Through Finland in Carts

owing how rarely strangers visited the land. Indeed the arrival of the Hull boat, once a week, was one of the great events of Helsingfors life, and every one who could went down to see her come in.

A delightful lady--a Finlander--who had travelled with us, and had told us about her home in Boston, where she holds classes for Swedish gymnastics, was all excitement when her friends came on board. She travels to Suomi every year, spending nearly three weeks en route, to enjoy a couple of months' holiday in the summer at her father's parsonage, near Hangö. That remarkably fine specimen of his race, Herr S----, was met by wife, and brother, and a host of students--for he returned from Malmö, victorious, with the Finnish flag. He, with twenty-three friends, had just been to Sweden for a gymnastic competition, in which Finland had won great honours, and no wonder, if the rest of the twenty-three were as well-made and well-built as this hardy descendant of a Viking