CHAPTER II

GOTHENBURG[1]

[1] In Swedish, _Göteborg_.

The two principal ways of reaching Sweden from England are: the first via the Continent and the Sassnitz Trälleborg train ferry route, the second by steamer across the North Sea; and for those who are not subject to sea-sickness the sea route is by far the more comfortable of the two. I travelled direct to Gothenburg in one of the Swedish Lloyd Company’s boats, the _Saga_, and found both boat and crossing a pleasant experience. There is a special train from St. Pancras to Tilbury in connection with the steamers, and the crossing takes about forty-five hours, instead of the long railway journey, and endless passport formalities, which all take place, however, in the comfortable through carriages. Swedish passenger steamers are invariably replete with every comfort and convenience, and the _Saga_ was no exception to the rule, her cheery captain proving not only an ideal skipper, but a host whose gaiety and _entrain_ were so infectious that even those passengers who were beginning to be adversely affected by the strongly dipping and rolling boat were beguiled into making light of their troubles. The two great events of the day on board a Swedish boat are always the two principal meals, and in this respect a Swedish steamer is much like other boats, but the thing that marks out the Swedish meal from its fellows, whether taken on land or sea, is the Smörgåsbord (the bread-and-butter table, literally butter-goose) which almost invariably opens the meal. Prominently exposed on the various sideboards that greet you as you enter the dining-saloon are a large selection of dishes flanked by tall stands upon which enormous pats of butter and a most varied assortment of breads are heaped: black bread, white bread, honey bread, wheaten bread; and as soon as the gong has sounded for luncheon (or dinner) the guests make a massed attack on these dishes, after arming themselves with a large plate, knife, and fork. You first help yourself handsomely to butter out of a huge central stand and also to the species of bread which you fancy, and then proceed to fill up your plate with as large a choice of edibles as possible, there being no fixed rule as to the sequence in which these are to be eaten. Around you are eggs in every conceivable form, olives, tomatoes and sardines, anchovies, cucumber in sweet sauces, cold fried fish and strömming salmon, hams and cheeses hailing from many lands, sausages and Swedish caviar, fish in aspic, pâtés and minces, as well as the great national delicacy called “sill”, consisting of slices of herring floating in sweetened vinegar and plentifully flavoured with spices and onion, which the Swedes consume before anything else. This ambulatory portion of the meal is apt to last a considerable time, as a Swede who is in form is rarely satisfied with one journey to the Smörgås table, but the inexperienced should abstain from following his example, however enticing the lure that lies in novel gastronomic experiments, in view of the very liberal meal that they are expected to consume after it, and of which the Smörgåsbord constitute only a preliminary _coup d’essai_. As accompaniment to these somewhat strenuous _hors-d’œuvre_, a species of cocktail called _snaps_, consisting of pure alcohol flavoured with a kind of carroway, is invariably swallowed in one gulp before attacking the Smörgåsbord or immediately after that operation has been completed. This beverage is certainly a better appetiser than any commonly drunk in England, which may possibly account for the ease with which the average Swede is able to demolish an almost infinite selection of smörgås without either his capacity appearing to be strained or his curiosity to be sated, while he then proceeds to wash down the meal proper that follows with plentiful draughts of a Pilsener (No. 2 or 3) that are so innocuous that even Pussyfoot Johnson would drink of it without polluting his immortal soul.

The approach to Gothenburg from the sea is exceptionally beautiful, and the traveller should make a point of being up early on the morning of arrival to see the ship as it forges its path through the rocky archipelago of the Skärgård lying at the mouth of the river Göta älv. Here are thousands of islands, many of these bare of trees and without the slightest vegetation, whose red granite boulders, if seen in summer with the sun and waves beating upon them, possess a fascination that no artist as yet has adequately been able to convey on his canvas. They are the favourite haunts of the inhabitants of Gothenburg, and like the skerries of Stockholm, are admirably adapted for bathing, yachting, and living the simple life, the whole coast right up to the Norwegian frontier providing almost equal facilities for this form of sport. The first object that comes into view of the town proper, however, as you pass the last group of islands of the archipelago (and even before that if the day is at all clear) is the tall high tower of the Masthuggs Kyrka, which is one of the best-known landmarks on the coast; and then as the boat draws nearer to the harbour mouth the whole panorama of Gothenburg appears before you in all its splendour. Here the busy, humming port, crowded with shipping of every kind, from the massive ocean liner to the smaller coasting vessel, fishing smack, or miniature passenger steamer; there enormous floating docks and shipbuilding yards whose unceasing activity attests Gothenburg’s prosperity, with as background to the whole scene the city itself with its many fine buildings and towers.

