earth with their humbled tops. Such as might be thought capable
o f making the ftouteft refiftance are the moft roughly treated; and
thofe hurricanes, like the thunder o f heaven, which ftrikes only
the loftieft objeifs, paffing over the young, and fparing them, be-
caufe they are more pliant and flexible, feem to mark the ftrongeft
and moft robuft trees o f the foreft, which are in condition to meet
them with a proud oppofition, as alone worthy o f their rage. L e t
the reader fancy to himfelf three or four miles o f foreft, where he
is continually in the prefence o f this difaftrous fpecftacle; let him
reprefent to his imagination the view o f a thick wood, where he
can fcarcely fee one upright tree; where all o f them being thus
forcibly inclined, are either propped by one another, or broken in
the middle o f the trunk, or torn from their roots and proftrated
on the ground : every where trunks, branches, and the ruins o f
the foreft, interrupting his view o f the road, and exhibiting A
Angular piilure o f confufion and ruin.
There is a great road through the midft o f this foreft which
may be tolerably fuited for travelling in fummer; but the peafants
do not always continue upon it during the winter feafon ; for
then they find no difficulty in traverfing a lake or a river, and are
not obliged to follow the windings which the great line o f road
naturally makes, in order to avoid accidental interruptions : they
conftantly ftudy to proceed as much as poflible in a ftraight line ;
and that they may not lofe themfelves in thofe dark and melancholy
woods, the firft who lights upon the moft convenient way,
marks all the trees with an axe {as is done in America), in order
to
to point out the route to fuch as may come after him. Thofe
roads, however, are full o f ftones, which render travelling extremely
unpleafant. Our bones were feverely bruifed by the
eternal jolting o f the fledge. After the embarraflments o f this
foreft, we received feme compenfation for our flow and tedious
progrefi, by the agreeable fenfation we experienced in crofling a
lake, where we feemed to fly with all the velocity our horfes were
capable of, and without being in the leaft ihaken. W e cou-
rageoufly braved the danger o f deftruftion with which the Cracking
o f the ice feemed to threaten us, and difregarded the rents
which ran in all directions under our feet. W e certainly ihould
not have encountered the perils we were expofed to in crofling
this river, had we not found travelling.by land a thoufand times
more fatiguing and difagreeable, both on account o f the bad ftate
o f the furface for our mode o f travelling, and the inconvenience
o f the ftones which femetimes made us ftart from the fledge, before
we were aware o f the obftacle that lay in our way.
It was principally between Tuokola and Gumfila that we found
travelling on the river harafling and dangerous ; and we ihould
probably have periihed but for the affiftance o f two peafants, who
undertook to ferve us as guides, and point out to us the places of
the river where the ice was ftrongeft and in beft condition to fup-
port us. Between Tuokola and Gumfila the river is extremely
rapid, and the current being ftronger in feme places than in others,
the ice in thofe parts is of a flender texture, fo that it was neceflary,
in order to enfure our fafety, to have a perfeft knowledge ofetht