18+ THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
Such work is preferred to domestic service, and is more 
highly remunerated, and I found complaints rife of diffi- 
culty experienced in procuring domestic servants, especi- 
ally during the summer months, the wages paid being two 
roubles, or 4s a month ! 
There were many villages besides those I have men- 
tioned, and the whole country presented the appearance 
of an older settled district than those of Finland through 
which I had passed. There was much more land under 
pasturage and agriculture. Contrary to what is seen in 
some parts of Russia, al] the houses and outbuildings 
stood erect and in good order. One striking feature was 
the clean, newly-painted appearance of all the churches. 
Here, as elsewhere, there are little erections containing. 
pictures of the saints, before which the passing traveller 
may offer his prayers. Some of these were ruinous, though : 
with most it was otherwise, and, with the churches, all 
were beautifully clean, leaving no occasion for another 
Longfellow to tell of what the Devil saw in Church.* 
The people, with a slight admixture of Russians from the 
south, seemed generally to be of the Thutchi tribe, and 
those further to the north to be Karells. 
* What a darksome and dismal place ! 
I wonder that any man has the face 
To call such a hole the house of the Lord, 
And the gate of Heaven—yet such is the word. 
Ceiling, and walls, and windows old, 
Coverer’d with cobwebs, blacken’d with mould; , 
Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs, 
Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs, 
The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons 
Have fallen down on the brains of the Germans, 
With about as much real edification 
As if a great Bible, bound in lead, 
Had fallen, and struck them on the head ; 
And I ought to remember that sensation ! 
Here stands the holy water stoup ! 
Holy water it may be to many, 
But to me the veriest Liquor Gehennae ! 
It smells like a filthy fast-day soup ! 
Near it stands the box for the poor, 
With its iron padlock, safe and sure. 
T and the priest of the parish know 
Whither all these charitics yo ; 
Therefore, to keep up the institution, 
I will add my little contribution ! 
(He puts in money.) 