[Illustration: GOTHENBURG—THE HARBOUR]

Built largely on a foundation of rock and situated about five miles from the river Göta älv at the foot of low-lying hills that are almost equally rocky, the city of Gothenburg probably owes not a little of its reputation to the fact that it stands on the threshold of a district which is not only one of the best known and most popular of any in Sweden, owing to it being the starting-point of the famous Göta Canal route, but which also possesses an almost inexhaustible store of interests at the disposal of the student of mediæval history, folk-lore, and geology.

Like many other Swedish towns, Gothenburg is comparatively a modern city, but it stands on a site that is a veritable storehouse of legend and history, the adjoining territory having frequently changed hands or provided a battle-ground for those nations or piratical bands that were usually found contending for its possession. It was founded in 1621 by Gustavus Adolphus, after a visit which this enterprising and far-sighted monarch paid to the mouth of the river Göta älv early in that same year with the object of seeing if a commercial port could not conveniently be erected as close to the main ocean highways as possible to ensure his country becoming a factor in the world trade of the future. We are told that as he was deliberating on the matter, a bird who was being pursued by an eagle dropped suddenly at his feet, and that looking down at the utterly exhausted bird he remarked that he could not look for a more promising omen.

“Here I shall build the town,” he declared; and acting on these words, he selected the present site of the city and entrusted its planning and building to some Dutch mercantile experts whose help he had solicited. The town was accordingly laid out in the Dutch manner, with many artificial canals and straight streets, and was also fortified and surrounded by a large moat. Ultimately the walls were razed to make way for a beautiful esplanade, while the moat was converted into a picturesque artificial waterway with high trees, bordered vernal banks, which winding in and out through the very heart of the town, have invested those portions traversed by it with a scenic charm that they would hardly have possessed otherwise.

The subsequent history of the town soon demonstrated the wisdom which had dictated Gustavus Adolphus’ selection of a site, for the city not only received large influxes of colonists, mostly German, Dutch, and Scotch, who materially contributed to its welfare by the important and fast-growing volume of trade which followed in their wake, but very quickly became an important trade centre for eastern commodities. The East India Company, which was established here about this time, was for a long time one of Sweden’s most flourishing concerns, while the herring fisheries on the coast of Bohuslän became sufficiently productive to allow large quantities of this fish to be exported to foreign lands. Further impetus was given to the commerce of the town, moreover, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, by Napoleon’s attempt to enforce a continental blockade of Great Britain in 1806, this short-sighted measure having the effect of converting the Swedish city into the principal emporium and transit mart of all English goods in North Europe, while its subsequent progress has been almost equally marked. During the War it enjoyed a period of tremendous prosperity which, though followed by an unavoidable slump, has nevertheless persisted to this day, Gothenburg having by now entirely superseded Stockholm as the leading exporting and shipping centre, while it has also become the second most populated town in Sweden, as well as an important educational and cultural centre, and one of the most thriving commercial and industrial cities of the kingdom. Gothenburg owes these advantages, however, almost as much to the tireless energy, business acumen, and flair which her inhabitants appear to have inherited from their Swedish, German, and Dutch ancestors as to her favoured position in the world markets; and in no other town in Europe of equal size will the traveller find a more hard-working or efficient _corps commercial_ or a population whose civic pride and public spirit so strongly impel them to insist on superefficiency. The town has consequently a well-ordered aspect which appears to apply to even the most out-of-the-way path and little lane, while its administration has been raised to so fine an art that, apart from the town fire brigade, which seems to have been a little overlooked, the whole machinery runs on model lines. You may wander in the town when and where you will, and yet never find a street that is not clean or devoid of refuse, the local scavengers apparently fulfilling their duties at such an early hour and so unobtrusively that you will rarely come across them, while the public gardens and parks are so perfectly kept and become in May and June such dreams of beauty, that you are found most often calculating the lavish expenditure and imposing staffs that alone can have ensured such excellence. Indeed in no town in Europe have I found public gardens better or more artistically laid out than in Gothenburg, the Swedish gardeners often possessing not only an ample _expertise_ and a sufficiency in botanical knowledge that marks them out among the gardeners of the world, but a natural taste of an order high enough to justify appeal being made to them in questions dealing with the designing of ornamental and formal gardens.

