A FINLAND PARADISE
Finland, or Fen-land: the land of fens, "the country of a thousand
lakes"; in Finnish Suomen-maa: "the swampy region." The root _suom_,
if not related to our own _swamp_--which is a matter upon which the
present writer can give no opinion worth having--at all events appears
to have the same meaning, and is quite similar enough in sound to
please the ear of plain people with a neat, amateur appreciation for
roots. It is indeed the country of a thousand lakes--ten thousand.
Glance at the map; it almost makes a man's eyes water to look at it!
As represented there, the entire country appears to be more water than
dry land; the inhabitants must surely be obliged to get about the
place in boats--or goloshes, you will think--and, oh! what a place for
the fishermen! Not the people in smacks and trawlers, I mean; but for
men with rods, and lines, and reels, and flies, and phantoms, and
landing nets, and so on: think of it--all these fresh-water lakes--a
network of ideal corners for the _Salmonidæ_, communicating one with
another and with Ladoga and the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia by means
of glorious fishing rivers! A place for fishermen indeed.
Look at the map, my dear reader, and consider the province from the
point of view of the fish and their habits; it is the fishes' heaven,
and being so it is certainly the paradise of anglers. A glance at the
map will show that between Uleaborg in the north and Wiborg in the
south there must be many spots which, to the keen fishing man, would
in all probability present such piscatorial attractions as would
entitle them to be called, as I have called one particular spot about
to be described, "A Finland Paradise." I believe that the salmon
fishing on the Ulea at Uleaborg, for instance, is so excellent that
those who have deserted Norway or Scotland in favour of this remote
Finnish spot are inclined to go no more a-roving, but to cry "Eureka,"
and spend the rest of their days by Bothnia's placid waters. But of
this I can only speak from hearsay and from the printed reports of
others, and will only add that I have been informed that fishing
rights are easily obtainable at Uleaborg; that such rights are
absurdly inexpensive; and that there is some one in that distant city
who can speak English, and who can put the traveller in the way of
getting an introduction into the best salmon society.
But my Finland Paradise is not in far Uleaborg, nor yet in any of the
thousand or ten thousand other places which on the testimony of the
map of Finland must be equally worthy of the title. I must warn my
readers that there is no admission to my paradise, excepting by favour
of those happy ones who possess the right to inhabit it. In other
words it is not, like Uleaborg and hundreds of other places,
accessible to the ordinary travelling man and the itinerant sportsman.
Its doors are closed to the public; the fishing is preserved, rightly
and jealously preserved.
There is a railway, the Finnish Railway, as it is called, which runs
from St. Petersburg to Hango, at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland. On
this railway, at a distance of four hours from St. Petersburg, is
Wiborg, the very ancient capital and castle of the Karelian Finns, who
were conquered by Torkel C'nutson in 1293. From Wiborg there is a
branch line to Imatra, built for the accommodation of tourists anxious
to visit the wonderful rapids or falls at the last-named place. Imatra
is on a river known variously as the Vuoksen, or the Voksa, which
connects the great Saima Lake with the still greater Ladoga; which,
again, is connected with the open sea, as all the world knows, by the
Neva. The Voksa is, I should think, one of the most beautiful rivers
in the world. Wide, and clear as crystal, we have nothing like it in
England; it has no tide to yellow it, no navigation to stir and
distress its calm depths; the fish--grayling and trout--love it, and
so does every human creature who has ever set eyes upon it, and who
knows how to appreciate a big, free, clean, noble river when he sees
it.
Lake Saima is a long sheet of water measuring from end to end one
hundred and fifty miles or more, being quite as long as Ladoga itself,
though much narrower and studded all over with islands. Saima is full
of fish--great lake trout and others of the _Salmonidæ_, together
with numberless other finny creatures of less exalted birth and
parentage. Now all these fish occasionally pine, if not for actual sea
travel, at least for such change of air and diet as a little wandering
in running water can afford them. This they can only obtain by
visiting the sole existing outlet (excepting the Saima Canal, leading
to the Gulf of Finland, which cannot count as a river) to the entire
hundred and fifty miles of lake, the Voksa.
