Through Finland in Carts Part 31

The church boats are, of course, only used in the summer; in the winter the route is much shortened by the universal snow and ice, which makes it possible to sledge over land or sea alike, and make many short cuts.

On a later date we went to a Sabbath service at a _Luthersk Kyrka_, and a very remarkable affair it proved. As we drove up to the church about one o'clock, we found over a hundred _karra_ or native carts standing outside. In these funny "machines," as our Scotch friends would rightly call them, many of the congregation had arrived, and, after having tied their horses to the railings outside, gone in to service. The church held nearly four thousand people, and every man and woman present was a peasant. The building was crowded to excess, the s.e.xes being divided by the centre aisle. Nearly every one wore black, that being considered the proper wear for Sundays, weddings, and festivals, especially for the married women, who also wore black silk handkerchiefs over their heads.

Each woman carried a large white handkerchief in her hand, upon which she leaned her head while praying. Subsequently we found that all the females rolled their prayer-books up in these cloths while carrying them home.

Service had begun at ten, so that three hours of it was over when we arrived, and the Communion, which lasted another hour and a half, was about to begin. The place was packed, the day very hot, and the peasant atmosphere a little oppressive. We were much struck by the children; mere babies actually being nursed by their mothers, while elder urchins walked in and out of the building--going sometimes to have a game with various other little friends amidst the graves outside, plaiting daisy-chains, or telling fortunes by large ox-eyed daisies. The men walked out also and enjoyed a pipe or gossip with a neighbour, and there was that general air of freedom which prevails in a Roman Catholic Church during divine service; nevertheless, the intense simplicity, the devotion, the general inclination to moan and weep, reminded us of the Highland Kirk. But it was very surprising to hear the Pastor tell his congregation that at a certain day he would be at an appointed place to receive grain, b.u.t.ter, potatoes, calves, etc. The clergymen are paid in "kind," which to them is a suitable arrangement, as they are generally peasants' sons and well able to attend to their own glebes; but it did sound funny to hear a clergyman, standing in the pulpit, talk of b.u.t.ter and eggs.

When the congregation stood up we naturally stood up with them. The Finlanders are short, and for two women five feet seven or eight high, with hats on the tops of their heads, suddenly to rise, amazed a congregation the female members of which were seldom taller than five feet one or two, and wore nothing on their heads but a flat handkerchief. We felt like giraffes towering over the rest of the people, and grew gradually more and more ashamed of our height and hats, simple though the latter were. How we longed to be short and have our heads covered with black silk handkerchiefs like the rest of the folk around, so as to be unnoticeable in their midst.

We felt we were a very disturbing influence; for, gradually, those who had not noticed our entrance began to realise there was something strange in the church, and nudged their friends to look at two tall women--dark into the bargain--each with a hat on her head. Their surprise might be forgiven, for to them we must have appeared strange apparitions indeed. In that church there was no organ, but a young man got up and started the singing, just as a precentor does in the Highlands; having once given them the tune, that vast congregation followed his lead very much at their own sweet wills.

For our own part, certainly, we came away much impressed by their devoutness, and not a little touched and interested by the simplicity of the Lutheran service.

When we came out some of the men, who had previously slipped away, were beginning to harness their ponies in order to drive very possibly ten miles. Little groups were also forming to enjoy the luncheons brought in handkerchiefs, ere starting to walk back long distances to their homes.

Verily, we might have been in Scotland; there were the gossips round the church doors, the plate to hold the pence, covered with a white cloth, ay, and even the dogs were waiting; there were the women lifting up their black skirts, inside out, exactly as her Highland sister when attired in her best gown. How like in many characteristics the two nations are.

It seems ridiculous to be always writing of the intense heat in Finland, but as it is generally supposed to be a cold country, where furs and rugs are necessary even in the summer, we could not help being struck by the fact of the almost tropical temperature, at times, which we encountered all through June, July, and August. No wonder people had laughed at our fur coats on arrival. It is a fact that although in Finland the winters are terribly long and severe, the summers are extremely hot.

