Part 30 (1/2)

CHAPTER XV

ON WE JOG

It is difficult for strangers to travel through the heart of Finland, for every person may not be so lucky as to be pa.s.sed on from one charming friend to another equally delightful, as we were; and, therefore, we would like to suggest the formation of a guides' bureau at _Helsingfors_, where men and women teachers from the schools--who are thoroughly well educated and always hold excellent social positions in Finland--could be engaged as couriers. These teachers speak English, French, and German, and would probably be glad to improve that knowledge for a few weeks by acting as friendly guides for a trifling sum in return for their expenses.

It is only a suggestion, but the schools being closed in June, July, and August, the teachers are then free, and voyageurs are willing to explore, though their imperfect knowledge of Finnish prevents their penetrating far from steamers and trains.

As we drove towards _Lapinlahti_ we were surprised by many things: the smallness of the sheep, generally black, and very like those of _Astrakhan_; the hairiness of the pigs, often piebald; the politeness of the natives, all of whom curtsied or took off their hats; the delicious smell the sun was drawing out of the pine trees, and, perhaps more wonderful still, the luxuriance of gorgeously coloured wild-flowers, which are often as beautiful as in spring-time in Switzerland or Morocco; the numbers of singing birds, and, above all, the many delicious wild berries. The wild strawberries of Finland in July are surprising, great dishes of them appear at every meal. Paris has learnt to appreciate them, and at all the grand restaurants of Paris cultivated ”wild strawberries” appear. In Finland, the peasant children slice a foot square of bark from a birch tree, bend it into the shape of a box without a lid, then sew the sides together with a twig by the aid of their long native knives, and, having filled the basket, eagerly accept a penny for its contents. Every one eats strawberries. The peasants themselves half live on them, and, certainly, the wild berries of Switzerland are far less numerous, and not more sweet than those of Finland.

As evening drew on smoke rose from the proximity of the homesteads, and we wondered what it could be, for there are never any trees near the houses.

These are the cow-fires, lighted when the animals come to be milked. The poor creatures are so pestered and tormented by gnats and flies--of which Finland has more than her share--that fires are kindled towards evening, a dozen in one field sometimes, where they are to be milked, to keep the torments away. The cows are wonderfully clever, they know the value of the fires, and all huddle close up to them, glad of the restful reprieve, after the worry they have endured all day. Poor patient beasts, there they stand, chewing the cud, first with one side of their body turned towards the flames and then the other, the filmy smoke, the glow of the fire and the rays of the sunlight, hiding and showing distinctly by turns the girls and their kine. The dairymaids come with their stools to milk their soft-eyed friends, and on blazing hot summer evenings they all sit closely huddled round the fires together.

These milkmaids have some strange superst.i.tions still lurking in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the juice of the big birch tree is sometimes given to cows to make them yield better b.u.t.ter.

_Lapinlahti_ is a typical Finnish village, and had at least one newspaper of its own, so advanced were the folk, even at the time of my first visit.

Outside the little post-station we were much amused to read on a board ”528 kilos. to St. Petersburg, 470 kilos. to Uleborg.” But we were more amazed on our return from a ramble, prepared to grumble that the meal ordered an hour before was not ready, when the host walked into the room, and, making a most polite bow, said in excellent English--

”Good day, ladies.”

”Do you speak English?” we asked.

”Certainly. I think I ought to after doing so for sixteen years.”

We were immensely surprised. Who could have expected to find in the interior of Finland a peasant landlord who was also an English linguist?

He seemed even more delighted to see us, than we were to have an opportunity of learning something concerning the country from one speaking our own tongue so perfectly, for it is a little difficult to unravel intricate matters when the intermediary is a Swedish-speaking Finlander, who has to translate what the peasant says into French or German for your information, you again retranslating it into English for your own purposes.

Our host spoke English fluently, and it turned out that, having been a sailor like so many of the Finns, he had spent sixteen years of his life on board English vessels. He preferred them, he said, as the pay was twice as good as on the Finnish boats.

He told us that many of his countrymen went away to sea for a few years and saved money, the wise ones bringing it home and investing it in a plot of land; ”but,” he added, ”they do not all succeed, for many of them have become so accustomed to a roving life, and know so little of farming, that they cannot manage to make it pay. I have worked very hard myself, and am getting along all right;” and, looking at his surroundings, we certainly thought he must be doing very well indeed.

The most remarkable rocking-chair we had ever seen in our lives stood in his sitting-room. The Finlanders love rocking-chairs as dearly as the Americans do, but it is not often that they are double; our host's, however, was more than double--it was big enough for two fat Finlanders, or three ordinary persons to sit in a row at the same time, and it afforded us some amus.e.m.e.nt.

