and enter a little forest, Scotch fir.  We had also a little bit before entering the town –

At 1 5.., out of the fir forest and again upon the lake and cross another little stream – Here Epilobium (Contamine), a weed among the oats, as in fact we have seen it before in Sweden – Now birch wood and firs (forest) again and sandy but very fair road – The roads all along very fair –

Ann and I had Deventer gingerbread and enjoyed it till 1 1/2, then emerge again upon the fine sea-like lake – But its scenery must be tame – The day finer now – Fresher, drier air over this juniper common, a long reach of the lake, and Lidköping just distinguishable –

Cållängen [Kållängen] at 2 7/.. Good station – 2 or 3 carriages – 2 Ladies? getting some boiled milk? in soup plates – All looked well – A house ? and 2 or 3 cottages and large farm buildings close to the stationhouse – Could sleep there very well – But nothing (said William) to be had but bread and cheese – The horses not arrived.  Had to wait till off again at 2 43/.. –

At 2 50/.., pass through picturesque little village – Neat, good stonebuilt church – This and another larger church the village in sight at Kållängen – The larger church, perhaps an English, 1/4 or 1/2 mile distant – Several shingled cottages scattered about here, in little groups – The clouds still very threatening but a little sun now at 3 p.m. – Ripe oats, uncut – and line set up in little sheaves – Much cattle, red, and horses pasturing on the common, more cleared and better pasture than usual – The corn etc. in fenced patches – Tthe cattle generally a reddish, fawn-colour – Little and slim, but good –

Went into the cowhouse and stable at Kållängen.  Horses fed out of deep troughs – No racks – Eat their hay out of troughs at the door of the Station – Cow has nor racks nor anything – Must surely feed out of moveable tubs – Floors boarded – Horses parted only by a double rail, but top rail as high as the horses – Cows each stall – Only for one cow parted by a few boards the height of the cow’s head at her head and sloping down to 1/3 of that at the tail – Thick boards let into one another.  No other visible support at the bottom end – Pigs kept warm in winter – the styes opening into boarded huts or, as it were, vestibules!

 

At 3 8/.., bit of fir forest, chiefly scotch and then moor, heathery and sweet gale etc.

At 3 1/4 on the heathery, sweet gale, juniper, bilberry moor Kinnekulle (pronounced Chinnahcullah), pine-wood, roundish long backed hill full in view about a mile off (right) – There may be a fine view of the lake and as they of several towns, but what else can there be?  Sheep here – The cottages hereabouts very small and low, mere wood huts – The straw thatch covered with peaty sods – Very poor and picturesque.  Our road still very sandy – Kinnekulle reminds me of Mow Cop near Lawton, but is not near so fine –

Enebacken at 4 5/.., neat, good wood house and a cottage or 2, the village at a little distance – Prettyish on starting from here – Could sleep here very well I should think –

Still sandy road, Kinnekulle the summit of a picturesque line of hills – Looks well and nearer from the top of the rising ground just beyond our Enebacken station – And soon enter young forest chiefly Scotch again – Pretty stage from Enebacken – Forest and pretty moor with big granite boulders, young fir wood –

At 5 3/4, water left and en face a little reach of the lake – Nice drive all the way from Ledköping but pretty from Enebacken – Several small hamlets and villages scattered all along –

At 5 10/.., long, straggling unpainted, picturesque wooden (tiled, straw thatched or shingled) village of Bjorsätter.  Good, whitewashed brick or stone church – Some better, larger red houses. 

At the station (in the village) at 5 55/.. – Might perhaps sleep here à la rigueur? Little 2 story house, door and 5 windows to the street – A tall maypole just before us, lower down the street –

Off again at 6 5/.. Nice forest, pretty enough drive till 7 8/.. Fine sunset over the lake and cross two good wooden bridges into the very neat, nice little town of Mariestadt, beautifully situated on a little bay of the Lake – very nice, good little night purple streeted town – The Western horizon quite red gilding the pinnacles of the handsome looking whitewashed church and tipping the tops of the fir forest on the East side the lake (in front of us) with a light autumnal brown – Singular effect – At some distance, 1/2 the height of the trees seemed this colour, then gradually wore itself out as we neared the forest – Enter it at 7 20/.. – Chiefly Scotch fir –

Arrived at Hasslerör at 8 – 2 rooms – Comfortable.  Boiled milk and 4 boiled eggs and butter – Had our own bread and preserved lemon and Todd rice cake – Good supper and over at 8 50/.. – Then had Grotza and long motion.  Reading Handbook on Sweden –

Fine day – Fahrenheit 64 1/4° at 9 1/2 p.m.

WYAS Finding Numbers SH/ML/TR/12/0029, SH/ML/TR/12/0030, and SH/ML/TR/12/0031