To visit Gothenburg without seeing its gardens is therefore as unthinkable as if you passed through Rome without seeing St. Peter’s; and though every visitor should, almost as soon as he has landed, first take a stroll over by the water front (this being the obvious thing to do) in order to steep his mind with an adequate sense of the town’s importance as a commercial and shipping centre (which should be his principal dominating impression), he must immediately afterwards, and before seeing anything else, stroll even more leisurely along the delightful artificial waterway that has given Gothenburg its peculiar resemblance to a Dutch city; and after passing by the picturesque market thronged by lusty market women who can daily be seen selling their baskets of fruit and flowers along the very water edge, linger for a while in the beautiful Slottskogen and Trädgårdsföreningen parks, on whose upkeep and embellishment many municipalities have expended lavish sums. In the summer months these gardens are a dream of delight and colour, while they are so beautifully kept and well ordered that though frequently invaded by festive crowds there appears to be an almost entire lack of that careless abandon that so often impels the British holiday-maker to litter even the most pleasant garden with paper bags and food refuse. Of the two parks the Trädgårdsföreningen is perhaps the finer and more restful, and it contains incidentally one of the finest hot-houses for tropical plants that are to be found in Northern Europe after those in Kew Gardens, as well as a very good restaurant and theatre; but the Slottskogen park contains almost as many pleasing features, although its principal charms are to be found in the natural beauty that it possesses or in the magnificent view that can be obtained of the city and surrounding country from its Belvedere, rather than in the number, variety, and orderly beauty of its flower-beds, which are not to be compared to those of the other park.

Having thus briefly surveyed the various vicissitudes through which Gothenburg has passed in the course of its somewhat short life as a city, and given some account of its parks and general aspect, we may now proceed to consider some of the principal characteristics of the town itself, its monuments and other public buildings, and then deal with the surrounding country.

Like many other Swedish towns, Gothenburg impresses from the first as a city in which every street and building form integral parts of a general scheme. The thoroughfares are mostly ample in size and the buildings nearly all modern structures of stone and plaster in which the new school of Swedish architecture has sought to express a purely Swedish style of architectural expression. As I intend in a subsequent chapter to treat this subject more fully, I will content myself with saying that though the public buildings of Gothenburg undoubtedly reflect the art that was preconised by such masters as Clason and Ferdinand Boberg in the way in which the principal ornamental designs centre around the entrances, and also in the very distinctive form of panelling and decorative _motifs_ which characterise them, they should not be taken as typical examples of a style which can only be studied to advantage in the capital. I should therefore advise all lovers of architecture, whose first view of Sweden is by way of this city, to suspend all judgment of Swedish architecture until they have arrived in Stockholm and seen Ragnar Östberg’s famous masterpiece, the new Stadshus.

[Illustration: GOTHENBURG—THE CITY]

Of the many new buildings of Gothenburg which have been inspired by the new school, the most pretentious and interesting is the New Art Gallery, which was opened to the public last year at Götaplatsen, a big, massive building containing a fine handsome loggia with seven high round arches, which, though awaiting completion, possesses a certain massive dignity that is not without charm. Of the other numerous buildings that are to be found in the town, which incidentally probably contains a greater number of scholastic institutions, technical colleges, and hospitals than any other city of its size in the world, there are few which deserve any special mention. A visit should, however, be made to the old seventeenth-century building on the Harbour Canal in which the Swedish East India Company once had their offices and warehouses, where very interesting ethnographical and sociological historical collections can be seen, and also to the new General Post Office, which is probably the largest post office to be found in the north of Europe. As for the churches of Gothenburg, there are only one or two that are in any way out of the common, and none that should detain the tourist for any appreciable length of time, except perhaps the Masthuggs Church, situated in the suburb of Majorna, whose red-bricked tower certainly possesses quite a distinctive air of its own, and also the Kristine or German Church on the Harbour Canal. The remainder are devoid of any special interest.

Before passing on to consider the many pleasant excursions that can be made from Gothenburg along the coast of Bohuslän, a few remarks concerning the hotels and restaurants of the town may not fall amiss; and while I have little further to add to the description which I gave in the earlier pages of this chapter of a typical Swedish meal (the luncheon which I described being characteristic not only of Swedish steamers but also of Swedish towns generally), it may be useful to point out that the hotels of Gothenburg mostly belong to the expensive category, and that travellers should not therefore base their estimate of costs on this city alone, Gothenburg and Stockholm being probably the two most expensive towns in the whole of Sweden. Swedish hotels are invariably clean and comfortable, however, and though a traveller may at first experience a certain shock at finding that the stalwart and often prepossessing chambermaid whom he has requested to prepare his matutinal bath will not only prepare it most adequately, but will also look very aggrieved if he does not allow her to scrub and generally rub him down much as his nurse used to do in the days of his childhood, he will find little else that differs materially from his experience of English hotels. Swedish rule of behaviour must, however, be acquired by any visitor who intends to make a protracted stay in the country, as Swedish table manners differ considerably from our own; and one of the first rules that must be mastered is never to drink any wine at a dinner or luncheon party without first toasting somebody: it does not matter who it is so long as it is not your hostess. As this book is not intended to be a Swedish etiquette manual, we will now pass on to other subjects, after contenting ourselves with saying that though the custom referred to is the one which the ignorant Englishman is the most likely to break, there are many others that he should try to assimilate, especially if he happens to be one of those luckless individuals who are always doing the wrong thing. In no other country in Europe has a _gaffeur_ more opportunities for showing off this particular failing.