FORESTS OF OLONETZ. 37 



condition amongst the ice floes of the Ladoga. At length 

 the order was given to cast the anchor and wait for the day. 

 In a few minutes we were fast, and a strangely contrasting 

 stillness and silence pervaded the vessel, while a magnifi- 

 cent scene was stretching around us in all direction. Far 

 as the eye could see were open spaces of water and sheets 

 of ice commingled, and whole schools of black seals moving 

 backward and forward on the floating masses, while with 

 the cold wind were combined black clouds and a murky 

 sky, although it was now the 31st of May (O.S.), the 12th 

 day of June in lands where the New Style has been intro- 

 duced. 



c Next day the steamer by some way or another got 

 through Lake Ladoga, and entered the river Svir. Steam- 

 ing along, we found everywhere on the banks on both 

 sides, woods, woods, woods. From the deck of the vessels 

 could only be noticed firs, and pines, and birches, although 

 in some parts of the Government of Olonetz there still 

 grew the Norway maple, the lime, the elm, and other kinds 

 of trees. 



' Now we passed on the left bank of the river the town 

 of Ladenoi-Pole, founded by Peter the Great, and formerly 

 a naval dockyard. A few hours more and we reached 

 Vosnesenya, one of the principal centres of inland naviga- 

 tion by a system of canals, of which there are two or three 

 connecting the Volga with the Baltic. 



' The village of Vosnesenya is situated on the Svir as it 

 issues from the Lake Onega, and it is called by the inha- 

 bitants the Petersburg Gate. 



' It was impracticable to go further by the steamer, as 

 the ice in this lake had not yet broken up ; consequently 

 I had to travel to Petrozavodsk by horse, which I did by a 

 very picturesque route by the western shore. From Vos- 

 nesenya to Petrozavodsk by the so-called Vilegarskoi road 

 is 130 versts, or 86 miles. 



' Between the hills are occasionally met with rivers or 

 rivulets flowing into Lake Onega. The current of these is 

 very, rapid in consequence of the steep declivity of the 



