On quitting our inn the next morning a very picturesque walk of half an hour brings us to a little hut beside the Saima Ferry, where we find a party of "three fishers" from St. Petersburg, comprising a Russian colonel, an ex-chasseur d'Afrique (now an actor at one of the Russian theatres) and an Englishman. The three give us a cordial welcome, and insist upon our joining them; and for the next few days our surroundings are savagely picturesque enough to satisfy Jean-Jacques himself--living in a cabin of rough-hewn logs plastered with mud, sleeping on a bundle of straw, with our knapsacks for a pillow; tramping for miles every day through the sombre pine forest or fishing by moonlight in the shadowy lake, with the silence of a newly-created world all around; and having an "early pull" every morning across the ferry with our host, a squat, yellow-haired, gnome-like creature in sheepskin frock and bark shoes, who manifests unbounded amazement every time he sees us washing our hands. But the lake itself is, if possible, even more picturesque than the river. It is one of those long, straggling bodies of water so common in the far North, resembling not so much one great lake as an endless series of small ones. Just at the sortie of the river a succession of rapids, scarcely less magnificent than those of the "Foss" itself, rush between the wooded shores, their unresting whirl and fury contrasting gloriously with the vast expanse of glassy water above, crested with leafy islets and mirroring the green boughs that droop over it along the shore. Here did we spend many a night fishing and "spinning yarns," in both of which accomplishments the ex-chasseur was pre-eminent; and strange enough it seemed, lying in the depths of that northern forest, to listen to descriptions of the treeless sands of Egypt and the burning wastes of the Sahara. Our midnight camp, on a little promontory just above the rapids, was a study for Rembrandt--the slender pine-stems reddened by the blaze of our camp-fire; the group of bearded faces coming and going as the light waxed and waned; beyond the circle of light a gloom all the blacker for the contrast; the ghostly white of the foam shimmering through the leaves, and the clear moonlit sky overhanging all. When a wet day came upon us the inexhaustible ex-chasseur (who, like Frederick the Great, could "do everything but keep still") amused himself and us with various experiments in cookery, of which art he was a perfect master. His versatility in sauces might have aroused the envy of Soyer himself, and the party having brought with them a large stock of provisions, he was never at a loss for materials. Our ordinary dinner consisted of trout sauced with red wine, mutton, veal, duck, cheese, fresh strawberries and coffee; after which every man took his tumbler of tea, with a slice of lemon in it, from the stove, and the evening began.