Through Finland in Carts Part 30

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 shillings, but when less well-grown, or in any way chipped or damaged, they can be bought for a couple of shillings.

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 fashion 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 ship 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 fashion 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 fashion, 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.

Moreover, as washing in the winter with ice-covered lakes is a serious matter, two or three big washes a year are all Finns can manage, the spring wash being one of the great events in their lives. The finer linen belonged to the master's family, the coa.r.s.er to the labourers, and there must have been hundreds of articles in that loft.

When we left the room he locked the door carefully, and hung up the key beside it. This is truly Finnish. One arrives at a church; the door is locked, but one need not turn away, merely glance at the woodwork round the door, where the key is probably hanging. It is the same everywhere--in private houses, baths, churches, hotels; even in more primitive parts one finds the door locked for safety--from what peril we know not, as honesty is proverbial in Finland--and the key hung up beside it for convenience.

Why are the northern peoples so honest, the southern peoples such thieves?

Our night's lodging disclosed another peculiarity;--nothing is more mysterious than a Finnish bed. In the daytime every bed is shut up. The two wooden ends are pushed together within three feet of one another, kaleidoscope fashion, the mattress, pillows, and bedclothes being doubled between; but more than that, many of the little beds pull also out into double ones from the sides--altogether the capacities of a _Suomi_ couch are wondrous and remarkable. Yet, again, the peasants'

homes contain awfully hard straight wooden sofas, terrible-looking things, and out of the box part comes the bedding, the boards of the seat forming the _soft_ couch on which weary travellers seek repose, and often do not find it.

Finnish beds are truly terrible; for wood attracts unpleasant things, and beds which are not only never aired, but actually packed up, are scarcely to be recommended in hot weather. One should have the skin of a rhinoceros and no sense of smell to rest in the peasant homes of _Suomi_ during the hot weather. Seaweed was formerly used for stuffing mattresses on the coast in England; indeed some such bedding still remains at Walmer Castle; but the plant in use for that purpose in the peasant homes of Finland gives off a particularly stuffy odour.

The country and its people are most captivating and well worth studying, even though the towns are nearly all ugly and uninteresting. Hospitality is rife; but the peasants must keep their beds in better order and learn something of sanitation if they hope to attract strangers. As matters are, everything is painfully primitive, spite of the rooms--beds excepted--being beautifully clean.

In winter, sportsmen hunt the wild bear of Finland; at all seasons elk are to be seen, but elk-hunting was legally forbidden until quite recently. There are long-haired wild-looking pigs roving about that might do for an impromptu pig-stick. There are feathered fowl in abundance, and fish for the asking, many kinds of sport and many kinds of hunts, but, alas, there is a very important one we would all gladly do without--that provided by the zoological gardens in the peasant's bed. Possibly the straw mattresses or _luikko_ may be the cause, or the shut-up wooden frames of the bedstead, or the moss used to keep the rooms warm and exclude draughts, still the fact remains that, while the people themselves bathe often and keep their homes clean, their beds are apt to shock an unhappy traveller who, though he have to part with all his comforts and luggage on a _karra_ ride, should, if he value his life, stick fast to insect powder and ammonia, and the joyful preventive of lavender oil.

Well we remember a horrible experience. We had driven all day, and were dead tired when we retired to rest, where big, fat, well-nourished brown things soon disturbed our peace; and, judging by the number of occupants that shared our couch, the peasant had let his bed out many times over.

Sitting bolt up, we killed one, two, three, then we turned over and tried again to sleep; but a few moments and up we had to sit once more.

Keating had failed utterly--Finnish bed-fiends smile at Keating--four, five, six--there they were like an advancing army. At last we could stand it no longer, and pa.s.sed the night in our deck-chairs. Those folding deck-chairs were a constant joy. In the morning we peeped at the nice linen sheets; sprinkled on the beds were brown-red patches, here and there as numerous as plums in a pudding, each telling the horrible tale of murders committed by English women.

