Part 34 (1/2)

”And,” he added, laughing, ”we will go and fetch _filbunke_, if you like, and then you can all sit inside rings of your own.”

”No,” we replied, ”instead of doing that, let us get away from here as quickly as possible.”

Out we sallied, therefore, to ask the coachman how soon he could be ready to drive on to _Kajana_.

How typical. There was one of the lads, aged thirteen, lying on his back, flat out on the wooden steps of the house, smoking hard at a native pipe; his felt hat was pulled down over his eyes, his top boots were standing beside him, and over them hung the rags he used for stockings.

”Go on,” he said. ”Oh! we cannot go on till this afternoon, it's too hot.”

”But,” remonstrated Grandpapa, ”it is not so very far to _Kajana_, and the ladies are anxious to get to the end of their journey.”

”Quite impossible,” he replied, ”the horses must rest.”

Wherein he certainly was right; the poor brutes had come well, and, after all, whatever the horrors and inconveniences may be to oneself, one cannot drive dumb animals to death, so, therefore, at that _majatalo_ we stayed, weary and hungry prisoners for hours. Only think of it!

Oh, how glad we were to shake the dust of that station from our feet, and how ridiculous it seemed to us that such dirty untidy folk could exist in the present day, to whom ”Cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness” was an unknown fact.

We found some amus.e.m.e.nt, however, for the family had just received in a box-case a sewing-machine--a real English sewing-machine. A ”traveller”

had been round even to this sequestered spot, possessed of sufficient eloquence to persuade the farmer to buy his goods, and it certainly did seem remarkable that in such a primitive homestead, with its spinning-wheel and hand-loom in one corner, a sewing machine and a new American clock should stand in the other.

On we jogged; but, be it owned, so many consecutive days' driving and so few hours' rest, in carts without springs or seats and without backs, were beginning to tell, and we were one and all finding our backbones getting very limp. The poor little ponies too began to show signs of fatigue, but luckily we at last reached a hilltop which showed we were drawing close to the end of our _karra_ journey. We pulled up for a while to give the poor creatures time to breathe, and for us to see the wide-spreading forests around. The view extended for miles and miles, and undulating away to the horizon, nothing appeared but pine-trees.

No one can imagine the vastness, the black darkness, the sombre grandness of those pine forests of Finland.

Then the descent began; there were terribly steep little bits, where the one idea of the ponies seemed to be to fly away from the wheels that were tearing along behind them. We held on tightly to the blue knitted reins, for the descents in some places were so severe that even those sure-footed little ponies were inclined to stumble--fatigue was the cause, no doubt;--but if our own descent were exciting, it was yet more alarming to look back at the _karra_ following, too close for comfort, behind us, literally waggling from side to side in their fast and precipitous descent, encircled by clouds of dust.

_Kajana_ at last. What a promised haven of rest after travelling for days in springless carts, happily through some of the most beautiful and interesting parts of Finland.

CHAPTER XVII

TAR-BOATS

Tar hardly sounds exciting; but the transport of tar can be thrilling.

We were worn out and weary when we reached _Kajana_, where we were the only visitors in the hotel, and, as the beds very rapidly proved impossible, we women-folk confiscated the large--and I suppose only--sitting-room as our bed-chamber. A horsehair sofa, of a hard old-fas.h.i.+oned type, formed a downy couch for one; the dining-table, covered by one of the travelling-rugs, answered as a bed--rather of the prison plank-bed order--for number two; and the old-fas.h.i.+oned spinet, standing against the wall, furnished sleeping accommodation for number three. We had some compunctions on retiring to rest, because, after our luxurious beds had been _fixed up_, as the Americans would say, we discovered there was no means whatever for fastening the door,--it was, as usual, minus bolts and locks; but as _Kajana_ was a quiet sleepy little town, and no one else was staying in the hotel but our own men-folk on the other side of the courtyard, weary and worn out with our jolty drive, and our waterfall bath, we lay down to rest. We were all half asleep when the door suddenly opened and in marched two men. They stood transfixed, for of course it was quite light enough for them to see the strange positions of the three occupants of the sitting-room; and the sight scared them even more than their appearance surprised us, for they turned and fled. We could not help laughing, and wondering what strange tales of our eccentricities would enliven the town that night.

Descending the rapids of the _Uleborg_ river in a tar-boat is one of the most exciting experiences imaginable. Ice-boat sailing in Holland, _skilobnung_ (snow-shoeing) in Norway, tobogganing in Switzerland, horse-riding in Morocco--all have their charms and their dangers--but, even to an old traveller, a tar-boat and a cataract proved new-found joys. There is a vast district in Finland, about 65 North lat.i.tude, extending from the frontier of Russia right across to _Uleborg_ on the Gulf of Bothnia where tar plays a very important role; so important, in fact, that this large stretch of land, as big or bigger than Wales, is practically given over to its manufacture and transport.

After leaving _Kuopio_, as we had travelled Northwards towards Lapland, the aspect of the country altered every twenty miles. It became far more hilly, for Finland, as a whole, is flat. The vegetation had changed likewise, and we suddenly found ourselves among tracts of dwarf birch so familiar to travellers in Iceland.

As we had driven on towards _Kajana_ we had repeatedly pa.s.sed pine-trees from which part of the bark was cut away, and, not realising we were now in _tar-land_, wondered at such destruction.

The history of the tar, with which we are so familiar, is very strange, and not unmixed with dangers. Pine-trees, growing in great forests where the bear, wolf, and elk are not unknown, are chosen for its production.

The first year the bark is carefully cut away from the ground as high as a man can reach, except on the northern side of the tree, where a strip two inches wide is left intact. Now this strip is always the strongest part of the bark because it faces northwards, and it is, therefore, left to keep the tree alive and to prevent it from drying. All the rest of the trunk remains bare, s.h.i.+ning white and silvery in the sunlight, and forms a thick yellow juice, which oozes out of the tree, and smells strongly of turpentine. This ultimately makes the tar.

The next year the same process is repeated, except that then the bark is peeled higher up the tree, the strip on the northern side always being left as before to keep the sap alive. The tenacity of the life of bark is wonderful, as may be seen at a place like Burnham Beeches, where, in many cases, all the inside of the tree has practically gone, and yet the bark lives and the tree produces leaves.

This treatment goes on for four, and sometimes five, years, until most of the tree is stripped. It was in this naked condition the pines first attracted our attention, for a barkless tree covered with a thick yellow sap, to the uninitiated, is an unusual sight. In October, or early in November, of each year the selected pines are duly cut down, and later, by the aid of sledges, they are dragged over the snow through the forests to the nearest _tervahauta_ (kiln), there to be burnt into tar.

So cold is it in this part of the world during winter that the thermometer often drops to 30 or 40 Fahr. below freezing-point, and then the hard-worked little horses look like b.a.l.l.s of snow, the heat from their bodies forming drops at the end of their manes, tails, and even their long coats, for their hair grows to an even greater length than the Shetland ponies. At last their coats become so stiff they are not able to move, so they often have to be taken indoors and thawed by the oven's friendly warmth.