Russian Finland is considered to be as fertile in corn as any part of the polar empire. We were prevented from reaching Wibourg on the day we set off from Fredericksham, on account of our being detained, for want of horses, at Terviock, which forms the last stage to the former place. Here, as it was too hot to admit of two sleeping in a chaise, I entered a sorry post-house; the room contained only a crib and a sheet, as aged, and as brown, and as filthy, as the post-master's face and hands, who, after having given me to understand that I might use the bed after he had done with it, very composedly jumped into it with his cloaths on, and soon made this black hole resound with one of the loudest, and least tuneable, nasal noises, I ever heard. Sleep sat heavy upon me, and with my pelisse for a bed, and my portmanteau for a pillow, I closed my eyes upon the floor, which appeared to be the favourite promenade of flies, fleas, and tarrakans. Necessity, like "Misery, acquaints a man with strange bed fellows." At three in the morning, I was awakened by the jingling of the bells of our horses, which the peasants very merrily gallopped up to the door. The sun was up, and threatened very speedily to destroy the refreshing coolness of the air. At five we passed the bridge, and were at the gate of Wibourg, the capital of Russian Finland. It is a large, handsome, fortified town, a place of considerable commerce, and has been much improved since the terrible fire which happened in 1793. Like mice, who find no difficulty in getting into a cage, but know not how to return, we were admitted within the gates of this town with perfect facility, but were detained no less than nine hours for a new post order, which must be signed by the governor or his deputy. It was Sunday, and whilst this was negociating, I visited the Greek church, which stands in a corner of the area where the parade is held, and is an elegant structure of wood, painted light yellow and white, with a roof and dome of copper, painted green. It had a very light and pleasing effect. Every Russian, before he ascended the steps which led to the door, raised his eyes to a little picture of the Virgin, fixed to the cornice, and having uncovered his head, inclined his body, and crossed himself with his thumb and fore-finger. The Virgin was framed and decorated with a projecting hood of silver. If she had not been produced by the coarse and S crazy imagination of the painter, it might have been supposed that one of the nymphs, which we saw between Fredericksham and this place, had sat for the model. She was a brunette of the deepest mahogany, and bore no resemblance whatever to any branch of Vandyke's holy family. In the Greek church images, musical instruments, and seats, are proscribed. Even the emperor and empress have no drawing-room indulgence here. No stuffed cushion, no stolen slumbers in padded pews, inviting to repose. Upon entering the church, these people again crossed and bowed themselves, and then eagerly proceeded to an officer of the church, who was habited in a rich robe; to him they gave one of the small pieces of money, and received in return a little wax taper, which they lighted at a lamp and placed in a girandole, before the picture of the saint they preferred amongst the legions enrolled in the Greek calender. Some of them had a brilliant homage paid to them, whilst others were destitute of a single luminary. In the body of the church were inclined tables, containing miniatures of some of these sanctified personages in glass cases, adorned with hoods, of gold, silver, and brass, looking very much like a collection of medals. The screen, composed of folding-doors, at the back of the altar, to which a flight of steps ascended, was richly gilded and embellished with whole-length figures of saints of both sexes, well executed. In one part of the service the folding doors opened, and displayed a priest, called a Papa,.in the shrine or sacristy, where lovely woman is never permitted to enter, for reasons that an untravelled lover would wonder to hear, without caring for, and which I leave to the ladies to discover. The priest always assumes his pontificals in this place, whilst it constitutes a part of the privileges of a bishop to robe in the body of the church. The sacerdotal habit was made of costly silk and rich gold lace; and the wearer, who appeared to be in the very bloom of life, presented the most mild, expressive, evangelical countenance, I ever beheld, something resembling the best portraits of our Charles I; his auburn beard was of great length, fell gracefully over his vest, and tapered to a point. Seen, as I saw him, under the favour of a descending light, he was altogether a nobly study for a painter. After reading the ritual in a low voice, during which his auditory crossed themselves, and one man, near me, in a long and apparently penitential gown of sackcloth, repeatedly touched the basement with his head: the congregation sung in recitative, and with their manly voices produced a fine effect. This will suffice for a description of the Greek church; as to its abstract mysteries, they are but little known, even to its followers, who recognise the authority of their own priests only, and renounce the supremacy of the Roman pontiff. From this place we proceeded to a reformed catholic church, where the preacher was delivering, with apparently great pathos, a charity sermon, in German: every avenue was thronged almost to suffocation; whenever the orator had made a successful appeal, his hearers testified their approbation in savage acclamations, and the proper officers seized these impressive moments to collect from the congregation the fruits of their bountiful dispositions, received in a little silk bag, fastened to the end of a long stick, from which depended a small bell, shaken whenever charity dropped her mite. I had good reason to believe that our landlord, who was a thoroughpaced Italian, had been a devotee here, and wished to supply by extortion the vacancy which a sudden impulse of beneficence had occasioned in his purse; for the fellow had the impudence to charge us ten rubles and fifty copecs for a breakfast, a plain dinner, and a bottle of claret. "Gentlemen," said he, in reply to our remonstrance, (which by the by was a successful one) "why do you object to high "charges? they are the inevitable consequences of approaching the "capital." There are