8 FOREST BAMBLES. [Nov^ 



of three miles. The depth of the river at the Falls is unknown, but 

 must be very considerable. It is estimated that more than sixty- 

 seven million cubic feet of water pass over the Falls every hour. The 

 colours in the water are green, varied by a light yellow and the snowy 

 white of the foam and spray, and a light blue mist generally hangs 

 over the ravine. There is no sheer plunge, but the fall is a long 

 magnificent rapid of surpassing volume, and the total descent is sixty 

 feet. The Falls are never frozen over ; salmon come up to the foot of 

 them, but are unable to ascend higher. There is a cradle over the 

 gorge, worked by ropes ; and from this, suspended in mid-air, a superb 

 view of the entire fall can be obtained. 



A couple of days were pleasantly spent at Imatra, and our journey 

 was then continued to Lake Saima, the largest, and probably the most 

 beautiful, of all the many beautiful lakes of Finland. Its coast is 

 deeply indented by bays, and its vast surface is studded with count- 

 less — it is said, eighteen hundred — islands : some only tiny rocks with 

 a gnarled Pine scarcely finding root-hold ; others, several miles in 

 circumference, and boasting a thick growth of forest. It may be said 

 that this grand lake, whose coast-line must measure some three 

 hundred miles in length, is surrounded by forest ; but here and there 

 the banks have been cleared, and agricultural land stretches down to 

 the water. The beaches are of a coarse sand, intermingled with 

 pebbles, many of which would be prized by lapidaries. The water is 

 everywhere of a marvellous transparency, and beneath the brilliancy 

 of a sunny sky, which favoured us daily, presented an expanse of 

 glowing blue but little inferior in purity and depth of colour to that 

 of 'open water' in the tropic seas. In a little chalet-like house, 

 picturesquely placed on a wooded knoll at the point where the 

 Vuoksa leaves the lake in a broad blue rapid, the days flew past only 

 too rapidly. Sunrise and sunset alike found us afloat on the lake or 

 river ; and when the sun was high, and the daintiest minnow failed to 

 lure the big trout to the surface, we would take long rambles into the 

 depths of the great forest which surrounded our home, our unwary 

 steps rousing the black-cock from a noontide siesta amongst the 

 Birches, or causing a great heron or a string of wild duck to rice 

 from the sedgy margin of some secluded back-water. And when the 

 glorious after-glow died out of the golden West, leaving the great lake 

 ashen-grey beneath the starlight, our boats came slowly home, and 

 there was the tale of the day's fishing to be made up, and the biggest 

 trout to be weighed, ere we ordered in the samovar and sat down 

 to supper and tobacco, and a long yarn over a cheery fire of Pine logs. 



The forest lake and river made up the landscape viewed from our 

 verandah ; and whether at sunrise, when fleecy mists were rising off 

 the lake and shrouding the tree-tops, or at h^'gh noon, when under the 



