CHAPTER VI. 



FORESTS OF OLONETZ. 



WISHING to learn a great deal more in regard to the 

 general appearance of the forest lands in Northern Russia 

 than could be obtained on such a holiday trip as I could 

 myself undertake, I asked Professor Schavranoff, Direc- 

 tor of the Laesnoi Corpus, or School of Forestry in the 

 vicinity of St. Petersburg, how this could be accomplished. 

 He at once supplied me with a narrative prepared by M. 

 Judrae, a forest official of high position, of a tour of inspec- 

 tion which was made by him in 1867. The following is a 

 translation of part of his narrative of what he saw : 



' The first steamer of the season (1867) proceeding from 

 St. Petersburg to Petrozavodsk, sailed on the 30th May 

 (Old Style), having been prevented from sailing earlier by 

 the ice on the Neva and Lake Ladoga. With fine, some- 

 what warm weather, we left the capital, and a few hours' 

 hard steaming against the current brought us to Lake 

 Ladoga; but scarcely had we got 30 versts (20 miles) 

 from St, Petersburg when ice began to meet us, some of it 

 in sheets of a very large size ; and it was getting dark. 

 The keen north-east wind made itself felt ; and looking to 

 the horizon there stretched out before us a sea of unbroken 

 or of congealed fields of ice; the steamer, however, resolutely 

 advanced. I took refuge in the cabin from the intolerable 

 cold, but after a few minutes I hastened on deck in con- 

 sequence of the steamer being stopped. There was ice in 

 immense shoals ahead of us, so that to go on in the course 

 we were following would have risked damage to our paddle- 

 wheels, whereby we should have been placed in an awkward 



