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You read in the newspapers, without a doubt, how the Baron Xavier Oberg, the persecutor of Finland, the enemy of education, the relentless foe of the defenseless, the man who ordered women to be knouted to death in Kajana, the heartless official whom the Finns called "The Strangler," was blown to pieces by a bomb thrown beneath his carriage as he drove to the railway station at Helsingfors on his way to have audience with the Emperor.
A closer view revealed the fact that the stranger was a high Russian official to whom I had once been introduced at the Government Palace at Helsingfors, the Privy-Councillor and Senator Paul Polovstoff. They were smoking together, and were discussing in Russian the means by which he, Polovstoff, had arranged to obtain plans of some new British fortifications at Gibraltar.
Sir Charles, hearing that a Russian squadron, consisting of seven line-of-battle ships and one frigate, was shut up at Helsingfors, made sail in that direction for the purpose of preventing a junction between the two portions of the Russian fleet. In this very important object, in which the enemy's plan of naval operations was completely defeated, he was entirely successful.
It will probably take centuries to do that, for Finland, like France, has an individuality which the combined Powers of Europe would be puzzled to suppress. A stranger arriving at the railway station of Helsingfors, for instance, may readily imagine himself in Germany, Austria, or even Switzerland, but certainly not within a thousand miles of Petersburg.
Ah!" she sighed, "you do not know the mysteries and terrors of Finland. I am a French subject, born in Tours, and brought to Helsingfors when I was fifteen. I have been in Finland forty-five years. Once we were happy here, but since the Czar appointed Baron Oberg to be Governor-General " and she shrugged her shoulders without finishing her sentence. "Baron Oberg Governor-General of Finland!"
We will now turn to the great Nordenskiold, who did succeed. Expeditions to the North To Spitzbergen and the Yenissei The Discovery of the North-East Passage. Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold was born at Helsingfors, Finland, in November, 1832. His father was a distinguished naturalist; Erik often accompanied him in his expeditions, and thus early acquired a taste for natural history and research.
My fellow-traveler from Stockholm, who represented a firm of paper-makers in Hamburg, and who paid an annual visit to Abo and Helsingfors, acted as my guide around the town, while I awaited the information from the humbled Chief of Police.
Geographically she is bound to form part of the Russian Empire; even the extremest Russophobes in the country have long ago given up hopes of re-union with Sweden; and yet the frontier between Finland and Russia is one which divides two worlds, as all who have made the journey from Helsingfors to Petrograd must have noticed.
The green roofs of the houses also remind one that he is still within the dominions of Russia; and if any doubt on that point should remain after landing from the steamer, it is speedily dispelled by the vast numbers of Russian soldiers and officers constantly marching about the streets. I had two days to devote to the objects of interest in and around Helsingfors.
"From Italy we traveled on to Berlin, thence to Petersburg, and back to dreary Helsingfors, journeying as quickly as we could, yet never allowing me opportunity of being with strangers. Both my ears and tongue were very painful, but I said nothing. He was surely a fiend in a black coat, and my only thought now was how to escape him.
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