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REGNARD’s JOURNEY TO LAPLAND, 407
was a prefent from Queen Chriftina. ‘There are feveral learned men here, and
among others, Rudbekius, a phyfician, who has written a very curious book, which
he fhewed us himfelf. This man fhews, by all that is contained in authors, fuch as
Herodotus, Plato, Diodorus of Sicily, and others, that the gods came from his
country: he gives very {trong reafons for it: he perfuades us from the conneétion
which fubfifts betwixt his language and all the names of the gods. Hercules is de-
rived from ser and coule, which fignifies Captain, and Diana comes from the Gothic
word dia, which fignifies nur/e. He fhewed us, that the Hefperian apples had been in
this place, which rendered thofe immortal who tafted them. He pointed out to us,
that this immortality arofe from knowledge, which makes men live for ever. He
mentioned a paflage in Plato, where addrefling himfelf to the Romans he tells them,
that they had received their gods from the Greeks, and .that the Greeks had taken
them from the Barbarians. He anxioufly endeavoured to perfuade us, that the pillars
of Hercules were fituated in his country, and a number of other matters, which you
may believe if you choofe,
We faw in his cabinet many pieces of mechanifm; one of the Runic fticks to
learn the courfe of the fun, which the Swedes according to his account, knew before
the Egyptians and the Chaldeans; all the Runic letters are made in the form of a dra-
gon, which he faid, isthe fame with that which guarded the garden of the Hefperides ;
the Runic letters which the Swedes made ufe of were only fixteen in number. Ovenius
is {till a celebrated phyfician. Rédelius and Loxenius are celebrated, the firft for an-
tiquities, and the other for jurifprudence: Columbus for hiftory, and Sheffer, who has
written refpecting the Laplanders, is much efteemed. for logic. In the old town of
Upfal, a number of antiquities are to be feen, fuch-as the tombs of the Kings of Sweden,
and thefour-fronted temple of Janus, which is one of the fubjeéts on which Rud-
bekius has written. We went on board a little boat, which was bound for Stockholm,
for certain reafons; but the wind which was favourable, having changed, being {till
within view of Upfal, we travelled two large Swedifh miles, which are equal to five or
fix French leagues, and arrived.at the poft-houfe, where we took horles, and they con-
ducted us, in the night time to Stockholm, which we entered at four o’clock in the
morning of Saturday the 27th of December. Here at length terminated our hazard-
ous journey, of which I would not have been deprived for a great deal of money, and
which I would not begin again for much more,
A JOURNEY TO POLAND.
We left Stockholm, on the third day of O&ober 1683, to go to Dalles for the
purpofe of finding our veflel, which had departed two days before us. We were
efcorted by all our good friends, a league beyond the city: when we took leave of them,
and travelled the whole night, we arrived next day at Dalles. This is the place where
the duties upon all the goods which enter or are exported, are paid to the King of
Sweden: it is here, where the rocks which furround Stockholm are firft obferved, and
among which it is difficult to travel. Our boat was not yet there, but it arrived on the
morrow at mid-day ; it came from Stettin, in Pomerania, which belongs to the King of
Sweden, and which gave fo much employment during the late wars, to the troops of
the elector of Brandenburg, who remained nine months before its walls, which were
only defended by a few refpectable inhabitants. It has been fince given up to the King
of Sweden, as well as all the other places he had loft, which the King of France obliged
them
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