* * * * *
On arriving at Stockholm, several stalwart women offer us their services
as porters. They are Dalecarlians, who earn a livelihood by carrying
luggage or water, by rowing boats, and by resorting to other occupations
generally reserved for the stronger sex. Honest, industrious, capable of
immense fatigue, they never lack employment. They wear short black
petticoats, red bodices, white chemises with long sleeves, short and
narrow aprons of two colours, red stockings, and shoes with thick wooden
soles. Around their heads they generally bind a handkerchief, or else
wear a very small black cap, which just covers the back of their hair.
Stockholm proves, on examination, to be a handsome city, situated at the
junction of the Baltic with the Lake Malar; or, more strictly speaking,
on the banks of a short canal which unites the two. One of its most
conspicuous buildings is the stately Ritterholm Church, which Madame
Pfeiffer describes as resembling rather a vault and an armoury than a
religious edifice. In the side chapels are enshrined the monuments of
dead Swedish kings, whose bones lie in the royal sepulchres below. On
both sides of the nave are ranged the equestrian statues of armed
knights; while from every vantage-point hang flags and standards. The
keys of captured towns and fortresses are suspended in the side chapels,
and drums and kettle-drums piled upon the floor--trophies won from the
enemies of Sweden in the days when she was a great European power.
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