. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. nish landscapes. It is a landof pine forest, of rock, of river and lake. Nature has but thesethree colours on her palette there, and the only difference be-tween one landscape and another depends upon which of thethree predominates at any particular place. The typical land-scape—the composite Finnish portrait, so to speak—is seen whenall these elements are present in equal prominence, and the hu-man factor is superadded in the shape of a little patch of culti-vated land aro
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. nish landscapes. It is a landof pine forest, of rock, of river and lake. Nature has but thesethree colours on her palette there, and the only difference be-tween one landscape and another depends upon which of thethree predominates at any particular place. The typical land-scape—the composite Finnish portrait, so to speak—is seen whenall these elements are present in equal prominence, and the hu-man factor is superadded in the shape of a little patch of culti-vated land around a cluster of wooden buildings. This combina-tion is precisely shown in one of my illustrations, scattered spruceand fir trees where you stand, clinging, as these trees alone can,to the thin earth between the out-crops of granite hillside; below,in the shelter, the cleared land, marked off by snake-fences which FINLAND IS recall a landscape in Virginia; a stream or two, emptying intoa lake which is connected with another and thus again with an-other until a great chain is formed; beyond and around, hills clad. The Finnish Landscape—Mountain, Lake, Forest, Field. thick with spruce and fir. That is Finland, where man inhabitsit at all. Sometimes the forest predominates, as in the northand west, again, the whole country appears to be lake and bog,and the only terra Hrrna is the long narrow road between two 76 ALL THE RUSSIAS sheets of water; elsewhere your eyes and ears perceive nothingbut dashing, roaring stream. I have spoken of the waterfalls as one of the two naturalresources of Finland, but this is not strictly accurate. There is nota real waterfall in Finland—only rapids. Imatra itself, the showplace of the Grand Duchy, the Mecca of the tourist and the envyof the engineer, is a thousand yards of rocky, roaring rapids. Themagnificent physical atlas of the country, recently published, showssome 700 rapids, a large proportion of which are suitable for hy-draulic deve
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
