Torneo does not satisfy the expectation which we are led to form of a town, from which, as a central point, the trade with all the polar regions as far as the Frozen Ocean is carried on; and it disappoints us the more, as it is so much connected with the rich and cultivated country down the river. There are a number of streets, it is true; they are generally straight, and intersect one another at right angles. A plan of the town would exhibit it as large and regular. But these streets are not paved; they have quite the look of so many fields or meadows, they are so grown over with grass. We see few traces of footsteps in them, and carriages only go through the lower principal street. The upper streets are actually barred. The inhabitants have the exclusive right of feeding their own cows on them, and perhaps also of making hay; and hence it not unfrequently happens that when the people of the more southern parts of Sweden wish to divest themselves at the expence of Torneo, they assert that the market-place and the hay made from it belong to the regular revenues of the mayor ( burger meister ). However, the road from Stockholm to the Bothnian Gulph goes through the market-place , and the streets which run from it towards the river-side. In this quarter, therefore, every thing looks better and more respectable. We see several houses two stories high, painted and ornamented; and at the river-side the house of M. Carlenius, the merchant, has a most distinguished appearance. All the other houses are merely low huts, and they are situated at a distance from one another; for every hut has generally its little garden beside it, containing flowers, garden stuffs and herbs, and beautiful mountain-ash trees. The life and stir is confined to the landing-place on the banks of the river, and it is soon lost in the empty streets. The country round is altogether flat, and almost Dutch. Three windmills with the church cover the almost imperceptible hill before the town; and in the adjoining church-yard wall there is probably the same wooden steeple on which Charles XI. once saw the sun at midnight, and from which Manpertuis and his associates began to calculate their degree. The sea is not visible, and the stir in the harbour is not at present very great; I saw only two or three yachts. But the prospect down the river is rather beautiful; for the church of Nieder Torneo, on an island on the other side of the Elv, has a beautiful appearance . It is a shining stone building in the shape of a cross, and the steeple a high cupola rising from the middle with lanterns on it. There is something unexpected and singularly attractive in this view .
Leopold von Buch: Travels through Norway and Lapland, during the years 1806, 1807, and 1808. 1813
