Evening star., 1902-03-29
A NORTHERN WINTER
The Features Of 1t Up in Scan
dinavia.
BEAUTY OF THE SNOW
a JOURNEY ALONG THE SOUTH
COAST OF SWEDEN.
Curious Customs and the Wonderful
Swedish Ideas of Our
Own Land.
Copyright, 1902. by Francis E. Clark


STOCKHOLM, Sweden. March ). 1892.
l have already suggested Scandinavia as
b winter resort. The more I see of it. the
more the wonder grows that travellers have
not extoiled it. and poets sung its praises,
and tourists rushed by the hundred thou
sand in personally conducted parties to
View its sparkling glories.
If one is looking for beautiful scenery,
for novel sensations. for delicious, bracing
air full of ozone and peculiar tonic OF
its own. let him travel to Scandinavia in
February or March, L would not advise
him to come too early in the winter. No
Tember and December are apt to be dark
and cloudy. The sun rises low and often
seems to shine with feeble. sickly glare:
but in January he comes forth as a strong
man to run race" He seems refreshed
by the winter rest, when the old earth
dema nded his presence only for four or five
hours. from O'Clock perhaps until in
the afternoon, and now. strong and bright
and reflected anew from every facet of
every snow diamond, he mounts higher and
higher every day to gladden. the great
peninsula of Scandinavia, which Is all the
more eager to welcome him, after his
partial and temporary retirement.
charming ride, beyond the power of
my pen to describe, is the journey from
Aalmo, on the south coast of Sweden, to
Stockholm. a bright winter morning.
Sweden is separated from Denmark al this
point by a strait only fifteen or eighteen
miles wide. and the Swedish shore can be
spied in the haZy distance almost as soon
as the little steamer leaves the Copen
hagen breakwater.
Malmo IS a garrison town with a very
icrient custom house. and is known to
travellers chiefly point of depart ure
for Stockholm, though it is well worthy
of a visit for it's own sake. 1t boasts of
nearly thousand years of recorded his
tory. In the middle ages its herrings were
famous, and 1t has been captured and re-
captured many time in the wars between
Denmark and Sweden and the rest of the
world. Here Boutwell,, Queen Mary Stu
five years, from 1913 to 1913; here have
heeu enacted many scenes romantic and
chivalrous, and this same Malmo today,
as befits this commercial age. is the south
ern terminus of Sweden's splendid railway
system.
A Railway Girdle.
1t may surprise some of my readers that
in proportion to her population Sweden has
the largest and best girdle of railways in
the world. With sonly five millions of peo-
ple she is gridironed by a perfect network
of rails that connect every important place
in the kingdom with every other. From
Malmo you can go straight away north for
more than a thousand miles, almost as
straight the crow flies. through the
length of Sweden. over the arctic circle,
across Lapland, and come out on the north
Atlantic coast of NOrway-a journey which
We Will take together a little later The
trains are as good as any in the world,
barring. perhaps. the Empire Express and
one or two such trains de luxe in America
and Europe They are not very rapid to
be sure, the express trains not avera ging
more than twenty-five miles an hour, but
the first and second class cars are far
more comfortable than the corresponding
Glasses average in the rest of Europe They