Just before reaching _Iisalmi_ we turned in at the gate of _Herr Stoehman_, a large gentleman-farmer to whom we had an introduction, and paid a most pleasant visit. He was a delightful man, hospitality personified; and his wife at once invited us to stay with them, utter strangers though we were.

He has a sort of agricultural college, in the dairy department of which we were specially interested. Our host takes twenty peasants at a time, who remain for a two years' course. In the summer they are taught practical farming out of doors, in the winter theoretical, indoors.

It was a wonderful inst.i.tution, splendidly organised, well kept, and quite a model in its way. Indeed, it is amazing to see how advanced the Finlanders are in all matters of technical education, and there is no doubt but that the future of _Suomi_ will be the outcome of the present teaching.

Adjoining was a _Mejeri_, where a dozen women Were being instructed in b.u.t.ter and cheese-making. The b.u.t.ter all goes to England, while the cheese is an excellent _copy_ of our own cheddar, which we have almost forgotten how to make.

Poor old Albion!

b.u.t.ter and cheese-making is quite a new trade, pursued with energy in Finland.

Until about 1880 co-operative dairying was almost unknown in Denmark, and now Denmark is a rich country which has established over two thousand creameries, and sends to England alone some 7,000,000 worth of b.u.t.ter annually, to say nothing of eggs and bacon.

Finland not having been slow to see the extent to which Denmark had succeeded, _Mejeris_ were established here and there over the land for the making of b.u.t.ter and cheese; indeed, there were in 1912 seven hundred and fifty-four of them in existence.

Imagine our surprise when driving along a country road, right in the wilds of Finland, to see a vast herd of cows being driven home to be milked; yet this happened several times.

"Where are they going?" we asked on one occasion; "how can so few families require so much milk?"

"They are going to the creamery," was the reply. "This neighbourhood could not use the milk, which is all made into cheese, and the cream into b.u.t.ter, to be exported to England."

Being much interested in the subject, having written a pamphlet _Danish_ versus _English b.u.t.termaking_, we of course stopped to see the creamery, and were amazed to find it conducted on the latest scientific Danish principles, and, although established little over a year, in full working order.

The proprietor only owned sixty cows, but he had the milk sent in from a hundred more, and exactly as they return the skim milk in Denmark, so they return it in Finland. By a careful process of autumn calving, the Finnish dairymen manage to have most milk in the winter, when they make b.u.t.ter, which they send seventy miles by sledge to the nearest railway train, to be borne hence to _Hango_, the only port in Finland that is open during the winter months. There it meets a steamer which conveys it to England.

In 1874, there were exported about 5,159,885 kilograms (about 2 lbs.).

In 1909, this quant.i.ty had doubled itself, the amount exported being 11,632,200 kilograms.

Of this, Great Britain took the larger share, her import of Finnish b.u.t.ter being of the value of twenty-four million marks, while Russia's only reached four million marks.

Formerly all the b.u.t.ter was sent to Russia; but Russia, like every other country, except England, woke up and began making her own b.u.t.ter.

Finland, however, does not suffer, she merely ships to England direct, or through Denmark to England instead, and the trade in ten years has trebled itself.

Few of us in England realise what a large sum goes out of this country every day for b.u.t.ter consumed by a people unable to make it for themselves. England imports vast quant.i.ties of b.u.t.ter from Normandy, Brittany, Australia, and the Argentine, and much comes from Denmark, to which country Finland is a fair rival.

We stayed at the _Mejeri_ late into the night, for we were always making mistakes as to time in that bewilderingly everlasting daylight. After weeks of eternal light, one begins to long for the peace of darkness.

