Part 39 (1/2)
_Sordavala_, as a town, is simple, neither beautifully situated nor interesting, except as a centre of learning, for it possesses wonderful schools for men and women. _Tammerfors_ may be called the Manchester of Finland; but the towns are really hardly worth mentioning as towns, being all built of wood and utterly lacking historical interest. The towns are the weak part of Finland.
The water-ways are the amazement of every traveller; the people most interesting. That both have a charm, and a very distinct charm, cannot be denied, and therefore Finland is a country well worth visiting. For the fisherman there is splendid sport. For the gun there is much game, and in some parts both are free. To the swimmer there are endless spots to bathe; in a canoe the country can be traversed from end to end. For the botanist there are many interesting and even arctic flowers. For the artist there are almost unequalled sunsets and sky effects. For the pedestrian there are fairly good roads,--but for the fas.h.i.+onable tourist who likes Paris, London, or Rome, there is absolutely no attraction, and a Saratoga trunk could not find lodging. There are a few trains and many boats in parts, but, once away from these, the traveller must rough it in every sense; leave all but absolutely necessary luggage behind, and keep that well within bounds; and prepare to live on peasant's fare, such as fish, milk, coffee, eggs, black bread and b.u.t.ter (all of which are excellent). He must never be in a hurry, must go good-naturedly and cheerfully to work, and, above all, possess a strong const.i.tution that can endure eight or ten hours' jolting a day in carts without springs.
Such travelling is the only way to see the country, and learn the habits and customs of the people, the _Karelen_ and _Savolax_ districts being especially worth visiting by any one who has such objects in view.
At length we dropped off to sleep, feeling our visit had been well worth the little inconveniences we laughed away. Finland is much to be preferred for a holiday than many better-known countries.
At different little towns along the Gulf of Bothnia the steamer stopped in answer to a ”call,” and some pa.s.senger clambered on board from a small boat, which mode of proceeding reminded us of the s.h.i.+ps that go round Oban and Mull and such Scotch ports, where the same sort of thing goes on, the letters being dropped by the vessel as she pa.s.ses.
At _Jacobstad_, our first real halting-place, we stayed six hours to take on board many barrels of tar made in the neighbourhood, chicory, etc. Beside our boat, two large steamers (German and English) were being laden with wood. Britain was taking some thousands of solid staves, about five feet long, for the coal-pits at home, where they are used as supports. Germany's importation was planks, probably for building purposes. Women were doing all the work; they were pus.h.i.+ng truck-loads along a railway line, lifting the staves one by one on to a primitive sort of truck-like arrangement that could be dragged on board by the crane, and heavy work it appeared, although they did not seem to mind much. The English boat was already full, but the wood was being stacked up on the deck as high as the bridge. As she was a steamer, it seemed hardly profitable to burn coal to convey wood to Britain! All round the harbour, if we can give it such a name, were rafts still in the water, or stacks of wood in a more advanced condition ready for export. The rafts were being taken to pieces now they had reached the coast; men standing to their waists in water loosened the ties, while horses pulled the pine-tree trunks on sh.o.r.e. Finns have no time to idle in the summer, for it is during those four or five months that everything must be done, and sufficient money earned to keep them for the rest of the year.
Luckily the days are long, and certainly the peasantry take advantage of the light, for they seem to work hard for eighteen or twenty hours at a stretch.
_Wasa_ is celebrated for its beautiful girls; and remembering that during eight or nine weeks in Finland we had seen no pretty peasants, and only about as many good-looking girls of the better cla.s.s as could be counted on the fingers of both hands, full of pleasant antic.i.p.ation we went on sh.o.r.e to see these beauteous maids--and--there were none. The town was deserted, every one had gone away to their island or country homes, and no doubt taken the pretty girls with them. At all events they had left _Wasa_, which, to our surprise, was lined by boulevards of trees, quite green and picturesque, stone houses here and there, and an occasional villa; and if we did not find lovely females, we saw many with tidy heads, an adjunct as important to a woman as a well-shaved chin to a man. _Wasa_ was one of the nicest-looking towns of Finland.