We had to rough it while travelling from _Kuopio_ to _Uleborg_. Often eggs, milk, and black bread with good b.u.t.ter were the only reliable forms of food procurable, and the jolting of the carts was rather trying; but the clothes of the party suffered even more than ourselves--one shoe gradually began to part company with its sole, one straw hat gradually divided its brim from its crown, one of the men's coats nearly parted company from its sleeve, and the lining inside tore and hung down outside. We had not time to stop and mend such things as we might have mended, so we gradually grew to look worse and worse, our hair turning gray with dust, and our faces growing copper-coloured with the sun. We hardly looked up to West End style, and our beauty, if we ever possessed any, was no longer delicate and ethereal, but ruddy and robust. We were in the best of health and spirits, chaffing and laughing all day long, for what is the use of grumbling and growling over discomforts that cannot be helped--and half the joy of _compagnons de voyage_ is to laugh away disagreeables at the time, or to chat over curious reminiscences afterwards.

_Never less alone than when alone_ is a true maxim; but not for travelling; a pleasant companion adds a hundredfold to the pleasures of the journey, especially when the friendship is strong enough to stand the occasional strains on the temper which must occur along wild untrodden paths.

On that memorable drive through _Savolax_ in Northern Finland, we paid a somewhat amusing and typical visit to a _Pappi_ (clergyman) at a _Pappila_, or rectory. These country _Luthersk Kyrka_ (Lutheran churches) are few and far between, a minister's district often extending eight or ten miles in every direction, and his parishioners therefore numbering about six or eight thousand, many of whom come ten miles or more to church, as they do in the Highlands of Scotland, where the Free Kirk is almost identical with the Lutheran Church of Finland. In both cases the post of minister is advertised as vacant, applicants send in names, which are "sifted," after which process the most suitable are asked to come and perform a service, and finally the _Pappi_ of Finland, or minister of Scotland, is chosen by the people.

There is seldom an organ in the Finnish country churches, and, until Andrew Carnegie gave some, hardly ever in the Scotch Highlands--each religion has, however, its precentor or _Lukkari_, who leads the singing; both churches are very simple and plain--merely whitewashed--perhaps one picture over the altar--otherwise no ornamentation of any kind.

On one of our long drives we came to a village proudly possessing a church and a minister all to itself, and, being armed with an introduction to the _Pappi_, we arranged to call at the _Pappila_.

"Yes," replied a small boy with flaxen locks, "the _Pappi_ is at home."

Hearing which good news in we went. It was a large house for Finland, where a pastor is a great person. There were stables and cow-sheds, a granary, and quite a nice-sized one-storeyed wooden house. We marched into the salon--a specimen of every other drawing-room one meets; the wooden floor was painted ochre, and polished, before each window stood large indiarubber plants, and between the double windows was a layer of Iceland moss to keep out the draughts of winter, although at the time of our visit in July the thermometer stood somewhere about 90 Fahr., as it often does in Finland during summer, when the heat is sometimes intense. Before the middle window was the everlasting high-backed prim sofa of honour, on which the stranger or distinguished guest is always placed; before it the accustomed small table, with its white mat lying diamond fashion over the stuff cloth cover, all stiff and neat; also at other corners of the room were other tables surrounded by half a dozen similarly uncomfortable chairs, and in the corner was that rocking-chair which is never absent from any home. Poor Finlanders! they do not even know the luxury of a real English armchair, or a Chesterfield sofa, but always have to sit straight up as if waiting to eat their dinner--very healthy, no doubt, but rather trying to those accustomed to less formal drawing-room arrangements. But then it must be remembered that everything is done to encourage general conversation in Finland, and the rooms seem specially set out with that object.

