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Excerpt :

Those ancient stones are painted with the softest colours of passing time, but there is one exception. In the south wall there is a stone, deeply seared with streaks of red running down it like drops of falling blood. That stone has a strange history.

The following morning I continued my downward career through Finland. My next halt for the night was at Tavastehus, one of the first provincial towns of Finland to become connected with the capital, by the opening of the railway as far back as 1862. The town itself was founded in the year 1638 but suffered so severely from afire in 1831 that the old part of it was practically destroyed.

To Helsingfors by water First glimpse of the capital The bustle of the harbor Sveaborg Cleanliness of the city A lady member of Parliament Security of traveling Music-loving population Decline of social gaieties A favorite restaurant A peep into the past The soldiers of Finland A seabound park A forgotten romance.The world is always a delight when the sun is shining upon the waters and we have an extra little thump of pleasure in those variable machines we call our hearts. I defy anyone to feel sulky on entering for the first time the harbor of Helsingfors. I have entered it many times, and yet each time it has appeared under a new aspect. To begin with, it comes as a surprise to the traveler.The town is invisible until you have steamed through that wonderful cleft, cut by Nature between two walls of bare granite, that forms the only entrance and exit to the most superbly guarded harbor in the world. It is named with truth the Key of the North. The extent of that inner basin is so immense that the combined fleets of the world could easily find anchorage .there, and yet they would all have to steam one by one through the narrow cleft. So narrow it is, that incoming and outgoing craft have to wait their turn, as two vessels cannot pass through at the same time. The outer boundaries are formed of a series of enormous rocky islands upon which the well-known fortress of Sveaborg is built.