One of my sister's greatest joys, and one of my greatest discomforts, was a kodak. Now, a large kodak is one of those hard uncomfortable things that refuses to be packed anywhere; it takes up too much room in a Gladstone bag, it is apt to get broken in the rug-strap, and, therefore, the wretched square box invariably has to be carried at all inconvenient times and seasons. However, as there were no photographs to be procured of Northern Finland, and my sister declared there was no time for me to make any sketches, we decided to struggle with the kodak, and I tried to bear the annoyance of its presence in the antic.i.p.ation of the joy of future results. My sister kodaked here and kodaked there; she jumped out of the little cart and made snap-shots of old peasants and older houses, of remarkable-looking pigs and famine-stricken chickens. In fact, she and the kodak were here, there, and everywhere, and glorious reproductions were antic.i.p.ated. Each day she exclaimed, "What a mercy we have not to wait for you to sketch. Why, I can do twenty or thirty pictures while you do one." I felt the reproof and was silenced.

Then came a day when the roll of a hundred had to be changed. We all know the everlasting cry, the endless excuse for bad photographs. "You see, the light got in;" and generally the offender, we learn, is some ruthless custom-house official, who cares nothing for travel and less for art, and whose one joy is unearthing cigars and disturbing ladies'

hats. This time "the light got in" with a vengeance. For a couple of days my wretched sister endeavoured to find a place to change that roll, but in a land where there is continual day it is absolutely impossible to find night!

We inquired for cellars, we even sought for a cave--all unsuccessfully; and so the night we left the _Mejeri_ she decided that the roll _must_ be changed, and darkness secured somehow. There were two windows to our bedroom; we had two travelling rugs; one was pinned up over each window, but the light streamed in above and below and round the curtains. We then pinned up our skirts, but even that was not sufficient; we added bodices to the arrangement, the length of the sleeves filling up inconvenient cracks, but the light still streamed under and above and round the two doors. We laid pillows on the floor, and got rid of that streak of illumination; we stuffed the sides and top with towels, but even then there was a wretched grayness in our chamber which forbode ill.

"I know," exclaimed my sister, "I shall get under the bed." But as the bed was of wood and very low, she only succeeded in getting her own head and the kodak beneath its wooden planks, while I carefully built her in with blankets and eider-downs, and left her to stifle on a dreadfully hot night with a nasty-smelling little lamp under the mattresses.

She groaned and she sighed, but at last she emerged triumphant, if very hot, from the undertaking. Particularly happy in the result of our midnight performances, she started another roll, and felt a.s.sured that she had a hundred excellent photographs of the life of the people in the interior of dear old Finland. Only after we returned to London did the terrible truth reveal itself; the light had indeed got in, and one after another of the films, as they were taken from their bath, disclosed nothing but gray blackness!

The laugh (and the cry) was on my side now. Why, oh why, had I not persevered with the sketches, instead of only doing one at our midnight haven of rest in the _Uleborg_ rapids?

FOOTNOTES:

[E] Described in _A Winter Jaunt to Norway_.

CHAPTER XVI

A "TORP" AND "TORPPARI" WEDDING

Like most Finnish towns, _Iisalmi_ proved somewhat disappointing. We waited a day or two, to rest, to collect letters and answer them, to bathe and mend our clothes, and then gladly jogged on again.

Our start from _Iisalmi_ for _Kajana_ was somewhat remarkable. Having dined and enjoyed our coffee, we had ordered the _karra_ for five o'clock, when it was cooler, well knowing that, in consequence of the Finns' slowness, it would take at least an hour to pack our luggage away. The queer little two-wheeled vehicles drove into the courtyard.

They had no springs, and no hood to protect us from the rain or sun; but were merely fragile little wooden carts, such as are used by the natives themselves. The seat was placed across them dog-cart fashion, and behind it and under it the luggage had to be stowed. Verily, we were starting through Finland in carts!

