Ch. 11 - Diurgaerden

Diurgaerden is a large piece of land made into a garden by our Lord
himself. Come with us over there. We are still in the city, but before
the palace lie the broad hewn stone stairs, leading down to the water,
where the Dalkulls--i.e., the Dalecarlian women--stand and ring with
metal bells. On board! here are boats enough to choose amongst, all
with wheels, which the Dalkulls turn. In coarse white linen, red
stockings, with green heels, and singularly thick-soled shoes, with
the upper-leather right up the shin-bone, stands the Dalkull; she has
ornamented the boat, that now shoots away, with green branches. Houses
and streets rise and unfold themselves; churches and gardens start
forth; they stand on Södermalm high above the tops of the ships'
masts. The scenery reminds one of the Bhosphorus and Pera; the motley
dress of the Dalkulls is quite Oriental--and listen! the wind bears
melancholy Skalmeie tones out to us. Two poor Dalecarlians are playing
music on the quay; they are the same drawn-out, melancholy tones that
are played by the Bulgarian musicians in the streets of Pera. We stept
out, and are in the Diurgarden.

What a crowd of equipages pass in rows through the broad avenue! and
what a throng of well-dressed pedestrians of all classes! One thinks
of the garden of the Villa Borghese, when, at the time of the wine
feast, the Roman people and strangers take the air there. We are in
the Borghese garden; we are by the Bosphorus, and yet far in the
North. The pine-tree rises large and free; the birch droops its
branches, as the weeping willow alone has power to do--and what
magnificently grand oaks! The pine-trees themselves are mighty trees,
beautiful to the painter's eye; splendid green grass plains lie
stretched before us, and the fiord rolls its green, deep waters close
past, as if it were a river. Large ships with swelling sails, the one
high above the other, steamers and boats, come and go in varied
numbers.

Come! let us up to Byström's villa; it lies on the stony cliff up
there, where the large oak-trees stand in their stubborn grandeur: we
see from here the whole tripartite city, Södermalm, Nordmalm and the
island with that huge palace. It is delightful, the building here on
this rock, and the building stands, and that almost entirely of
marble, a "Casa santa d'Italia," as if borne through the air here in
the North. The walls within are painted in the Pompeian style, but
heavy: there is nothing genial. Round about stand large marble figures
by Byström, which have not, however, the soul of antiquity. Madonna is
encumbered by her heavy marble drapery, the girl with the
flower-garland is an ugly young thing, and on seeing Hero with the
weeping Cupid, one