In a moment one of the three double doors opened, and a lady of middle age, wearing a cotton gown, entered, and bade us welcome. She could only speak Finnish, so although we all smiled graciously, conversation came to an untimely end, for Finnish is as unlike English, French, German, or even Swedish, as Gaelic is to Greek. Happily the _Pappi_ soon appeared; a fine-looking man with a beard and a kindly face. He spoke Swedish, and could understand a few German words; so he spoke Swedish, we spoke German very slowly, and the conversation, although, as may be imagined, not animated, was quite successful, particularly as it was helped occasionally by a translation from our cicerone, who could talk French fluently. We were particularly struck by a splendid old clock, wondrously painted, which stood in a corner of the room. A grandfather's clock is a very common piece of furniture in Finland, and in many of the farmhouses we visited we saw the queer old wooden cases we love so well in England, painted with true native art. Just as the Norwegians love ornamenting their woodwork with strange designs, so the Finns are partial to geometrical drawings of all descriptions; therefore corner cupboards, old bureaus, and grandfather clocks often come in for this form of decoration. Another favourite idea is to have a small cup of shot on the writing-table, into which the pen is dug when not in use--and sand is still used in many places instead of blotting-paper.

While the _Pappi_ was explaining many things, his wife had slipped away, as good wives in _Suomi_ always do, to order or make the coffee, because no matter at what time one pays a visit, coffee and cakes invariably appear in about half an hour; it is absolute rudeness to leave before they come, and it is good taste to drink two cups, although not such an offence to omit doing so as it is to leave a Moorish home without swallowing three cups of sweet mint-flavoured tea.

We were getting on nicely with our languages, endlessly repeating _Voi_, _Voi_, which seems to be as useful in Finnish as _so_ in German, helped by a good deal of polite smiling, when a door opened and mamma returned, followed by a boy of seventeen, who was introduced as "our son." We got up and shook hands. He seized our finger, and bowed his head with a little jerk over it--that was not all, however, for, as if desirous of dislocating his neck, he repeated the performance with a second handshake. This was extra politeness on his part--two handshakes, two jerky bows; all so friendly and so homely.

By the time he had finished, we realised that another boy, a little younger, was standing behind ready to continue the entertainment.

Then came a girl, and seven small children, all brushed up and made beautiful for the occasion, marched in in a row to make acquaintance with the _Englantilaiset_, each, after he or she had greeted us, quietly sitting down at one of the other tables, where they all remained placidly staring during the rest of the visit. A circle is considered the right thing in Finland, and the old people alone talk--the young folk listening, and, let us hope, improving their minds. Coffee came at last; a funny little maid, with her hair in a long plait, brought in a tray, with a pretty embroidered cloth, a magnificent plated coffee-pot, luscious cream, and most appetising cakes, something like shortbread, and baked at home. We ate and we drank, we smiled upon the homely kind hostess, we shook hands with her, and all the children in a row on leaving, and the pastor, with a huge bunch of keys, accompanied us to see his church, which, funnily enough, we could only reach by the help of a small boat--all very well in the summer when boats can go, or in the winter when there is ice to cross, but rather disheartening at the mid-seasons, when crossing becomes a serious business and requires great skill. There was a "church boat" lying near by, a great huge c.u.mbersome sort of concern that twelve people could row at a time, and two or three times as many more stand or sit in, and on Sundays this boat plied to and fro with the congregation. The church boats are quite an inst.i.tution in Finland. They will sometimes hold as many as a hundred persons--like the old pilgrim boats--some twenty or thirty taking the oars at once. It is etiquette for every one to take a turn at rowing, and, as the church is often far away from the parishioners, it is no unusual thing for the church boat to start on Sat.u.r.day night, when the Sabbath is really supposed to begin, and it is quite a feature in the life of _Suomi_ to see the peasants arriving on Sat.u.r.day evening straight from their work at the waterside, at the appointed time for starting to their devotions, with their little bundles of best clothes. They are all very friendly, and as they row to the church they generally sing, for there is no occasion on which a number of Finns meet together that they do not burst into song. This weekly meeting is much valued.

Arrived at the church, they put up for the night at the homesteads round about, for be it understood the church is often some distance even from a village; or, if balmy summer, they lie down beneath the trees and, under the brilliant canopy of heaven, take their rest.

When morning comes the women don their black frocks, the black or white head-scarves, take their Bibles--neatly folded up in white handkerchiefs--from their pockets, and generally prepare themselves for the great event of the week. When the church service, which lasts some hours, is over, they either turn up their skirts, or more often than not take off their best things and, putting them back into the little bundle, prepare to row home again.