departure.

By this time the Finnish sailors were hauling in the slack hawsers, and
the bearded stevedores on the floating quay tugged at the gangway. Many
of our presumed passengers had only come to say good-bye, which they
were now waving and shouting from the shore. The rain fell dismally, and
a black, hopeless sky settled down upon the Neva. But the Northern
summer, we knew, is as fickle as the Southern April, and we trusted that
Sergius and Herrmann, the saints of Valaam, would smooth for us the
rugged waters of Ladoga. At last the barking little bell ceased to snarl
at the tardy pilgrims. The swift current swung our bow into the stream,
and, as we moved away, the crowd on deck uncovered their heads, not to
the bowing friends on the quay, but to the spire of a church which rose
to view behind the houses fronting the Neva. Devoutly crossing
themselves with the joined three fingers, symbolical of the Trinity,
they doubtless murmured a prayer for the propitious completion of the
pilgrimage, to which, I am sure, we could have readily echoed the amen.

The Valamo was particularly distinguished, on this occasion, by a flag
at the fore, carrying the white Greek cross on a red field. This
proclaimed her mission as she passed along, and the bells of many a
little church pealed God-speed to her and her passengers. The latter, in
spite of the rain, thronged the deck, and continually repeated their
devotions to the shrines on either bank. On the right, the starry domes
of the Smolnoi, rising from the lap of a linden--grove, flashed upon us;
then, beyond the long front of the college of _demoiselles nobles_ and
the military storehouses, we hailed the silver hemispheres which canopy
the tomb and shrine of St. Alexander of the Neva. On the left, huge
brick factories pushed back the gleaming groves of birch, which flowed
around and between them, to dip their hanging boughs in the river; but