incense-smoke, and occasionally bending in concert with an undulating movement, like grain before the wind.  Over these heads rose the vaulted nave, dazzling with gold and colors, and blocked up, beyond the intersection of the transept, by the ikonostast, or screen before the Holy of Holies, gorgeous with pictures of saints overlaid with silver.  In front of the screen the tapers burned, the incense rose thick and strong, and the chant of the monks gave a peculiar solemnity to their old Sclavonic litany.  The only portion of it which I could understand was the recurring response, as in the English Church, of, “Lord, have mercy upon us!”

Extricating ourselves with some difficulty, we entered a chapel-crypt, which contains the bodies of Sergius and Herrmann.  They lie together, in a huge coffin of silver, covered with cloth-of-gold.  Tapers of immense size burned at the head and foot, and the pilgrims knelt around, bending their foreheads to the pavement at the close of their prayers.  Among others, a man had brought his insane daughter, and it was touching to see the tender care with which he led her to the coffin and directed her devotions.  So much of habit still remained, that it seemed, for the time being, to restore her reason.  The quietness and regularity with which she went through the forms of prayer brought a light of hope to the father’s face.  The other peasants looked on with an expression of pity and sympathy.  The girl, we learned, had but recently lost her reason, and without any apparent cause.  She was betrothed to a young man who was sincerely attached to her, and the pilgrimage was undertaken in the hope that a miracle might be wrought in her favor.  The presence of the shrine, indeed, struck its accustomed awe through her wandering senses, but the effect was only momentary.

I approached the coffin, and deposited a piece of money on the offering-plate, for the purpose of getting a glimpse of the pictured faces of the saints, in their silver setting.  Their features were hard and regular, flatly painted, as if by some forerunner of Cimabue, but sufficiently modern to make the likeness doubtful.  I have not been able to obtain the exact date of their settlement on the island, but I believe it is referred to the early part of the fifteenth century.  The common people believe that the island was first visited by Andrew, the Apostle of Christ, who, according to the Russian patriarch Nestor, made his way to Kiev and Novgorod.  The latter place is known to have been an important commercial city as early as the fourth century, and had a regular intercourse with Asia.  The name of Valaam does not come from Balaam, as one might suppose, but seems to be derived from the Finnish varamo, which signifies “herring-ground.”  The more I attempted to unravel the history of the island, the more it became involved in obscurity, and this fact, I must confess, only heightened my interest in it.  I found myself ready to accept the tradition of Andrew’s visit, and I accepted without a doubt the grave of King Magnus of Sweden.