Part 38 (2/2)
From fifty thousand to seventy thousand barrels of tar are deposited every summer by the boats which shoot the _Ule_ rapids upon the quay near the town. What a sight! There they were piled two and three high like pipes of wine in the great London vaults, but in this case the barrels were not under cover, but simply lay on a quay that was railed in. Every barrel had to be tested before final s.h.i.+pment, and when we arrived a man was going round for this purpose trying each cask after the bung had been extracted. He wore high boots, and carried his ink-bottle in his boot leg as the London brewer carries his ink in his coat pocket. Then a helper, who followed behind, thumped in the bung while the foreman made his notes in a book, and in a few minutes a man or a woman came and rolled the barrel away. Those employed in the task wore strong leather gloves with no fingers--only a thumb, and so tarred they were absolutely hard, as also their boots from walking over the tarry ground. And yet all the faces were beautifully clean, and the clothes almost spotless.
The ground at these stores is literally sodden with tar, though here and there little drains are cut in order to collect it; the air being permeated by its wholesome smell.
Fancy if such a quay caught fire. Fancy those thousands of barrels in flames--and yet a famous admiral once set fire to this very tar store in the name of England; a little act of destruction that Finland has never quite forgiven Great Britain.
After spending some days in _Uleborg_, it became necessary to make a forward movement--not towards Lapland, as originally intended, for that had been vetoed as impossible in summer. We were still hundreds, we might almost say thousands, of miles from home, when we arranged to leave our pleasant quarters on the following afternoon for _Hango_.
What a truly national experience! First of all, the Petersburg steamer, by which we were to travel, though announced to start at three P.M., never left its moorings till 4.40. Only one hour and forty minutes late, but that was a mere trifle to a Finn. The cargo was taken on board up to the very last minute--eighteen enormous barrels of salmon (twice or thrice the size of eighteen-gallon casks of beer), five hundred rolls of leather, which, having come as raw skins from America, had been dressed in _Uleborg_, ready for _Riga_, whither the consignment was bound, also a hundred big baskets, made of the plaited bark so common in Finland, filled with glue, likewise the product of a leather factory.
One thing amazed us immensely; viz. that our steamer was allowed to lie almost alongside of the tar stores we had so lately visited. With the aid of only one single spark from her chimney all those barrels would quickly be ablaze. However, the genial English-speaking captain, as well as the British Consul who had come to see us off, set our minds at rest by explaining that the steamer only burnt coal, no wood-burning boat being allowed near the tar--the coal making few sparks and wood many.
Fancy, coal! we had not seen or heard of coal for weeks; all the trains, the houses, and the steamboats, burn wood only, except the large s.h.i.+ps that go right out to sea, and they could not burn wood, because of its bulk, unless they dragged a dozen barges behind them to give a continuous supply on the voyage.
Another Finnish scene was being enacted around us. About a dozen emigrants were leaving their native land by way of _Hango_, where they were to change steamers for England, and pa.s.s thence to America. They had paid seven or eight pounds each for their pa.s.sage money, and were going off to seek their fortunes in a new world--going to a strange country, speaking another tongue than their own, going away from all they had on earth, from friends, relations, a.s.sociations, going full of hope, perchance to fail! Some years later, when I was in the States, I learned what excellent emigrants these Finlanders make, and how successful they generally become, but they looked so sad that day that our hearts ached for them as they sat on their little boxes and bundles on the quays, among the sixty or seventy friends who had come to see them off. The bell rang; no one moved. It rang again, when each said to the other _Hyvasti_ (good-bye), and with a jaunty shake of the hand all round, the emigrants marched on board, and our s.h.i.+p steamed away, without a wet eye or a smothered sob.
Will nothing move these people? Is it that they hide their feelings, or is it that they have none to conceal?
The stoicism of the Finn is one of his strongest characteristics.
As we pa.s.sed out of the harbour our thoughts recurred to heart-breaking farewells on board P. and O. and Orient steamers, where the partings are generally only for a few years, and the voyagers are going to lands speaking their own language and to appointments ready waiting for them.
