as we saw them here in the forest by the broad high-road.  On this road we continue to travel, but it becomes worse and worse; it is, properly speaking, no road at all, but it is about to become one.  Large stones lie half dug up, and we drive past them; large trees are cast down, and obstruct our way, and therefore we must descend from the carriage.  The horses are taken out, and the peasants help to lift and push the carriage forward over ditches and opened paths.

The sun now ceases to shine; some few rain-drops fall, and now it is a steady rain.  But how it causes the birch to shed its fragrance!  At a distance there are huts erected, of loose trunks of trees and fresh green boughs, and in each there is a large fire burning.  See where the blue smoke curls through the green leafy roof; peasants are within at work, hammering and forging; here they have their meals.  They are now laying a mine in order to blast a rock, and the rain falls faster and faster, and the pine and birch emit a finer fragrance.  It is delightful in the forest.

FAHLUN.

* * * * *

We made our way at length out of the forest, and saw a town before us enveloped in thick smoke, having a similar appearance to most of the English manufacturing towns, save that the smoke was greenish—­it was the town Fahlun.

The road now went downwards between large banks, formed by the dross deposited here from the smelting furnaces, and which looks like burnt-out hardened lava.  No sprout or shrub was to be seen, not a blade of grass peeped forth by the way-side, not a bird flew past, but a strong sulphurous smell, as from among the craters in Solfatara, filled the air.  The copper roof of the church shone with corrosive green.

Long straight streets now appeared in view.  It was as deathly still here as if sickness and disease had lain within these dark wooden houses, and frightened the inhabitants from coming abroad; yet sickness and disease come but to few here, for when the plague raged in Sweden, the rich and powerful of the land hastened to Fahlun, whose sulphureous air was the most healthy.  An ochre-yellow water runs through the brook, between the houses; the smoke from the mines and smelting furnaces has imparted its tinge to them; it has even penetrated into the church, whose slender pillars are dark from the fumes of the copper.  There chanced to come on a thunder-storm when we arrived, but its roaring and the lightning’s flashes harmonized well with this town, which appears as if it were built on the edge of a crater.

We went to see the copper mine which gives the whole district the name of “Stora Kopparberget,” (the great copper mountain).  According to the legend, its riches were discovered by two goats which were fighting—­they struck the ground with their horns and some copper ore adhered to them.

From the solitary red-ochre street we wandered over the great heaps of burnt-out dross and fragments of stone, accumulated to whole ramparts and hills.  The fire shone from the smelting furnaces with green, yellow and red tongues of flame under a blue-green smoke; half-naked, black-smeared fellows threw out large glowing masses of fire, so that the sparks flew around and about:—­one was reminded of Schiller’s “Fridolin.”