34 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 
boat shoots them beautifully, now rushing apparently 
‘against a projecting rock, but passing it safely; now 
rushing upon broken water, but only to rise on it like a 
sea-gull on a wave, and pass on safely beyond. 
At length Uleaborg on the coast was reached, and by a 
coasting steamer touching at all the more important ports 
on the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the traveller 
reached Abo and Helsingfors in safety. He did not state 
in a letter that he wrote to me giving an account of his 
tour, but I afterwards learned in conversation with him, 
that at one place the fragile bark and its whole cargo was 
submerged and broken up; but all floated, the cargo was 
soon collected again, and the boat, if boat it could be called, 
reconstructed, and they resumed their voyage after a brief 
delay. 
I know something from experience of the nervous 
excitement produced by the descent of the rapids of the 
St. Lawrence, and from conversation with those who have 
had like experience in connection with the descent of the 
rapids of the Zambesi, of which adventure Dr Livingstone 
has left us a graphic account, I gather that their feelings 
must have been similar; and like feelings appear to be 
generally produced in like circumstances. The incident 
has been mentioned, less with a view to awaken a sympa- 
thetic feeling by leading the reader to fancy what his 
feeliugs would have been, than with a view to making the 
personal narrative subservient to the production of a vivid 
realisation of the physical aspects of the country. With a 
like view I proceed to cite an account given by the author 
of Frost and Fire, of a descent made by himself and a brother 
tourist of the Torneo, the river constituting the boundary 
on the extreme north of Finland, between the Russian * | 
territory and Sweden. 
Describing the Torneo boats, the writer says: ‘The bow 
rises about three feet from the water, and is very sharp; 
the boat gets rapidly broader and lower for about five fect . 
to the place where the first rower sits upon the bottom 
boards and works two broad paddles. These work in 