As there is hardly a house in Finland without its rocking-chair, so there is seldom a house which is not decorated somewhere or other with elk horns. The elk, like deer, shed their horns every year, and as Finland is crowded with these Arctic beasts, the horns are picked up in large quant.i.ties. They are handsome, but heavy, for the ordinary elk horn is far more ponderous in shape and weight and equal in width to a Scotch Royal. The ingenuity of the Finlander is great in making these handsome horns into hat-stands, umbrella-holders, stools, newspaper-racks, and portfolio-stands, or interlacing them in such a manner as to form a frieze round the top of the entrance hall in their homes. A really good pair will cost as much as twenty-five s.h.i.+llings, but when less well-grown, or in any way chipped or damaged, they can be bought for a couple of s.h.i.+llings.

A Finnish hall, besides its elk-horn decorations, is somewhat of a curiosity. For instance, at one of the Governor's houses where we chanced to dine, we saw for the first time with surprise what we repeatedly saw again in Finland. Along either wall was a wooden stand with rows and rows of pegs upon it for holding hats and coats. There were two pegs, one below the other, so that the coat might go beneath, while the hat resting over it did not get hurt. But below each of these pegs, a few inches from the floor, was a little wooden box with an open side. They really looked like forty or fifty small nests for hens to lay their eggs in, and we were very much interested to know what they could be for. What was our surprise to learn they were for goloshes.

In winter the younger guests arrive on snow-shoes (_skidor_), but during wet weather or when the road is muddy, during the thaws of spring, they always wear goloshes, and as it is considered the worst of taste to enter a room with dirty boots, the goloshes are left behind with the coat in the hall. This reminded us of Henrik Ibsen's home in Christiania, where the hall was strewn with goloshes. So much is this the fas.h.i.+on that we actually saw people walking about in indiarubber ”gummies,” as our American friends call them, during almost tropical weather. Habit becomes second nature.

Whether that meal at _Lapinlahti_, with its English-speaking landlord, was specially prepared for our honour or whether it was always excellent at that _majatalo_ we cannot say, but it lingers in remembrance as one of the most luxurious feasts we had in the wilds of _Suomi_.

The heat was so great that afternoon as we drove towards _Iisalmi_--two or three inches of dust covering the roadways--that we determined to drive no more in the daytime, and that our future expeditions should be at night; a plan which we carried out most successfully. On future occasions we started at six in the afternoon, drove till midnight, and perhaps did a couple or three hours more at four or five in the morning; think of it!

After peeping into some well-arranged Free Schools, looking at a college for technical education, being invited with true Finnish hospitality to stay and sleep at every house we entered, we drew up at the next _majatalo_ to _Lapinlahti_. It was the post-house, and at the same time a farm; but the first thing that arrested our attention was the smoke--it really seemed as if we were never to get away from smoke for forest-burning or cow-milking. This time volumes were ascending from the _sauna_ or bath-house, for it was Sat.u.r.day night, and it appeared as if the population were about to have their weekly cleansing. The _sauna_ door was very small, and the person about to enter had to step up over a foot of boarding to effect his object, just as we were compelled to do on Fridtjof Nansen's s.h.i.+p the _Fram_,[E] when she lay in Christiania dock a week or two before leaving for her ice-drift. In the case of the _Fram_ the doors were high up and small, to keep out the snow, as they are likewise in the Finnish peasants' homes, excepting when they arrange a snow-guard or sort of fore-chamber of loose pine trees, laid wigwam fas.h.i.+on on the top of one another, to keep back the drifts. We had hardly settled down to our evening meal--in the bedroom of course, everything is done in bedrooms in Finland, visitors received, etc.--before we saw a number of men and women hurrying to the _sauna_, where, in true native fas.h.i.+on, after undressing _outside_, all disappeared _en ma.s.se_ into that tremendous hot vapour room, where they beat one another with birch branches dipped in hot water, as described in the chapter on Finnish baths. In _Kalevala_ we read of these mixed baths thus--

So he hastened to the bath-house, Found therein a group of maidens Working each upon a birch broom.

When this performance was over they redressed _outside_, which is a custom even when the ground is deeply covered with snow.

Our host, a finely-made young fellow, fondly nursing a baby of about two years old, seeing our interest in everything, was very anxious we should join the bath party, and begged Baron George to tell us of its charms, an invitation we politely but firmly refused. He showed his home. When we reached a room upstairs--for the house actually possessed two storeys--we stood back amazed. Long poles suspended from ropes hung from the ceiling, and there in rows, and rows, and rows, we beheld clothing, mostly under-linen. Some were as coa.r.s.e as sacking; others were finer; but there seemed enough for a regiment--something like the linen we once saw in a harem in Tangier, but Tangier is a hot country where change of raiment is often necessary, and the owner was a rich man, while Finland is for most part of the year cold, and our landlord only a farmer. The mystery was soon explained; the farmer had to provide clothing for all his labourers--a strange custom of the country--and these garments were intended for eight or nine servants, as well as a large family.