t and amusement of
the traveller.

And, if possible, choose the former, if only for one reason. No
one who has ever witnessed the unearthly beauty of a summer night
in Finland is likely to forget it. The Arctic Circle should, of
course, be crossed to witness the midnight sun in all its glory,
but I doubt if the quiet _crepuscule_ (I can think of no other
word) of the twilit hours of darkness is not even more weird and
fascinating viewed from amid silent streets and buildings than
from the sullen dreariness of an Arctic desert, which is generally
(in summer) as drab and as flat as a biscuit. In Arctic Lapland,
where for two months the sun never sinks below the horizon, you may
read small print without difficulty throughout the night between
June and August. This would be impossible in Helsingfors, where
nevertheless from sunset till dawn it is never quite dark. In the
far north the midnight sun affords a rather garish light; down
south it sheds grey but luminous rays, so faint that they cast
no shadows, but impart a weird and mysterious grace to the most
commonplace surroundings. No artist has yet successfully portrayed
the indescribable charm and novelty of a summer night under these
conditions, and, in all probability, no artist ever will!

His Majesty the Tsar's manifesto has not as yet (outwardly, at
any rate) Russianized the capital of Finland. It will probably
take centuries to do that, for Finland, like France, has an
individuality which the combined Powers of Europe would be puzzled to
suppress. A stranger arriving at the railway station of Helsingfors,
for instance, may readily imagine himself in Germany, Austria, or
even Switzerland, but certainly not within a thousand miles of
Petersburg. Everything is so different, from the dapper stationmaster
with gold-laced cap of German build down to the porters in clean
white linen blouses, which pleasantly contrast with the malodorous
sheepskins of unwashed Russia. At Helsingfors there is nothing,
save the soldiery, to remind one of the proximity of Tsarland. And
out in the country it is the same. The line from Mikkeli traverses
a fair and prosperous district, as unlike the monotonous scenery over
the border as the proverbial dock and daisy. Here are no squalid
hovels and roofless sheds where half-starved cattle share the misery
of their owners; no rotting crops and naked pastures; but snug
homestead, flower gardens, and neat wooden fences encircling fields
of golde