Being the only foreign and heterodox persons present, we began to feel
ourselves deserted, when the favor of Sergius and Herrmann was again
manifested. P. was suddenly greeted by an acquaintance, an officer
connected with the Imperial Court, who had come to Valaam for a week of
devotion. He immediately interested himself in our behalf, procured us a
room with a lovely prospect, transferred his bouquet of lilacs and
peonies to our table, and produced his bottle of lemon-syrup to flavor
our tea. The rules of the monastery are very strict, and no visitor is
exempt from their observance. Not a fish can be caught, not a bird or
beast shot, no wine or liquor of any kind, nor tobacco in any form, used
on the island. Rigid as the organization seems, it bears equally on
every member of the brotherhood: the equality upon which such
associations were originally based is here preserved. The monks are only
in an ecclesiastical sense subordinate to the abbot. Otherwise, the
fraternity seems to be about as complete as in the early days of
Christianity.

The Valamo, and her rival, the Letuchie, had advertised a trip to the
Holy Island, the easternmost of the Valaam group, some six miles from
the monastery, and the weather was so fair that both boats were crowded,
many of the monks accompanying us. Our new-found friend was also of the
party, and I made the acquaintance of a Finnish student from the Lyceum
at Kuopio, who gave me descriptions of the Saïma Lake and the wilds of
Savolax. Running eastward along the headlands, we passed Chernoi Noss,
(Black-Nose,) the name of which again recalled a term common in the
Orkneys and Shetlands,--_noss_, there, signifying a headland. The Holy
Island rose before us,--a circular pile of rock, crowned with wood, like
a huge, unfinished tower of Cyclopean masonry, built up out of the deep
water. Far beyond it, over the rim of the lake, glimmered the blue