On this occasion our party mustered six in all; therefore, as a _karra_ holds but two, three of these primitive little vehicles were required for our accommodation. We were very anxious to dispense with the services of the coachmen, two of them at all events, as we had often done before, for it seemed quite ridiculous, considering we always drove ourselves, to take two men with us who were not wanted, and whose extra weight told on a long country journey. But not a bit of it; no amount of persuasion could induce them to stop behind. They were looking forward to the trip with pleasurable excitement, and evidently considered travelling with English ladies a special honour. The amount of talking and discussing and arranging that went on over this simple matter is appalling to think about even now. First of all they said there was too much luggage, although they had already interviewed the luggage the day before. Then they declared that if they took it they must be paid ten marks extra for doing so; then they packed all the heavy articles into one _karra_, and all the light into another, and finally came to the conclusion that this plan would not answer, and unpacked everything again. It really became ridiculous at last, and we sat on the steps of the little hostelry and roared with laughter to see them shaking their fists first at each other, and then at our unoffending Finnish friends, while measuring the Gladstones or thumping the rugs. All this fuss was about three Gladstones, a small dress-basket, only the size of a suit case, a bundle of rugs, and a basket full of provisions!

By half-past six, however, matters were amicably settled, and the patient little ponies, which had stood perfectly still throughout the squabble, feeling us mount into our places, started off at a full gallop out of the town almost before we had caught the reins. Sheer bravado on the part of the ponies, or one might perhaps better say training, for it is the habit of the country to go out of towns with a dash, and enter after the same fashion.

As a rule, the coachman sits on the floor at the feet of the off-side occupant of the _karra_, holding the reins immediately over the splash-board, and dangling his feet somewhere above the step. If he does not do this, he hangs on by his eyelashes behind, balanced on the top of the luggage.

Our men, or rather lads, afforded us much amus.e.m.e.nt before we parted with them two days later, for their interest in us was quite wonderful, and, finding that we were surprised at many things to which they were quite accustomed, they began showing off every trifle with the air of princes. When they came to a friend's house on the route they invited us to enter, consequently we drank milk with many queer folk, and patted the heads of numerous native children.

After our gentlemen friends had finally paid these coachmen and given them their tips at _Kajana_, some days later our sitting-room door burst open, and in the three solemnly filed, cap in hand, looking somewhat shy, and formally went through the process of handshaking with us all in turn. If the warmth of their affections was meant to be conveyed by the strength of their grip, they must have loved us very much indeed, for our fingers tingled for an hour afterwards; but the funniest part of all, perhaps, was the whisper of one in my ear. Finnish was his language; I did not understand a word and shook my head; when, putting his mouth still closer to my ear, he murmured the words again. Alas! I could not understand, and he knew it; yet his anxiety was so great he tried and tried again to make me comprehend. "Take me to England," at last I understood was the translation of the words the nervous youth, with many blushes and much twirling of his cap, kept repeating. But firmly and decisively I declined the honour, and he left quite crestfallen.

The tenant farmer, who often pays his rent in labour, is called a _torppari_, and his house a _torp_. He can only be likened to the crofters in the poorer parts of Scotland; but where the crofter builds his house of stone, the _torppari_ erects his of wood; where the crofter burns peat and blackens his homestead absolutely, the _torppari_ uses wood, and therefore the peat reek is missing, and the ceilings and walls merely browned; where the crofter sometimes has only earth for his flooring, the _torp_ is floored neatly with wood, although that wood is often very much out of repair, the walls shaky with age, extra lumps of Iceland moss being poked in everywhere to keep out the snow and rain.

Before the door was a sort of half wigwam made of tree trunks, standing outwards with the top end leaning against the house; this was to protect the door from the winter snows, to make a sort of screen in fact, so that it need not be dug out every day as is sometimes necessary. The door itself was only about three feet high, and began a foot from the ground,--another plan to keep back the encroaching snow. Yet these _torps_ are very superior, and the inhabitants much richer than those wretched folk who dwell in the _Savupirtti_, a house without a chimney.