but a small part of it, the course of the written history of the human race, seems concentrated into that brief space which, relatively to the entire history of the universe, it actually occupies. My halting-place for the first night was at Quistrom, ten and a-half Swedish, or about seventy English miles from Gottenburg. This reminds me to remark that the mile in Sweden, in consequence of an arrangement adopted during the last century, is fixed at the tenth part of a geographical degree, which, it will be remembered, is about 69½ English miles. For such spaces as we require the term _mile_ to designate, the Swedes speak of quarter and half-quarter miles. The roads exhibit formidable 'milestones' for each quarter, usually adorned with the initials of the king under whose reign they were erected. In the whole of this day's journey I had passed only one gentleman's house--a pretty place with a park, near Quistrom; and I was afterwards informed that it belonged to an Englishman. Country-houses, of a character approaching that of an English gentleman's mansion, are objects scarcely existing in either Sweden or Norway, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the larger towns. At Quistrom I was shown into a large room in an upper floor, uncarpeted, but strewed thickly with small pieces of pine spray and juniper bush, the scent of which is abundantly pungent. This is a description applicable to most public rooms in the country inns of Scandinavia, the vegetable sprinkling being designed for exactly the same effect as a sprinkling of yellow sand in British houses of a humble class. In obedience to the forebud order, a meal was ready to be laid down for me, consisting of two small dishes of animal food, with milk, cheese, and hard cakes of rye. Everything was clean, though homely. A married pair with a child had arrived in a light vehicle about the same time with me; and as soon as I was done with eating, I retired to my bedroom, that they might sup in privacy at the same table. They had a bedroom at one side; I one at the other, a plain small room, also uncarpeted, and possessing little furniture besides a small couch of plain deals. I mention these things as characteristic of the roadside inns all over the country. Here, as everywhere else, there was snowy bed-linen. I feared the entomology of the house, but was agreeably disappointed. The stories told of Sweden and Norway in this respect are surely exaggerations. At least I can say, with a safe conscience, that of the _cimicidæ_ I never saw one example, and of the species _pulex irritans_ only two, during the whole time I was in the country. It is a point not unworthy of notice, for, under different impressions, I had for many nights much less steady sleep than is desirable for a traveller.