rakhan,
on the Caspian Sea.

The weather is, however, frequently changeable, and even in summer
the thermometer often rises or falls many degrees in the space
of a few hours. You may sit down to dinner in the open air in
Helsingfors in your shirt-sleeves, and before coffee is served be
sending home for a fur coat. But this is an unusual occurrence, for
a summer in Finland has been my most agreeable climatic experience
in any part of the world.

The winter is unquestionably hard, and lasts about six months,
from November till the middle of April. At Christmas time the sun
is only visible for six hours a day. The entire surface of the
country, land, lake, and river, then forms one vast and frozen
surface of snow, which may be traversed by means of sledge, snowshoes,
or ski. A good man on the last-named will easily cover his seven
miles an hour. Although tourists generally affect this country
in the open season, a true Finlander loves the winter months as
much as he dislikes the summer. In his eyes boredom, heat, and
mosquitoes are a poor exchange for merry picnics on ski, skating
contests, and sledge expeditions by starlight with pretty women and
gay companions, to say nothing of the nightly balls and theatre and
supper parties. Helsingfors is closed to navigation from November
until June, for the sea forms an icy barrier around the coast of
Finland, now no longer impenetrable, thanks to the ice-breakers at
Hangoe. In the north the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen for even longer.

Towards April winter shows signs of departure. By the middle of
May ice and snow have almost disappeared, except in the north,
where Uleaborg is, climatically, quite three weeks behind any of
the southern towns. Before the beginning of June verdure and foliage
have reappeared in all their luxuriance, and birds and flowers
once more gladden field and forest with perfume and song. Even now
an occasional shower of sleet besprinkles the land, only to melt
in a few minutes, and leave it fresher and greener than before.
May and June are, perhaps, the best months, for July and August
are sometimes too warm to be pleasant. October and November are
gloomy and depressing. Never visit Finland in the late autumn, for
the weather is then generally dull and overcast, while cold, raw
winds, mist and sleet, are not the exception. Midwinter and midsummer
are the most favourable seasons, which offer widely different but
equally favourable conditions for the comfor