10 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



tree ; and there, an island not much larger, covered with 

 trees to the water's edge ; and there, larger islands, or the 

 mainland, with high rising hills clothed with wood and 

 forest beyond. Again and again I felt that day as if I 

 were alone with God, or rather with His work, as His work 

 is described by Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs: " When 

 there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when there 

 were no fountains abounding with water. Before the 

 mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought 

 forth: while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the 

 fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 

 When He prepared the heavens : when He set a compass 

 upon the face of the depth : when He established the 

 clouds above : when He strengthened the fountains of 

 the deep : when He gave to the sea His decree, that 

 the waters would not pass His commandment : when He 

 appointed the foundations of the earth." 



' The effect was heightened by the general absence of 

 animal life, excepting at the towns and villages. Once or 

 twice a cow was seen, once or twice a bird on the wing, 

 and once a realisation of Eingsley's picture of the sea-gull 

 on the all- alone stone, far out at sea ! This was as we 

 left the islands, shortly after noon. There were four gulls 

 struggling to maintain their footing on a little projecting 

 rock far out at sea, washed over by a wave produced 

 by our passing vessel. And here and there a solitary 

 house neat, painted, and clean might be seen; or 

 an island, where road there was none but the highway 

 of the sea, as if men were only beginning to appear 

 upon the earth.' 



Here, the islands were covered with arborescent vegeta- 

 tion. Trees seem to grow as naturally in Finland as 

 grass does elsewhere. One Finnish gentleman speaking 

 to me of tlin land, in the neighbourhood of VVyborg, said 

 to me, ' It has been so impoverished by culture that it 

 won't bear trees, and only produces grass.' I may differ 

 from him in his reasoning on the phenomena referred to, 



