crowd of citizens who were slowly
toiling up the stone steps, and, after a pretty hard climb, was
rewarded with a magnificent view of the city and surrounding country.
The rocky pinnacle upon which the Observatory stands rises some three
hundred feet above the banks of the river, and overlooks a large
portion of the valley of the Aurajoki. The winding waters of the
river; the green fields; patches of woodland, villas, and gardens; the
blue mountains in the distance, and the silent city lying like a
mouldering corpse beneath, presented a scene singularly picturesque
and impressive. I sat down upon the ruined walls and thought of Abo in
its glory--the ancient head-quarters of Christianity in Finland; the
last abiding-place of the beautiful Caroline Morsson, the peasant
queen of Sweden, wife of Eric XII., who died here, and whose remains
lie in the Cathedral--the city of the mighty hosts of warlike Finns
who fought under the banner of Charles XII., and made a funeral pyre
of their bodies upon the bloody field of Puttara. The present Finns
are of this heroic race. Not less brave, yet less fortunate than the
Spartans of Thermopylae, they have lost their country and their
freedom, and now groan under the oppression of a despotic government.

While thus musing on the past, a strain of delicious music broke the
stillness. I rambled over the granite cliffs in the direction of the
sound, and soon came to a grove of trees, with an open space in the
middle, occupied by a band of musicians, who were surrounded by a
group of citizens, thus pleasantly passing the summer evening. Booths
and tents were scattered about in every direction, in which cakes and
refreshments were to be had; and gay parties of young people were
seated on long planks so arranged as to make a kind of spring seats,
upon which they bounced up and down to the time of the music. Children
were playing upon the grass, their merry shouts of laughter mingling
pleasantly with the national air performed by the band. On the
moss-covered rocks sat groups of young ladies, guarded by their
amiable mothers or discreet duennas, as the case might be, trying hard
not to see any of the young gentlemen who lounged about in the same
vicinity; and young gentlemen prowled about puffing cigars as if they
didn't care a straw whether the young ladies looked at them or
not--both being, of course, according to the established usages of
society, natural enemies of each other. For the life o