, at the impetuous strangers:
had they known our nationality, I fancy the whole population would have
run together. Reaching the last house, nestled among twinkling
birch-trees on a bend of the river beyond, we turned about, and made for
the fortress,--another conquest of the Great Peter. Its low ramparts
had a shabby, neglected look; an old drawbridge spanned the moat, and
there was no sentinel to challenge us as we galloped across. In and out
again, and down the long, quiet street, and over the jolting level to
the top of the sandhill,--we had seen Kexholm in half an hour.

At the mouth of the river still lay the fog, waiting for us, now and
then stretching a ghostly arm over the woods and then withdrawing it,
like a spirit of the lake, longing and yet timid to embrace the land.
With the Wuoxen come down the waters of the Saima, that great, irregular
lake, which, with its innumerable arms, extends for a hundred and fifty
miles into the heart of Finland, clasping the forests and mountains of
Savolax, where the altar-stones of Jumala still stand in the shade of
sacred oaks, and the song of the Kalewala is sung by the descendants of
Wainamoeinen. I registered a vow to visit those Finnish solitudes, as we
shot out upon the muffled lake, heading for the holy isles of Valaam.
This was the great point of interest in our cruise, the shrine of our
pilgrim-passengers. We had heard so little of these islands before
leaving St. Petersburg, and so much since, that our curiosity was keenly
excited; and thus, though too well seasoned by experience to worry
unnecessarily, the continuance of the fog began to disgust us. We shall
creep along as yesterday, said we, and have nothing of Valaam but the
sound of its bells. The air was intensely raw; the sun had disappeared,
and the bearded peasants again slept, with open mouths, on the deck.

Saints Sergius and Herrmann, however, were not indifferent either to
them or to us. About the middle of the afternoon we suddenly and
unexpectedly sailed out of the fog, passing, in the distance of a ship's
length, in to a clear atmosphere, with a far, sharp horizon! The
nuisance of the lake lay behind us, a steep, opaque, white wall. Before
us, rising in bold cliffs from the water and dark with pines, were the
islands of Valaam. Off went hats and caps, and the crowd on deck bent
reverently towards the consecrated shores. As we drew near, the granite
fronts of the separate isles detached themselves fro