se, mostly through ledges of solid granite. The natural rock of
these islands has, in fact, been utilized somewhat after the
elaborate style of Gibraltar. An extensive and most substantial
granite quay extends along the water in front of the town, where a
large fleet of fishing-boats managed mostly by women is moored daily,
with the freshly caught cargoes displayed for sale, spread out in
great variety both upon the immediate shore and on the decks of their
homely but serviceable little vessels. The energy of the fishwomen in
their efforts to trade with all comers, accompanied by loud
expressions and vociferous exclamations, led us to think that there
might be a Finnish Billingsgate as well as an English. While we stood
watching the busy scene on and near the wharves, a fishing-boat of
about twenty tons, with two masts supporting fore and aft sails and a
fore-stay-sail, was just getting under way outward bound. The boat
contained a couple of lads and a middle-aged woman, who held the
sheet of the mainsail as she sat beside the tiller. The little craft
had just fairly laid her course close-hauled towards the mouth of the
bay, and was hardly a quarter of a mile from the dock when one of
the sudden squalls so common in this region, accompanied by heavy
rain, came down upon the craft like a flash, driving her lee gunwales
for a moment quite under water. The main sheet was instantly let go,
so also with the fore and stay sails, and the boat promptly brought
to the wind, while the woman at the helm issued one or two orders to
her boy-crew which were instantly obeyed. Ten minutes later, under a
close-reefed foresail, the boat had taken the wind upon the opposite
tack and was scudding into the shelter of the dock, where she was
properly made fast and her sails quietly furled to await the advent
of more favorable weather. No experienced seaman could have managed
the boat better under the circumstances than did this woman.

After leaving Helsingfors we next come upon Cronstadt, formed by a
series of low islands about five miles long by one broad, which are
important only as fortifications and as being the acknowledged key of
St. Petersburg, forming also the chief naval station of the great
empire. The two fortifications of Sweaborg and Cronstadt insure to
Russia the possession of the Gulf of Finland. The cluster of islands
which form the great Russian naval station are raised above the level
of the sea barely sufficient to preven