e. They make great use of bark
for caps, shoes, plates, etc., in the making of which they are very
skillful. As to their dress, it baffles description, and the horror of
my friend the ex-chasseur at his first glimpse of it was as good as a
play. On one occasion he was criticising severely the "rig" of some
passing natives: "Voila un qui porte un pantalon et point de bottes--un
autre qui a des bottes et point de pantalon; peut-etre que le troisieme
n'aura ni l'un ni l'autre!" At last came one with a pair of boots almost
big enough to go to sea in, and turned up like an Indian canoe. Our
critic eyed them in silence for a moment, and then said with a shudder,
"Ce sont des bottes impossibles!"

But there needs only a short journey here to show the folly of further
annexations on the part of Russia while those already made are so
lamentably undeveloped. Finland, which, rightly handled, might be one of
the czar's richest possessions, is now, after nearly seventy years'
occupation, as unprofitable as ever. Throughout the whole province there
are only three hundred and ninety-eight miles of railway.[G] Post-roads,
scarce enough in the South, are absolutely wanting in the North. Steam
navigation on the Gulf of Bothnia extends only to Uleaborg, and is, so
far as I can learn, actually non-existent on the great lakes, except
between Tanasthuus and Tammerfors. Such is the state of a land
containing boundless water-power, countless acres of fine timber,
countless shiploads of splendid granite. But what can be expected of an
untaught population under two millions left to themselves in an
unreclaimed country nearly as large as France?

Helsingfors can now be reached from St. Petersburg, _via_ Viborg, in
fourteen and a half hours; but what is one such line to the boundless
emptiness of Finland? The fearful lesson of 1869 will not be easily
forgotten, when all the horrors of famine were let loose at once upon
the unhappy province. Seed-corn was exhausted: bread became dear, dearer
still, and then failed altogether. Men, women and children, struggling
over snowy moors and frozen lakes toward the distant towns in which lay
their only chance of life, dropped one by one on the long march of
death, and were devoured ere they were cold by the pursuing wolves. Nor
did the survivors fare much better: some reached the haven of refuge
only to fall dead in its very streets. Others gorged themselves with
unwholesome food, and died with it in their