Sweden has all the elements of a great and good people. She is making progress, too, in moral and intellectual culture, and her people are rising in the scale of social enjoyment. I notice these things in the rural districts even more than in the cities, which are so much the same all the world over. CHAPTER XXXV. SWEDEN (_Continued_). WE are going across the kingdom, from Stockholm to Gottenburg. We might be carried through by rail in a day; but what should we see of life in Sweden if we went flying over it in that style? We will take the slower and better way, by the raging canal. This canal is the Erie of Sweden. It extends from lake to lake, and so connects sea with sea, the Baltic with the Atlantic; it leaves Malar lake, and takes lakes Wetter and Wener in its way, and all the chief towns of the interior; and as the travelling is rationally moderate, the pauses frequent and long, we have a fine opportunity to study the country and the people whom we have come to see. It is a steam canal; that is, a canal for steam navigation, as the Erie and other canals of our country ought to be, and might be, but for the penny-wise and pound-foolish policy of politicians. The steamers are small. We embarked for this inland voyage on the OSCAR, a royal name. The cabin had ten state-rooms, with two berths in each; a wash-stand in the middle had a movable cover, making a table, on which I am writing. The boat is furnished with great simplicity, but is comfortable. It is crowded with passengers; several families, with children and luggage immense, probably emigrants on their way to the land of promise. Their friends in troops thronged the wharf to see them go, and when the hand-shakings and hugging and kissing were finished, the boat was off, and the tears and waving of rags continued as we steamed away. The clouds wept too, for a few moments, and then, like the passengers, dried up; smiles and the sun came out again, and beautiful Stockholm seemed more beautiful as we left it than it did while we were in it. The green slopes around the city were joyous in the sinking sun. The iron steeple of the Ridderkolm, and the white palace, and many spires, glistened in the light. Gems of islands, with pretty bridges uniting their shores, neat villas, with lawns carpeted with rich verdure, abodes, we may hope, of sweet content and comfort, are on either hand, and now and then, from a window or balcony, a white handkerchief greets a friend on board, who responds, and we have a telegraphic communication at once with the people we are leaving. I do love to find in strange lands, and among those whose language is all unknown to me, the same ties, the same loves and hopes, that fill our own hearts at home. It makes me know that all these people are my kin, children of my Father.