Every one in it spoke Swedish. For weeks we had been travelling through parts of the country where Finnish was the only tongue, but here we were in another atmosphere. Soon after leaving _Uleborg_ we found the peasants speaking Swedish. In winter they can walk over the Gulf of Bothnia to Sweden, so it is hardly to be wondered at that they preserve their old language. It is the same all the way down the coast to _Helsingfors_. Of course we went to the baths at _Wasa_; we always did everywhere. There are no baths in hotels or on board s.h.i.+ps, but each town has its warm baths, and its swimming-baths railed off on the water-side, and there are regular attendants everywhere.
Lo! in the swimming-bath two mermaids played and frolicked when we entered, and, let us own at once, they were two very beautiful girls--so beautiful, in fact, that we feel we ought to retract our remarks anent the lack of loveliness in the female s.e.x. Somewhat hungry after our dip we went to the cafe--and to another surprise. The girl behind the counter was lovely. Well--well--here was the third beauty in one day, and all hidden from masculine gaze, for two had been at the ladies'
swimming-bath, and the third was in a cafe for ladies only. Poor men of Finland, how much you have missed!
We asked for rolls and b.u.t.ter and jam, with a cup of coffee, as we were not dining till 3.30. The lovely maid opened her eyes wide.
An endless source of amus.e.m.e.nt to the natives was the Englishwomen eating jam. Although they have so many wonderful berries in Finland, and make them into the most luscious preserves, they eat the sweetened ones as pudding and the unsweetened with meat, but such a thing as eating _Hjortron_ on bread and b.u.t.ter was considered too utterly funny an idea.
At the little cafe at _Wasa_ the brilliant notion seized us of having white bread, b.u.t.ter, and _Hjortron_ preserve. Our kind Finnish friend gave the order, and the pretty girl repeated--
”_Hjortron?_ But there is no meat.”
”We don't want any meat; but the ladies would like some jam with their coffee.”
”Then shall I bring you cream to eat it as pudding?” she asked, still more amazed.
”No,” was the reply, ”they will eat it spread on bread and b.u.t.ter.”
”What! _Hjortron_ on bread and b.u.t.ter!” the waitress exclaimed.
”Impossible!”
And to her mind the combination was as incongruous as preserves eaten with meat would be to the ordinary English peasant, or as our mint sauce served with lamb seems to a foreigner, who also looks upon our rhubarb tart as a dose of medicine.
Another thing that surprised the folk was that we always wanted salt. It is really remarkable how seldom a Finlander touches it at all; indeed, they will sit down and calmly eat an egg without even a grain of salt.
Perhaps there is something in the climate that makes it less necessary for them than other folk, because we know that in the interior of some parts of Africa, the craving for salt is so dreadful that a native will willingly give the same weight in gold for its equivalent in salt.
We stopped at _bo_, the ancient capital of Finland, justly proud of its stone cathedral. Two things struck us as extraordinary in this building.
The first were long words painted on several of the pews--”_For Nattvardsgaster Rippiwaka warten_,” which, being translated into English, notified ”For those who were waiting for the communion.”
The second thing was a mummy, almost as old as the cathedral itself, which was begun in the year 1258 by Bishop Heinrich. Stay, yet a third thing caught our attention--the Scotch names on the monuments, the descendants of which people still live in Finland. Many Scotch settled in _Suomi_ centuries ago, and England has the proud honour of having sent over the first Protestant bishop to Finland.
We saw marvellous mummies--all once living members of some of the oldest families in Finland; there they lie in wondrous caverns in the crypt, but as formerly tourists were wicked enough to tear off fingers and so forth in remembrance of these folks, they are now no longer shown.
However, that delightful gentleman, the Head of the Police, who escorted us about _bo_, had the mysterious iron trapdoor in the floor uplifted, and down some steep steps--almost ladder-like, with queer guttering tallow dips in our hands--we stumbled into the mummies' vault. The mummies themselves were not beautiful. The whole figure was there, it is true, but shrivelled and blackened by age. The coffins or sarcophagi in which they lay were in many cases of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p.