Now, just where the Voksa takes its departure from the Saima upon its
journey of fifty-or-so miles to the Ladoga, the Saima Lake narrows
into a round basin of about one-third of a mile in diameter, which
basin forms a kind of ante-room to the river, which starts out bravely
from the western end thereof in a glorious rapid, the descent being
considerable, and the consequent draw of current throughout the basin
very strong, though not very perceptible at the surface. Through this
basin, or ante-room, known as Harraka, every single fish which desires
to visit the river from the lake, or _vice versâ_, must pass as
through a turnpike gate; and many are the fish that have had to pay
blood-toll for the privilege. The basin is at all times crammed with
fish; it is their recognised rendezvous; it is Harraka, the paradise
_par excellence_ of the Voksa; the place to which all good
fishermen should go when they die, unless they know of a better. I
don't.
This paradise was, until a few years ago, in the hands of a few
Englishmen, residents in St. Petersburg, who discovered it and
acquired the rights of enjoying it as a fishing club. They built unto
themselves a comfortable and most convenient lodge, just at the very
spot where Voksa, in froth and delicious chatter of bounding rapids,
bids farewell of Saima and starts exuberantly on his race to Ladoga,
little dreaming of the fearful gauntlet to be run, a few miles away,
at Imatra. These thrice happy Britishers, I repeat, acquired Paradise:
they planted their feet in the Garden of Eden; they tasted of the
delights of Harraka for several seasons, and then by misfortune they
lost it. By some most deplorable accident or misunderstanding the
letting of the place went past them, and Harraka, the paradise of
anglers, became a beautiful memory and nothing more. The flaming sword
of jealous proprietorship stood for ever between them and the lost
Eden of their happiness.
Then those men did the next best thing open to them. They secured a
small island a few miles lower down the river, together with the
fishing rights around it for a space of a mile or so, and upon that
island, known as Varpa-Saari, they pitched their tent, building a
charming house, engaging fishermen well acquainted with every inch of
the newly acquired water, and, in a word, making the best of what was
distinctly a "bad job."
Varpa-Saari is not Harraka. But since, according to some learned
commentators, there are seven heavens, and since Harraka is certainly
the seventh or highest of these, Varpa may surely lay claim to be
called one of the remaining six. It is, in truth, a very delightful
place. The river is here some three hundred yards in width, and is
divided by the island into two channels, both of which show their
teeth as they angrily pass the obstruction in a tumult of noisily
chattering and scolding rapids on either side. Around the island
platforms have been built jutting out into the turbulent water for the
convenience of those who wish to try for the favours of grayling or
trout with fly, in preference to spinning for them with a minnow from
a boat.
It was the delightful privilege of the writer to spend a portion of
the summer of 1894 in the land of the Tsar; and to me, ready and
anxious for every kind of exploit, whether with rod or gun, came my
friend C. G., whilom a member of the Paradise Lost of Harraka, now one
of the proprietors of Varpa-Saari, with hospitable proposals, which
ended in the speedy getting together of our respective gladstones, and
the collection, on my part, of a great number of borrowed rods and
reels and flies and minnows and other piscatorial paraphernalia, and
our prompt departure upon a three days' sojourn in the delicious
retreats of Varpa Island. It cannot, I should think, be much more than
sixty miles from St. Petersburg to Wiborg, but the trains of the
Finnish line are imbued with all the dignity and deliberation which
are inherent in the Finnish character, and they do not hurry
themselves. A good English express would do the journey in an hour;
the Wiborg express occupies the best part of four. But the carriages
are certainly comfortable and run very smoothly.
There is a custom-house somewhere between the two great cities
named--I think it is at Tereyoki--but we are not asked to disclose the
secrets of our gladstones or to reveal the riches of our superbly
appointed commissariat, for C. G. is the most hospitable of hosts as
well as the most talented of caterers, and his arrangements for our
three days' exile in the wilds of Finland are such as to strangle in
the birth any vague ideas of prospective "roughing it."
