SCANDINAVIAN NOTES.

Bush Advocate, Volume II, Issue 90, 1 December 1888, Page 2

SCANDINAVIAN NOTES.

The correspondent of the Christchurch Press writes from-Copenhagen under date Sept. 20 as follows :— I have in previous letters emphasized the fact that Norway and Sweden are only held together by the loosest of political bonds ; that the physical features of the two countries are totally different, and that the characteristics of the two people are quite dissimilar. While Norway is a country of loftj mountains, waterfalls, and dark fiord j, Sweden is a country of endless lakes, forests, low hills, and grassy flats. The Swedes stand by the Falls of Trollhaetta as their show piece of Bcenery, but after a sojourn in Nor- j way they strike one as comparatively i tame. For myself I found an outlook over one of these two vast sheets of water, lakes Wenern and Wettern, was impressing to the imagination. As to the inhabitants of the two countries, you find that none of that stem Calvinistic spirit, which marks to a large extent the Norwegians, has laid hold on the Swede. On the contrary in Stockholm they are rather a j devil-may-care lot of people. The merchants there are not remarkable for careful trading by any means, and live well up to their incomes. Then the Norwegian is utterly republican and radical in his sentiments, and. though as a whole, the Swede is liberal ,in his views, he does not go the length that does his neighbour. As a ffule the Swedish peasant is much better off than the Norwegian. In the more remote parts of Sweden there may not be so much difference, but in the bulk of the country the farmer is much nearer his market, for Sweden is intersected in all directions by railways, except in the extreme north, j However, both people are equally remarkable for their honesty and cleanliness. Never once in either country did I come across any attempt to over-reach, nor even in the most out-of-the-way place was I disgusted with my surroundings. The direct route from Stockholm to this place, Copenhagen, leaves the Christi&na-Stockholm route to the right and makes straight for Malino, situated on the extreme south-west-point of the Swedish peninsula. From that place it takes you an hour and a half to cross over to Zealand and you effect the change of the two countries for the sum of Is Bd. Malmo is in size the third town in Sweden, containing about 43,000 inhabitants. It does a considerable trade and has an excellent harbor. Its principal interest, however, to an Englishman lies in the fact that, in a dungeon in its castle, Bothwell, Queen Mary Stuart's third husband, was confined from 1573 to 1578. The castle lies on a dead flat and has a wide moat round it, which grows remarkably fine bullrushes. Though Bothwell's dungeon is now walled up, looking at the green slime of the moat, it dawns upon one that the prisons below it must have been uncommonly damp and unpleasant. Anyhow, imprisonment in them for five years proved too much for Bothwell, for he died almost immediately after he was released. Taking all things into consideration, indeed, he does not, after all, appear to have scored so heavily off Darnley. This city, Copenhagen, is certainly seen at its best at the present juncture, for it is as full as an egg by reason of the exhibition, which is in full swing. At any time it must be a very busy place, but now it is an excessively busy one. The population, including the suburbs, numbers some 320,000,

and the amount of shipping in the harbor is very large. As tor the site of the city, it possesses none of the advantages which belong to that of Stockholm, for Copenhagen is built on a plain, and from the top of one of its towers you see no natural elevation to relieve the eye, though on a sunny day the outlook over the Sound to where the low coast of Swodon stretches away in the distance has a certain charm of its own. But standing at that height ample amends is made for the comparative tameness of the view by the consideration of the historical interest which clings to the scene. Below you lies the heart of the country which for centuries do,m,intfetjl SQwdinanan, history, $^

were a warlike restless people those Danes of the middle ages, let alone their character in still earlier times, when piracy was looked upon as a gentlemanly profession. . There, in the far distance due north, lies Halsinger, or Elsinore. From this place was levied by the Danish Government the tolls which, after the fall of the Hanseatic League, were imposed on all vessels passing through the Sound. On the battlements of its castle used the ghost of Hamlet's father tp make his midnight promenades. Both the ghost and the tolls have had their day. If, as unbelievers assert, there never was a Hamlet, it is very evident that his father's spirit must be looked upon as a fraud. As for the tolls, they were abolished in 1857, or rather commuted on payment of three and a half millions pounds sterling paid by the commercial nations chiefly interested. Close below you, still standing on the tower, lies the scene of one of Nelson's 'most celebrated victories, when he bombarded the city and captured the Danish fleet, to prevent it, and the stores accumulated in the magazines, from falling into the hands of the French, and when he refused to read the order which commanded him to retire from under the guns of the forts. Further away on the Sound lies the island where Tycho Brahe, the celebrated astronomer, used to live, and where he was frequently visited by our James I. Below you is stretched the town, with Bosenborg Palace in its centre, built by King Christian JLV. in the beginning of the 17th century, the architect being the well-known English architect, Inigo Jonss,, the same who built the palace of Whitehall, in London, and the Edinburgh Parliament House. Some miles inland you may note the neighborhood of Roeskilde, which was the capital of Denmark up to 1443, and where the cathedral still holds the bones of her kings from the earliest days. It will thus be seen that not one of the three Scandinavian capitals, is on the site of the original seat of government. Christiana was built in 1624 to take the place of Oslo, on the other side of the narbor, which had been totally destroyed by fire. To StockHolm the seat of government was transferred in 1255 from GamlaUpsala j while, as just mentioned, Roeskilde was the Danish capital up to the year 1443. In another respect" the three cities have a very similar history, namely, in the remarkable extent to which they have all of them suffered from fire. -Taking all three together, you can count on the fingers of one hand the buildings of any importance which have escaped the devouring element. To the lover of antiquity this' destroys much of the pleasure he would otherwise have taken in a sojournin either Christiana, Stockholm or Copenhagen. There are no old-world nooksor stately cathedral aisles where he can dream away an hour or two. But little dates from further back than the seventeenth century at the earliest. From a sanitary and utilitarian point of view this is no doubt very satisfactory, but to a tourist the 999 distinct smells at Cologne are pardoned, and even would be welcomed, were they an indispensable condition for the existence of the cathedral in that town. If the antiquarian or lover of histoiy is bent in having his dream here he must seek Trondnjem, Upsala, and Roeskilde, where still stand for Norway, Sweden, and Denmark the cathedrals which hold the bones of their kings. In the capitals themselves he must content himself with enjoying modern life as he finds it therein illustrated. And summing up the comparative claims of the three cities on the ordinary traveller's attention, he will find Christiana excessively dull, but rather pretty in its environage; Stockholm fairly lively, and with an almost unequalled scenic position ; Copenhagen very lively and bustling indeed, with no claim whatever for beauty. He will, as far as I have been able to understand, discover that Copenhagen is the cheapest of the three to live in, Christiana the dearest, notwithstanding the fact that life in the more remote parts of Norway costs but little. As for the language used injthe three Scandinavian countries, he will note that Norwegian is very rough and vigorous ; Swedish considerably smoother ; and Danish, nearer allied though it is to Norwegian than to Swedish, the softest and most sonorous of all ot them.