272 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



journey in a light sledge, with tinkling bells, through some 

 such scented, dark-green and snow-white forest, while the 

 stars and the Northern streamers glimmer overhead, has 

 for the spirit what is in the highest degree refreshing. 



c The Northern people have a deep feeling of this, and 

 understand it well, and even the Laplander looks from 

 under a mild heaven to the snow and the rocks, and sighs 

 after the peaceful enjoyment of his waste-lying steppes. 

 The Southerner, on the other hand, who for the first time 

 visits the great coniferous forests of the interior of Finland, 

 feels himself saddened under their stern aspect. It is not 

 the absence of the soft green in the beautiful display of colour 

 with which the forests in the south adorn themselves, and 

 which the broad-leaved woods of Finland are only in a 

 position weakly to sigh after, it is not the deep shadows 

 and the moist coolness which awakens this feeling in him 

 against his will; but it is the perfect stillness which gives 

 them the stern aspect that does it ; but this awe-pro- 

 ducing silence of the wilderness does not the less fascinate 

 and surprise him. 



' Nine months long lasts this solemn stern silence of 

 Nature. It is as if the wild beasts were afraid to dese- 

 crate the stillness by their noise : only rarely, as if 

 restrained, sounds the howl of the hungry wolf, or the cry 

 of some solitary bird of prey, while here and there only a 

 heathcock flies out from the wood, and a sneaky fox steals 

 about between the wood pile and the charcoal burner's 

 hut. 



'But during the three months which follow this time of 

 stillness, and in which the life of the north awakes from 

 its winter sleep, from the the middle of April to the 

 middle of July the glorious time of light in which 

 Nature knows no more of night the solitude of the 

 forest awakes to life, the song of birds is silenced neither 

 by day nor by night, and if there be no hare frightened 

 by the cry of the dogs hastening on fleet -foot through 

 forest and field, there is no wood or bush so small or so 

 destroyed but the hare is racing through it, and no forest 