So we glide slowly and smoothly through the south-eastern portion of
the Land of Fens, which, so far, greatly resembles the Russia we have
just left; and if we look out for one of the thousand lakes we do not
see it, and shall not until Wiborg itself is reached; though, as it
happens, I know of several further inland--old familiar places where
in former days I have angled for many large perch and pike, killed
many a duck, missed many a snipe, enjoyed many a happy hour. It is hot
with all the closeness of the Russian July; but, fortunately, this is
the Finnish and not a Russian railway, and though we manufacture a
delightful draught by opening the windows on both sides of the
carriage, we are not threatened for this reason with the terrors and
tortures to which those are subjected who infringe the bye-laws of the
company. It was but a few days before that, travelling upon a Russian
line, and feeling asphyxiated by the heat of the carriage, I had, in
my innocence, let down the windows on both sides. Instantly a guard
rushed up and closed one, that on the side from which the
infinitesimal air that existed happened to be blowing. I protested.
The guard expressed horror: there would be a draught, he explained. I
hastened to assure him that that was exactly what I most wished to
bring about, and made as though to reopen the window which he had
closed. But this the guard would not permit. I should catch cold, he
said, and the company could not dream of allowing their passengers to
catch cold. I argued, I entreated, but in vain, and eventually I went
to stand upon the balcony outside. But, alas! this also, it appeared,
was not permissible just at present, and that for a peculiar reason: a
train conveying some member of the Imperial family was to meet us
presently, and no man might stand outside until it had safely passed.
In the end I was compelled to return to the stifling carriage, wherein
I was cooked to a turn by the time I reached my destination.
But if the train from St. Petersburg to Wiborg is slow, what shall be
said of that from the latter place to Imatra? Yet why, after all,
should anything be said? There was no hardship in travelling now, for
it was evening and cooler, and the country had grown more
characteristically Finnish. Here and there were small lakes, the
outposts of the thousand, the ten thousand, that lay calm and majestic
somewhere beyond. We were in Finland now beyond a doubt.
But C. G. has a surprise for me--for me who have never been in this
part of the world before--have never even seen Imatra. We shall be at
a station called St. Andrea soon, he tells me, and then I shall see
something which will interest me. What? I am to wait; it shall burst
upon my sight.
It does. It bursts upon my sight in all the calm beauty of its wide,
white, gleaming, rippling majesty--the Voksa. At this distant spot,
dedicated to the first Englishman probably who ever set foot in
Finland, St. Henry,[1] my delighted English eyes catch their first
glimpse of the ideal river--a river any Englishman would love at first
sight. And what a spot for the fisherman! As I live, there is one at
it down there. I can see him from the train whipping merrily at the
rapids beneath the railway bridge! Instantly all the apathy of the
long, slow journey is swallowed up in the enthusiasm of the angler; I
feel inclined to wave my cap from the window and cry, like Xenophon's
men, "Thalatta, thalatta!" Happy Bishop Henry, friend of Eric IX. of
Sweden, who, about 1120, an Englishman, though Bishop of Upsala,
brought Bible and sword and conquered and converted this pleasant land
for his master, and became patron saint thereof. St. Andrea is
delightfully situated indeed. I wonder whether our canonised
countryman who gave his name to it was ever here? St. Andrea sounds
and reads more like St. Andrew than St. Henry, but I may explain that
Henrys are always Andrews in Russia, just as William is changed to
Basil, Edward to Dmitry, Bernard to Boris, and so on, because where
names do not exist in the Saints' calendar, substitutes have had to be
found. In the case of Henry, the Finns appear to have followed the
example of their neighbours, and to have changed Henry into Andrea.
St. Andrew himself is connected with Russia, but in no way, I believe,
with Finland. This saint is said to have travelled, preaching the
Gospel, from the Holy Land to Byzantium, and thence along the Black
Sea to the Danube, crossing that river and reaching eventually the
Dnieper. Here he went up country as far as the spot where Kief was
afterwards built, and in this place, before turning to retrace his
steps to Byzantium, he uttered a long prophecy as to the size and
importance of the city which should one day stand in that site, and
which should be dedicated to the faith which he had then come to
preach. So much for the Saints Andrew and Henry, either of whom may
claim, as far as names go, the honour of affording one to the remote
Finnish village close to which the beautiful Voksa is first seen by
the tourist.
[1] Finland has been a Christian country since the early
part of the twelfth century, when Eric IX. of Sweden,
accompanied by Henry, Bishop of Upsala, an Englishman,
planted Christianity together with the Swedish flag in the
hitherto heathen province. In the thirteenth century another
English divine, Bishop Thomas, did his best to teach the
Finns to shake off the Swedish yoke and become subject to
the Pope alone, but in this he failed. The Finns have been
Protestants since about 1530.
