The Gulf of Finland, as we are running along the coast, is full of islands, to the very edge of which our vessel often comes,—romantic, rocky, hilly islands, to the right of us and left of us, without the sight of an inhabitant. The weather is glorious, cool, bracing, breezy, a cloudless sky and a brilliant sun covering the smooth water and these green isles with a blaze of beauty as we plough our way northward. How widely does all this differ from what we had expected when meditating a cruise along the coast of Finland! We come to Fredericksham by a tortuous channel, among islands and rocks strongly fortified; but, verily, it seems scarcely worth while to make special provision to prevent people from coming up into these regions. The domes and spires of the city tell us that God is worshipped there; and, as the morning sun tips the temples with fire, we send up our matin prayers with the people of the town, whose God is also ours. We passed the ruined fortress of _Sclava_, of some importance once, but now only a monument of the times when Russia and Sweden were fighting for the poor bone of Finland, from which all the meat, if it ever had any, was picked before the war was over. The war is nominally over, and Russia is the master now; but the people keep up the old spirit of patriotic love for the mother land and tongue. The Russ is the language taught in the schools. If a scholar speaks in his own language the teacher flogs him, according to law; and if the scholar speaks in the Russian language, the other boys flog him when the school is out. So that flogging would seem to be the fate of speaking at all. We chatted freely with the ladies respecting the social customs of Finland. There is much less freedom of social intercourse among unmarried young men and women, in polite circles, than in England, or even France. Parties of young men by themselves are common, and of young ladies by themselves; balls for dancing bring them together, and their parents come with them, but one young lady said archly, “They are not always near enough to hear what we say.” These fashions are common to Russia and Finland, and other countries in the north. I had seen it written, in an English book of travels, that at dinner parties the ladies sit by themselves, apart from the gentlemen, but have met with nothing of the kind, and am assured it is a mistake. Yet it is true that the ladies generally enter the dining-room by themselves, in advance of the gentlemen, and then sit promiscuously. There is more freedom of manner and less stiffness and formality than in the same social rank in England or Germany.