In one, everything seemed thoroughly Finnish: the inhabitants had a reddish-olive skin, very high cheek-bones, obliquely set eyes, and a peculiar costume; none of the women, and very few of the men, could understand Russian, and any Russian who visited the place was regarded as a foreigner.

In a second, there were already some Russian inhabitants; the others had lost something of their pure Finnish type, many of the men had discarded the old costume and spoke Russian fluently, and a Russian visitor was no longer shunned.

In a third, the Finnish type was still further weakened: all the men spoke Russian, and nearly all the women understood it; the old male costume had entirely disappeared, and the old female costume was rapidly following it; while intermarriage with the Russian population was no longer rare.

In a fourth, intermarriage had almost completely done its work, and the old Finnish element could be detected merely in certain peculiarities of physiognomy and pronunciation.* * One of the most common peculiarities of pronunciation is the substitution of the sound of ts for that of tch, which I found almost universal over a large area.
The process of Russification may be likewise observed in the manner of building the houses and in the methods of farming, which show plainly that the Finnish races did not obtain rudimentary civilisation from the Slavs.

Whence, then, was it derived?
Was it obtained from some other race, or is it indigenous?
These are questions which I have no means of answering.
A Positivist poet--or if that be a contradiction in terms, let us say a Positivist who wrote verses--once composed an appeal to the fair sex, beginning with the words: "Pourquoi, O femmes, restez-vous en arriere ?" The question might have been addressed to the women in these Finnish villages.