CONTOUR OF THE COUNTRY. 220 



from a Grand Duchy, which, though an integral part of 

 the Russian Empire, is a land inhabited by another people, 

 speaking another tongue, worshipping after another form, 

 and to some extent governed by another code. But near 

 the boundary line formed by Lake Ladoga and the Neva, 

 it is somewhat otherwise. The first station on the Finnish 

 railway from St. Petersburg has scarcely been reached 

 before the traveller feels as if he had got into another land, 

 and at Shoovalova, eight or ten miles from St. Petersburg, 

 he sees lakelets and wooded knolls such as are character- 

 istic of the country. 



I am fain to avail myself of the graphic sketches sup- 

 plied by Dr. Helms, who says : ' With the sea on the 

 south and the west, a natural boundary of rocks on the 

 north, and desert steppes and lakes on the confines 

 between Finland and Russia, the country is marked out 

 as a well-defined geographical district. It is not less 

 distinguished by its geological formation, its fauna, and 

 its flora, and the character, customs, speech, history, and 

 marked individuality of its inhabitants.' 



And, comparing the outstretched and embracing arms 

 of the sea the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia 

 to the arms of a mother outstretched to embrace a lost 

 daughter, he speaks of the designation ' Last daughter of 

 the sea ' as less a poetic fancy than a beautiful representa- 

 tion of what have been the facts of the case, borne out by 

 what may be considered traditions embodied in names 

 preserved from ancient usage, and in such designations as are 

 preserved in the expression Suomen-niemi, Finland's capes 

 and promontories, and Suomi-saari, Finland's islands. And 

 when one travels through this ' Land of a thousand lakes/ 

 sees these hill and mountain-begirt lakes and lochs, often 

 numbering a hundred, met with in the course of a single 

 day's journey, and sees valleys now dry, but with deep 

 mosses, or the remains of the lakes which in the olden 

 time rolled in waves over the place, and sees the deep 

 caverns or hollows which the sea has eaten into the rocks, 



