dress of the people. Their countenances resemble the lower class of Germans; and their manners are goodnatured, with a little alloy of inquisitiveness, which, though teasing to strangers, is a sign of their being on the alert; a sure promise of future improvement. Curiosity is the soil for a rich mental harvest: and where it is not, you may sow and sow; but it rots where it lies, having no vigour in the bed to change its state and excite it to fructify. It is a duty of a legislator to put to good use this propitious disposition in a people.

I cannot pass any encomiums on the towns and villages I travelled through in my way to Abo. The road leading to this city grows very hilly, and in the line of country strongly resembles the north of Ireland. Cultivation seems not to be neglected, for through the snowy veil which covered the face of the ground, I could perceive the signs of numerous inclosures, intersecting the valleys, and climbing up the sides of the hills. These divisions were marked with long thin bodies of felled trees, laid in an oblique direction, and supported at due distances by uprights of stronger wood, like the fences used in the northern parts of America.

Abo is a place of great repute, is considered the capital of Swedish Finland, and is situated in a hollow between two high and naked granite hills, on the point where the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland unite. The town has a good harbour, with every other maritime convenience. In 1620, that mirror of princes, the great Gustavus Adolphus, founded a gymnasium here, which his daughter the queen Christina, a few years afterwards changed into an academy, and endowed with the same privileges as Upsala. The only royal court of judicature in Finland is held at this place; and here the governor of the province usually resides. It is also a bishop's see. The church is large and of brick; built, they tell me, by a Metropolitan named Henry, who was an Englishman. I did not look at it with the less regard, you may believe, from these circumstances. The organ may be ranked amongst the best in Europe; its tones indeed equalled any I had ever heard: and as the notes of the singers accompanied them, I know not whether there were really a resemblance, or that the idea of the

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founder put fancy in the place of fact into my head, but certainly I thought the voice of one of the choristers resembled the tones of one with whom you are very well acquainted; but he rose from his seat, and there ended the likeness. Surely nothing more quickly recals the images of the absent, than hearing tunes that they have admired, or sounds resembling their own voice. I started when I heard those in the church of Abo; and almost thought I was in the parlour in G-, listening to the air with which you sung the words of our favourite hero, The plume of war, with early laurels crowned! Nature, you see, is very consistent. What reminds travellers of their friends, recals exiles to their country: who can forget the power of the Ranz des Vaches, over the Swiss soldiers? And which of us Britons, were we even enjoying all the luxu ries of life in a foreign clime, could suddenly hear the well known notes of Rule Britannia, and not feel his heart and soul fly back to England?

Having left the choir, I examined the monuments of the church; but met with little gratification, as they possessed no interest, except to the families whose relatives they cover. They are generally flat stones on the pavement, or against the walls, without graces, either of architecture or inscription. One I observed rather more eminent than the rest; and found it to be the last bed of general Wedderburn, a Briton who died in the service of Sweden about two centuries ago. I visited the university. The institution is admirable; and the new edifice for the use of the students is in great forwardness, and seems to promise both convenience and beauty. The streets of the town are narrow, and the houses generally built of wood, precisely in the common Russian style; differing only in the dear essentials of being always aired and clean. The river Aurojochi winds through the city to the gulf; and when the navigation is open, this is a place of considerable trade and consequence. During the period of traffic (when spring unlocks the seas), regular boats are kept for the purpose of conveying passengers and their equipages direct across to Stockholm; which short voyage generally lasts no longer than from fourteen to twentyfour hours. Thus gliding gently over the waves, the happy he

who travels under summer suns, avoids the inconveniencies of stoppages, the expensive wretchedness of the islands, and lands himself fresh and gay on the opposite shore.

The winter vehicles of this country differ materially from those of Russia, being extremely light, narrow and long, seldom shorter than ten feet. The person or persons sit in the centre; and he who drives stands behind: a seat is sometimes affixed, whereon the whip may sit if he pleases.

