FORESTS OF OLONETZ. 370 
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 cumbined 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. 
‘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’ 
