done, and that
very speedily. I was rapidly wilting under the chilling influence of
the water. Ten minutes more would render me a fit subject for a
coroner's inquest. I saw but one alternative: to work my course a few
hundred yards up the shore, and then creep out the best way I could,
and run for my life till I found some friendly nook among the rocks in
which I could conceal myself till these fair Finns took a notion to
depart.

Acting upon this idea, I ducked down as low as possible, and crept
over the jagged and slippery rocks, in mortal dread all the time that
some receding wave would leave me a dripping spectacle for these fair
damsels to laugh at; till, bruised and scarified beyond farther
endurance, I worked my way to a landing-place, where I paused in a
recumbent position--that is to say, on all-fours--to take an
observation. They must have perceived something ludicrous in my
attitude. A wild scream of laughter saluted my ears. I could stand no
more. What little warmth was left in my blood forced itself into my
head and face as I sprang to my feet. With a groan of shame and
mortification, I took to my heels; and never before, so help me
Jupiter! did I run so fast in my life. Scream after scream of laughter
followed me! It is impossible for me to conjecture how I looked, but I
felt dreadfully destitute of sail as I scudded over the rough pathway
that wound around the shore. Blushing, panting, and utterly
overwhelmed with conflicting emotions of modesty and despair, I darted
behind the friendly shelter of a rock, and inwardly resolved that if
ever I went bathing in Finland again, I would at least perform my
ablutions in a more appropriate costume than Nature had bestowed upon
me.

The next question was, how long were these people going to enjoy
themselves at my expense? Was I to be blockaded from my clothes all
the rest of the afternoon? I could not, upon any principle of
international law, undertake to break the blockade on the ground that
it was not effectual, and yet it was pretty hard to do without my
cotton. What I had suffered from the cold while in the water was
nothing to what I now began to experience from the unobstructed rays
of the sun. My skin was rapidly assuming every variety of color
supposed to exist in the rainbow, and a painful consciousness
possessed me that in half an hour more I would be blistered from head
to foot. There was no shade on my side of the rock, and nothing any
where in sigh