Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/223

Rh in Europe now which has not got its open air cafès and places of music. From this place we went to another garden beautifully illuminated with Chinese lanterns from one end to the other and presenting entertainments of various kinds to visitors. There was a stage erected at one end, and we listened there to some beautiful singing.

6th August. The National Museum of Stockholm contains a noble collection of pictures. The picture which struck me most was that of Charles XII. killed at Fredrikshald and borne back from that hostile fortress by his veteran soldiers, some of them wounded and bleeding, over a rocky path all covered with snow. It is done by a Swedish painter. There is also a splendid collection here of pre-historic flint and bronze weapons as also relics of early and mediæval times.

In the afternoon we went in a steamer to a place called Gustavsberg, about 10 miles to the east from Stockholm. The Baltic Sea here is not an open sea, but is almost blocked by a thick cluster of rocky islets of every possible shape and form, and covered with luxuriant woods; and during the whole of our voyage, therefore, we seemed to be threading our way through a winding lake, or rather through a succession of lakes embosomed in the midst of wooded hills. Sometimes our way seemed to be almost land-blocked, and the steamer slowly threaded its way between high rocks on both sides; while at other times the passage expanded into a beautiful lake. The scene was lovely, but its loveliness was not owing entirely, or even mainly, to the