Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1857-05-09

'COme, come ~ said Brother Horton, taking
his arm as he stood staring aud perplexed-
"lhe horses are ready" With some difficulty
he was persuaded to leave, after shaking hands
with us, and exclaiming many times "You
are very seldom man ~
When we awoke, the temperature had risen
to 20 above zero, with tremendous snow-slorm
blowing. AS we were preparing to sci out a
covered sled drove in from the north, with two
Swedish naval officers, whose vessel had been
frozen in at Cronstade, and who had been obl
ged TO return home through Finuland, up the
eastern coast of the Boihnian Gulf The cap
tain, who spoke excellent English informed
me that they were in about the same latitude as
we, on Christmas Day, on the opposite side Of
the gulf, and had experienced the same degree
OF cold. Both of them had their noses severe
ly frozen. We were two hours and half in
travelling to the first station, seven miles, as the
snow was falling in binding quantities, and the
road was not yet plowed out. All the pedes-
irlans we met were on runners, but even with
their snow-skales, five feet long, they sank deep
enough to make their progress very slow and
ioilsome.
by the time we reached Nasty my face was
very much swollen and inflamed, and as it was
impossible to make the next stage by daylight,
we wisely determined to stop there. The wind
blew hurricane, the hard snow-cryslals LASH
ed the windows and made gray chaos of all
out-of-doors but we had a warm, cozy, carpet
ed room within, capital dinner in the after
noon, and bottle of genuine London porter
with our evening pipe. So we passed the last
day Of A. ID. 1856, grateful to God for all the
blessings which the year had brought US, and
for the comfort and shelter we enjoyed, in that
Polar wilderness of storm and snow.
Yesterday morning it blew less, and the tenn
perature was comparatively mild, so, although
The road was very heavy, we started again.
Nasty is the last Swedish station, the Finnish
frontier, which is an abrupt separation of races
and tongues, being at the northwestern corner
of the Bothnian Gulf. Ia spite of the constant
intercourse which now exists between Norrand
and the narrow strip of Finnish soil which re-
mains TO Sweden, there has been no perceptible
assimilation of tho two races. At Nasty, all
is pure Swedish; at Sangis, twelve miles dis
tant, everything is Finnish. The blue eyes
and fair hair the heightened oval Of the face,
and slim, straight form, disappear You see,
instead, square faces, dark eyes, low foreheads,
and something Of an Oriental IRE and warmth
in the movements. The language is totally
dlsslmilar, and even the costume, though of the
same general fashion, presents many noticeable
points of difference. The women wear hand
kerchiels OF some bright color bound over the
forehead and under the chin, very similar TO
,iiose worn by the Armenian women in Asia
Minor. Thus lar, The Films impress me as a
less frank and open-hearied, but more original
and picturesque race than the Swedes. Ii is
exceedingly curious and interesting to find such
aa'yST zca:. 81 tn" Orient a" til" ""'""'' "f the Fri
The roads were very bad, and our drivers
and horses provokingly slow, bn, we determin-
ed to push on To Haparanda the same night. |
needed rest and medical aid, my jaw by this
time being so swollen that had great difficult
ty in ealng-a state of things which threaten
ed to diminish my supply OF fuel, and render
me sensitive 10 the cold. We reached Ncka-
Ia, the last station, at : o'clock. Beyond this,
the road was irighlfully deep in places. We
could scarcely make any headway, and were
frequently overturned headlong into the drifts.
I The driver was Finn, who did not understand
a word OF Swedish, and all our urging was ol
no avail. We went on and on, in The moon
light, over arms Of the gulf, through forests,
and then over ice again-a fiat, monolonous
country, with the same dull features repeated
again and again.
At halfpas, nine, large white church an
nounced our approach TO Haparanda, and soor
ailerward we drove up TO the inn, which was
full of New.Year carousers. The landlord
gave us quarters in the same room with an ole
Norrlander, who was very drunk, and annoyed
us not little until we got into bed and preten
ded TO sleep. 1t was pretense nearly the whole
night, on my part, for my torture was still kept
up. This morning | called upon the physician
of the place-not without some misgivings-
but his prescription of a pouiice of mallow
leaves, sudorifc and an opiate, restored my
confidence, and am now awaiting the issue
d. 7.