Two days were spent in perfect inaction, and consequently with much tedium and dissatisfaction. For my part there is something which makes me placid under such troubles. It is perhaps a negative satisfaction in considering that I cannot be blamed for _this_ evil, as I must be for most others which befall me. I grieved to think that there must be two days of tame, unvaried life, before I could step into the new city before me; but meanwhile the circumstances were not positively uncomfortable in any great degree; the company was not marred by any bad element in itself; there were books to read and memoranda to arrange: finally, it could not be helped. I therefore submitted with tolerable cheerfulness. After all, we were comparatively well dealt with, for we heard of many persons who were obliged to lie for longer periods in quarantine, and to spend their time of durance at a station arranged for the purpose on a part of the coast a few miles off, where life was very much that of a prison. Persons coming from Germany would have to stay there five days. If I am not mistaken, travellers from England by the continental route had at this time to pass a previous quarantine at Hamburg, so that a journey to Denmark by that route could not occupy less than a fortnight. I have since heard of a Scottish merchant having lost a vessel on the south coast of Sweden, and going out there, by way of Copenhagen, to see after his property. From the exigencies of business at home, he had only twelve days in all to give to the excursion. On reaching Copenhagen, he would not be allowed to land till that time had nearly expired, and he would consequently be obliged to return to Scotland without accomplishing his object. By way of a favour, a party of our passengers (in which I was included) was allowed to go in a boat to bathe at a place in front of one of the batteries, an emissary of the quarantine station hovering near us as a watch, lest we should break rules. Two boys, returning from an English school to St Petersburg for the holidays, were full of frolic. We soon had a riotous scene of ducking and splashing, accompanied by shouts of (I must say) very foolish merriment, and thus would probably help in no small degree to confirm our guard in an impression which is said to be very prevalent in Denmark regarding the English--that they are all a little mad. A companion remarked to me, that certainly men will condescend in some circumstances to a surprising degree of puerility, or rather childishness of conduct: here, for instance, said he, there is scarcely the least difference to be observed between the conduct of the schoolboys and their seniors. Take away the pressure of our ordinary immediate circumstances, and how all our usual habits are dissolved! But this is a theme as trite as it is tempting, and I must cut it short. A lunch after the bath was attended by jocularity nearly as outrageous, and we did not return to the ship till near the dinner hour.