of several hundreds. Grass grows between the cobble-stones of its broad
streets, but the houses are altogether so bright, so clean, so
substantially comfortable, and the geraniums and roses peeping out
between snowy curtains in almost every window suggested such cozy
interiors, that I found myself quite attracted towards the plain little
town. "Here," said I to P., "is a nook which is really out of the world.
No need of a monastery, where you have such perfect seclusion, and the
indispensable solace of natural society to make it endurable." Pleasant
faces occasionally looked out, curiously, at the impetuous strangers:
had they known our nationality, I fancy the whole population would have
run together. Reaching the last house, nestled among twinkling
birch-trees on a bend of the river beyond, we turned about, and made for
the fortress,--another conquest of the Great Peter. Its low ramparts
had a shabby, neglected look; an old drawbridge spanned the moat, and
there was no sentinel to challenge us as we galloped across. In and out
again, and down the long, quiet street, and over the jolting level to
the top of the sandhill,--we had seen Kexholm in half an hour.

At the mouth of the river still lay the fog, waiting for us, now and
then stretching a ghostly arm over the woods and then withdrawing it,
like a spirit of the lake, longing and yet timid to embrace the land.
With the Wuoxen come down the waters of the Saïma, that great, irregular
lake, which, with its innumerable arms, extends for a hundred and fifty
miles into the heart of Finland, clasping the forests and mountains of
Savolax, where the altar-stones of Jumala still stand in the shade of
sacred oaks, and the song of the Kalewala is sung by the descendants of
Waïnamöinen. I registered a vow to visit those Finnish solitudes, as we
shot out upon the muffled lake, heading for the holy isles of Valaam.
This was the great point of interest in our cruise, the shrine of our
pilgrim-passengers. We had heard so little of these islands before