some who, thinking with less respect than I do of the Russians, would have thought that they had inoculated this native of the south with knavery, but I was satisfied from his tone, look, and gesture, that he took it in the natural way; so wishing that we might never see his face, nor that of a fortified town more, we mounted our carriage and proceeded to the gate leading to Petersburg, where we were again detained at the guard-house three quarters of an hour, because it was necessary that the deputy governor should once more see his own wretched scrawl at the bottom of our post-order, not then even perfectly dry. · In what a situation would English travellers in their own country have been, with all their accustomed irritability and impatience, if the sound sense of a single vote had not overpowered the fortifying phrenzy of a certain illustrious engineer! How many governors, gates, and guards, would have been wished at the devil a thousand and a thousand times? The gratitude of those who are fond of locomotive facility, should long since have raised a monument to Wolfran Cornwall. However, our stoppage reminds me to mention a characteristic which I had forgotten: before all the guard-houses in the north there is a raised platform of wood, upon which are little posts; against these the soldiers on duty recline their pieces. Thank heaven! we are out of the town, although the road is very sandy and hilly. We travelled all night, and in attempting to ascend a long and steep hill, our cattle began to flag. There is a very material difference between the Swedish and Russian Finn horses; the latter are much larger, but very weak; indeed they appeared to be nearly in the situation of the hack of an eccentric genius, who resolved to see whether his beast could not serve him without food; for seven days the poor thing fasted, but just as his master had taught him to live without eating, he died. Upon observing the stoppage, our peasant (for in Russia only one takes charge of the post-horses) descended, and breaking a sapling fir, would have belaboured his miserable animals most unmercifully, had we not interfered: famine or excess of labour had fixed them to the earth, and they had less motion than the firs of the dark and hideous forest in which the accident befel us. I would not have answered for the perfect patience of Job, had he been obliged to drive four in hand in Russian Finland. In spite of the military jokes and sparkling philippics of Mr. Windham in the senate, I was resolved to see if a volunteer uniform had really nothing of value in it, but to excite a jest. I speedily mounted my jacket, and with the peasant walked forward to the next post-house, distant about two miles and a half. It was in the dead of a cloudy night; as we approached the house, I saw upon a dreary heath six or seven sturdy peasants lying on each side of a great blazing fir-tree, fast asleep : "Allow not Nature more than Nature needs; The moment the post-master opened the door and beheld my regimentals, he bowed most respectfully, and upon the peasant's explaining the condition of our horses, he awakened the peasants by their fir fire, and dispatched four of them to assist in drawing the carriage, and the remainder to catch the horses in the adjoining woods for the next post; he then very civilly placed three chairs in a line, and gave me a pillow, looking tolerably clean, and thus equipped, I was preparing to lay down, when a marchand de liqueur, who lived in an opposite hotel, uncovered, with a large beard, a great bottle of quass in one hand, and a glass in the other, entered the room, and after crossing himself and bowing before me, he pressed me to drink; all these marks of distinction, to which let me add four good courier horses for the next stage, were the happy fruits of my volunteer jacket. Thus satisfied, I enjoyed two hours of delicious sleep, until the jingling bells of our poor post-horses announced the arrival of the vehicle, and of all the cavalcade. The following day we beheld the shining cupola and spires of the capital, about ten versts from us, just rising above a long dark-line of fir-forests. At twelve o'clock we reached the barrier, a plain lofty arch of brick stuccoed white, from each side of which a palisado ran, part of the lines of this vast city. There is no custom-house here, but we were detained nearly an hour, owing, as we afterwards found, to the officer of the guard, a very fine looking young man, and I dare say very brave withal, being somewhat of a novice in the mystery of reading and writing: our passports appeared to puzzle him dreadfully, at length a serjeant, who doubtless was the literary wonder of the guard-house, was sent for, and in two minutes relieved his officer and the Englishmen at the same time. A fair-complexioned Cossac of the Don, habited in a pyramidal red velvet cap, short scarlet cloak, with a belt of pistols, a light fuzee slung across his shoulders, and a long elastic spear in his hand, mounted upon a little miserable high-boned hack, was ordered to attend us to the governor of the city, and with this garde d'honneur we posted through the vast suburbs of Wibourg, and at length ascended the emperor's bridge of pontoons or barges; here the most magnificent and gorgeous spectacle burst upon me, and for a time overwhelmed me with amazement and admiration. The sky was cloudless, the Neva of a brilliant blue, clear, and nearly as broad as the Thames at Westminster bridge; it flowed majestically along, bearing on its bosom the most picturesque vessels, and splendid pleasure barges; as the eye rapidly travelled sevcral miles up and down this glorious river, adorned with stupendous embankments of granite, it beheld its sides lined with palaces, stately buildings, and gardens, whilst at a distance arose green cupolas, and the lofty spires of the Greek churches covered with ducat gold, and glittering in the sun. Immediately before us extended the magnificent railing of the summer gardens, with its columns and vases of granite, a matchless work of imperial taste and splendour. In the capacious streets of this marvellous city, we passed through crowds of carriages drawn by four horses at length, and a variety of rich equipages, and of people from all parts of the world, in their various and motley costume. At the governor's office we presented our passports, and the cossac left us. The cossacs have a curious ap |