Having seen all worthy observation at Abo, although the Russ consul Mr. Brumm, and also the governor, to whom I brought letters, have behaved with the greatest attention to me, yet I shall remain as short a time as possible; being eager, by immediately facing the dangers of a passage through the gulf, to prevent the accumulation of more, and to get over the present collection, as fast as possible. I am told that Ulysses never met with more horrible perils amongst the isles of the Syrens, than I am to encounter amidst the isles of Bothnia. I fear they will be in less agreeable shapes than beautiful women; and expecting rather to meet with sea storms than sea nymphs, I commit myself to your orisons; hoping soon, from Stockholm, again to sign myself your faithful friend.

LETTER XXXV.

Warsala, Isles of Bothnia, December, 1807.

I AM now ingulfed, my good friend! When I shall set foot on terra firma again I cannot prognosticate. Nought is around me but shoals of ice and barren rocks: if I had an enemy wicked enough to enjoy my polar banishment, how happy would he be now! I am arrived to the very acmé of northern discomfort; and could scarcely be worse off were I encountering, with the unfortunate Ajust, the cimmerian depths of the Greenland seas. But I will not anticipate my narrative; in due order you shall have my exit from Abo.

Well then, on Monday morning, I, and my faithful Squire, sallied forth in our kibitkas towards Elsing, a village about six Swedish miles from Abo, and the last collection of houses that is resorted to by passengers taking the direct road across the gulf to Stockholm. Here I rested a little while to reconnoitre my movements; and so dreary was the prospect, and dismal the accounts which the natives gave of the voyage at this season of the year, that my impatience to reach the Sewdish capital, seemed hardly an excuse for the boldness of the enterprise. However, I had reason enough to determine me: Schmidt was willing to follow his master; and notwithstanding the fearful portents, we prepared to attempt the first island. What increased the hazard, was the unsettled state of the weather; which, freezing one hour, and thawing the next, rendered the greater part of the ice on the gulf too weak to bear our kibitkas, and yet too strong to allow of its being broken to admit the action of a boat. This representation did not quite convince me; and on inquiring further I was told, that on examining the passages, it was found that an intermingled fluid and frozen mode of conveyance might be possible.

I therefore sought for a part of the gulf hard enough to start from; and at last lit upon a pretty open space still in a liquid state, at some distance from which the ice seemed thick

enough to bear our weight. On the proclamation of this dis covery, a number of villagers of both sexes turned out to escort and assist us over. Each was provided with an iron pointed staff; and some carried the addition of a hammerheaded ax, in order to sound the way, or to break the ice when necessary. My kibitkas were each placed in a separate boat, and our little troop embarked with them. A short time brought us to the frozen part on which I had fixed my eye; the natives got out first to try its strength, but to my no small disappointment, found it so weak that it hardly bore themselves. Their only resource for me, was to break a passage, by means of their axes and the prow of the first vessel: and this they did with most indefatigable labour, till we penetrated through the midst of the congealed plain to the distance of three quarters of an English mile.

During this toil, we had a tremendous gale of wind, attended by so piercing a sleet, that the breaking up of the surrounding ice was threatened, which must have inevitably ingulfed us all, most seriously ingulfed! for my companions expected no less, for some dreadful hours, than that the bursting and rushing ice would overwhelm us for ever. However, we found the frozen fluid grow stronger as we drew nearer the island; and it soon, most happily, allowed us to haul the sledges from the boats, and proceed, if not on firm land, on firm ice, towards the shore.

With the men and women dragging the sledges (on which you must remember our kibitkas are fastened), and at every yard, striking our footing, to sound its thickness; after a cold, wet and benumbing perambulation, we at length reached Warsala. But what did we meet? not the warm comforts which would have cheered us from even the wave beaten cottage of a poor Scot, had we landed in a rough night on one of our stormy Hebrides; but such chilling wretchedness, such dirt and penury were exhibited here, that I had much ado to persuade myself not to prefer returning to the dangers of the gulf, before passing a night in so miserable a spot. But had I decided so, my conveyors would not; and forced to be resigned to what