corn-whisky, and struggle through
axle-deep mud or breast-high snow (according to the season), sometimes
for two days together. "Mais nous avons change tout cela." Two trains
run daily from St. Petersburg, covering the whole distance in about four
hours, and the stations along the line, though bearing marks of hasty
construction, are still sufficiently comfortable and well supplied with
provisions. Thanks to this direct communication with the capital, Viborg
is now completely _au fait_ of the news of the day, and all fashionable
topics are canvassed as eagerly on the promenade of this little Finnish
seaport as along the pavements of the Nevski Prospect.

"We must breakfast early to-morrow, mind," says P---- as we settle into
our respective beds, "for a march in the sun here is no joke, you bet!"

"Worse than in Arabia or South America?" ask I with calm scorn.

"You'll find the north of Russia a pretty fair match for both at this
season. Do you happen to know that one of the hottest places in the
world is Archangelsk on the White Sea? In summer the pitch melts off the
vessels like butter, and the mosquitoes are so thick that the men on
board the grain-ships fairly burrow into the corn for shelter.[E]
Good-night! Sharp six to-morrow, mind!"

Accordingly, the early daylight finds us tramping along the edge of the
picturesque little creek (dappled here and there with wood-crowned
islets) in order to get well into our work before the sun is high in the
sky, for a forty-mile march, knapsack on shoulder, across a difficult
country, in the heat of a real Russian summer, is not a thing to be
trifled with, even by men who have seen Turkey and Syria. A sudden turn
of the road soon blots out the sea, and we plunge at once into the
green silent depths of the northern forest.

It is characteristic of the country that, barely out of sight of one of
the principal ports of Finland, we are in the midst of a loneliness as
utter as if it had never been broken by man. The only tokens of his
presence are the narrow swathe of road running between the dim, unending
files of the shadowy pine trees, and the tall wooden posts, striped
black and white like a zebra, which mark the distance in versts from
Viborg, the verst being two-thirds of a mile.

To an unpractised eye the marvelous smoothness and hardness of this
forest highway (unsurpassed by any macadamized road in England) might
suggest a better opinion of the local civilization than i