We left Stockholm about eight o’clock in the evening. We were a party of four,—H and myself, and the two delightful friends whom we met that day at Maristuen, at the head of the Laera Dal, in Norway. The suggestions then first made had ripened into a definite plan, and we agreed to join forces for our journey through Russia. Our friends were Mr. and Mrs. Condit, of Chicago, and we found their ready western wit and genial fellowship on more than one occasion of most signal aid.
We crossed the Baltic Sea in the night, and touched at the Russian port of Hangoe, in Finland, early Sunday morning. Here I noticed a messenger in uniform leave the ship bearing a long iron box heavily padlocked, and was informed that this box contained the passports of the passengers, which he was to take to St. Petersburg by a special Imperial train that would put him there in twenty-three hours, when the passports would be immediately filed with the police department, verified, recorded and given to certain other officials who would meet our ship on its arrival at the mouth of the river Neva on Tuesday morning, and who would examine and scrutinize us and then return them to us. If in the meantime, we should happen to change our minds and want to remain a few days in Finland, say at Helsingfors, we would be liable to arrest for not having our passports now gone to St. Petersburg. We might not change our minds or alter our itinerary. It was now St. Petersburg or jail.
The twilight was just fading into night when we cast off from the pier and slowly made our way among the islands. The sail down the narrow channel to the sea was in the light of the full moon. The myriad electric lights of the city were blazing behind us. We passed the black hulls of many vessels anchored in the harbor, and in turn were passed by scores of little boats, with a big light on the foremast, which were scurrying about carrying passengers between the islands. Along the wooded shores were villas and country-seats, and ever and anon, there seemed to be open clearings and farms, and then we came into the blackness of wide waters. We were out upon the Baltic Sea.
In the morning we were among more islands; the Aaland Archipelago; we had had only two hours of the open sea. The sun was behind a mass of scudding clouds, gray and threatening; and great banks of blacker clouds were rolling up from the south. A gale was blowing—a furious gale—which drove the waters and whirling foam wherever open space allowed. The wind was bitterly cold, and grew ever colder, while higher and higher rose the tempest. We were in great danger, although at the time I did not know it.
The steering of the Swedish pilots was skillful, and the little ship obeyed the helm perfectly, swinging round sharp points, and traversing narrow channels where, even in quiet waters, it is dangerous to navigate.
About noon we slipped in between two rocky islets, scarcely a cable-tow’s length apart, rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, and turning sharp to port came into the rock-bound harbor of Hangoe, a town of Finland, whence the railway goes on to Helsingfors and St. Petersburg.
The gale now grew into a tornado with deluges of rain, a storm so fierce that, until it should subside, the Captain refused to leave the protection of the port.
Thus we lay-to at Hangoe until the dawn of the following day, when we cast off from the long pier and plunged once more among the islands of the Archipelago. Hundreds of islands there were, barren and uninhabited, the big ones covered with dwarf birches, a few stunted pines and firs, the lesser islets thick with tangled grasses, or more often bare of all except lichens and gray moss, the vegetation of a desolate, wintry latitude.
FACING THE GALE.