ume that it would be
interesting to the world, and therefore spare myself a great deal of
laborious research. Small as it is, and so secluded that Ladoga seems a
world's highway in comparison with its quiet harbor, it nevertheless
holds three races and three languages in its modest bounds. The
government and Its tongue are Russian; the people are mostly Finnish,
with a very thin upper-crust of Swedish tradition, whence the latter
language is cultivated as a sign of aristocracy.

We landed on a broad wooden pier, and entered the town through a crowd
which was composed of all these elements. There was to be a fair on the
morrow, and from the northern shore of the lake, as well as the wild
inland region towards the Saima, the people had collected for trade,
gossip, and festivity. Children in ragged garments of hemp, bleached
upon their bodies, impudently begged for pocket-money; women in scarlet
kerchiefs curiously scrutinized us; peasants carried bundles of freshly
mown grass to the horses which were exposed for sale; ladies with
Hungarian hats crushed their crinolines into queer old cabriolets;
gentlemen with business-faces and an aspect of wealth smoked paper
cigars; and numbers of hucksters offered baskets of biscuit and cakes,
of a disagreeable yellow color and great apparent toughness. It was a
repetition, with slight variations, of a village-fair anywhere else, or
an election-day in America.

Passing through the roughly paved and somewhat dirty streets, past shops
full of primitive hardware, groceries which emitted powerful whiffs of
salt fish or new leather, bakeries with crisp padlocks of bread in the
windows, drinking-houses plentifully supplied with _qvass_ and _vodki_,
and, finally, the one watch-maker, and the vender of paper, pens, and
Finnish almanacs, we reached a broad suburban street, whose substantial
houses, with their courts and gardens, hinted at the aristocracy of
Serdopol. The inn, with its Swedish sign, was large and comfortable, and
a peep into the open windows disclosed as pleasant quarters as a
traveller could wish. A little farther the town ceased, and we found
ourselves upon a rough, sloping common, at the top of which stood the
church with its neighboring belfry. It was unmistakably Lutheran in
appearance,--very plain and massive and sober in color, with a steep
roof for shedding snow. The only attempt at ornament was a fanciful
shingle-mosaic, but in pattern only, not in color. Across the c