How strange is the emigrant, and how far more enigmatical the Finn.
Our steamer _bo_ was delightful, quite the most comfortable we chanced on in Finland; the captain, a charming man, fortunately spoke excellent English, although over the cabin door was written a grand specimen of a Swedish word--_Aktersalongspa.s.sagerare_, meaning first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger saloon.
Although the _bo_ plied from _Uleborg_ to Petersburg, and was a large pa.s.senger steamer, she stopped at many places for two or three hours at a time, in order to take in pa.s.sengers and cargo, while we lay-to at night because of the dangers of the coast, and waited half a day at _Wasa_, one of the most important towns in Finland. The train journey from _Uleborg_ to _bo_ occupies thirty hours, while the steamer dawdles placidly over the same distance for three days and a half.
Have you ever travelled with a melon? If not, you have lost a delightful experience--please try. At one of the many halting-places on our way to _Hango_, we were wandering through the streets on a very hot day, when in a shop window some beautiful melons attracted our attention.
”Oh!” exclaimed my sister, ”we must have one, how cool and refres.h.i.+ng they look.”
”What shall we do with it?” I asked.
”Send it down to the steamer,” was her reply, ”it will be so nice on board.”
We accordingly went in, bought the melon with the help of our best Swedish, for here, being opposite Sweden, that language was still in vogue; we explained it was to go to the _ngbtshytt_ (cabin) number ten, and left cheerfully.
We returned to our steamer home; while leaving the harbour we remained on deck, and it was not until late in the evening, when the s.h.i.+p began to roll considerably, that we went below. At the head of the cabin stairs a most extraordinary odour greeted our senses; as we neared our cabin the smell increased; when we opened the door we were nearly knocked down by the terrible scent of the melon which had looked so charming in the shop window. Though very hot all day, as the weather had been decidedly rough for some hours, the port-hole was closed, therefore the melon had thoroughly scented the queer little cabin.
”This is impossible,” I exclaimed. ”I never smelt anything so overpowering in my life, except a cod-liver oil factory in Iceland. We cannot sleep in such an atmosphere.”
My sister looked crestfallen.
”It is rather strong,” said she pensively; ”shall we put it outside?”
”No,” I replied, ”if we, who bought it, cannot endure the smell, how are the wretched occupants on the other side to put up with such an inconvenience?”
”Then we must eat it,” she remarked with conviction, and, undoing the paper and cutting a slice, she proceeded solemnly to devour that melon.
Strangely enough, in spite of its overpowering odour, the fruit tasted delicious, for, be it owned, I ate some too, and when we had enjoyed our feast we opened the port-hole and threw its rind into a watery grave. We had not been long in bed before we heard a great commotion outside--an appeal to the stewardess, then angry words, and at last a regular row.
Dare we own the cause? _It was our melon!_
No one knew it was our melon, but half awake, holding on to keep in our bunks at all, we lay and listened to the angry discussion, feeling it could serve no good purpose if we got up to confess a dead and buried sin. Nevertheless, that melon lay long on our consciences. We will never voluntarily travel with one again.
We did not fall asleep till we had pulled up for the night. As we lay we reviewed our past experiences, and thought over the towns of _Suomi_.
_Uleborg_, which we had just left, is perhaps the most northerly town of any importance in Europe, and, after _Helsingfors_, it is the most imposing in Finland. _Wiborg_, which from its position is on the high road to Russia, ought to be handsome also and have good stone buildings, but it is not handsome, and has few good buildings. _Willmanstrand_ is merely a collection of small wooden houses, some barracks, and numberless tents for camping out. _Nyslott_ is scattered, and of no importance were it not for its Castle and its new bath-house. _Kuopio_ is perhaps the most picturesquely situated inland town in Finland, and the view from _Puijo_, a hill of some height behind the towns.h.i.+p, is really good on a fine night. It is extensive, and gives a wonderful idea of the lakes and islands, rivers and forests of which Finland is composed. _Iisalmi_ is nothing--hardly possesses an hotel, in fact--and _Kajana_ not much better, although the rapids make it of great interest.
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