GREAT RIVERS OF FINLAND. 195 



protected route is followed by these little boats, until 

 the settled calms of midsummer embolden them to 

 venture across the open sea. The inlets and outlets 

 of the Malar, with its fiords and islands, in the vicinity 

 of Stockholm, are dotted with numerous charming 

 chalets placed near the water's edge along this tideless 

 sea, each one with its small bathing-house and boat- 

 house snugly sheltered amongst the forest trees, the 

 country seats of the merchants and inhabitants of 

 Stockholm and of Upsala. In the very centre of the 

 entrance to the Bothnian Gulf lies the large straggling 

 island of Oland, surrounded by such a vast number of 

 smaller islets of multitudinous dimensions and shapes, 

 that ordinary maps are content with barely indicating 

 their existence, while some have given even that up 

 as hopeless, leaving the traveller to imagine that the 

 open sea stretched itself out rockless and unbroken 

 from the Swedish coast to the mainland of the Grand 

 Duchy of Finland. 



When we see such an overwhelming number of 

 islands fringing the coast of such a flat country as 

 Finland, we may expect the interior to contain a 

 corresponding number of lakes within a small area. 

 Never was this rule, if rule it be, so abundantly 

 carried out as it is in Finland. 



Through this maze of projecting points the steamer 

 wound her sinuous and changing course, pointing now 

 north and now south, but generally somewhere near 

 due east ; with a southerly breeze just fresh enough 

 to make an overcoat desirable, though not necessary, 



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