Thence to Imatra is not far, and from Imatra to Varpa-Saari is a short
drive of three miles or so, past the renowned "falls," about which I
shall have more to say later. My friend and I accomplish this distance
luxuriously in a spring cart, the commissariat following in a second
vehicle. The roads in Finland are not like the roads in Russia. The
Finnish roads are civilised, and may be driven upon without fatal
results.
It was past eleven now, of a glorious July night, and in the white
northern twilight, which is nearly daylight, we cantered up to the
riverside and drew up at the spot where a landing stage has been made,
communicating by means of an overhead wire over the Voksa with the
island in mid-stream. The house is upon the island, and from the wire,
at the island end, depends a bell. A tug at our end sets this bell
clanging and a dog barking, destroying the calm majesty of the night
in an instant, and causing dogs in all directions, far and near, to
respond to the canine voice from mid-river in sleepy, querulous
accents, as though barking were a terrible bore, but must be done out
of conscientious motives. While we wait for the boat which is to take
us across we hear ourselves hailed in English from some point hidden
in the midnight mystery of the river, and when our eyes have located
the sound we discover two boats swimming silently side by side,
looking all one piece with the water, mystic, wonderful! It is J. H.
and E. H., who have driven over from their lovely summer home a few
miles below Imatra for a night's fishing in the Varpa waters. Slowly
the two boats approach--it seems a sin to murder the marvel of the
stillness by speaking--like two swans they swim towards us in the
white twilight. Are we awake, and is all this really happening, or are
these the creatures of a sleep-picture, and the witchery of the
midnight Voksa a mere dream of unreal delight? The winding of two
reels and C. G.'s hearty enquiry as to "what sport" has been enjoyed
by these two midnight fishers put to flight all ideas of the unreality
of things, and in a very few minutes we are each seated in a boat and
crossing the gleaming, rippling, hurrying Voksa towards the little
island which is to be our home for the next three days. As we reach
the landing-stage at the island we find a sleepy Finn fisherman just
preparing a boat, in response to our bell-summons, to take us across;
but our friends have saved him this trouble. They land us, and away
they float again, the two light craft moving noiselessly over the
broad river propelled by the fisherman-Finn in the bows, and in the
dim and mysterious distance we can hear the soft _crake_, _crake_ of
their reels as the lines are let out once more after having been wound
in in compliment to ourselves. Before we are out of hearing there is a
_whirr_, and we know that the phantom of one of them has found a
billet.
Then up through leafy paths to the house, with only the murmur of
water audible, but that from every side; with here a gleam and there a
gleam between the trees, and everything else silence and shady
darkness and mystery, and one's very soul feeling half numbed with the
wonder of being in such a place and at such a time.
As for the house, it is the ideal of what a fishing lodge should be,
with its racks for rods outside and in; its glorious roomy balcony
dining-room, its large central sitting-room and its half-dozen or more
of most excellent bedrooms, each commanding a more fascinating view
over trees and river than its next neighbour, and each with the
perpetual sing-song of the gentle mother Voksa to sing the tired
angler to sleep with her eternal lullaby.
And now, as C. G. most appropriately observes, a little supper. The
night and the place and the circumstances are about as full of poetry
as such things can be; my very soul seems steeped in mysticism, and
the witchery of the surroundings has made a poet of me to my very
backbone; but--well, they did not give us time to eat at Wiborg, nor
at St. Andrea, nor anywhere else, and the very word "supper" is
sufficient to send poetry to the winds and to convert the poet into
the ravening wolf until the leeway of the appetite has been made up.
Luckily there is plenty to eat and it is ready to hand. Julia, the
Finn cook, a neat, clean-looking person who cannot speak or understand
a single word of Russian or anything else but Finnish--Julia has baked
some quite delicious bread; and there is Finnish butter--none of your
"Dosset" this!--and C. G.'s baskets contain town-bought dainties of
the very best: it is pleasant to sit and enjoy such a supper with the
white gleam of the midnight Voksa visible to us wherever we choose to
peep for it between the ghostly trees that would screen it from us;
and with the soft babble of her waters for ever in our ears, as though
they were constantly telling of the wonders in trout and silver
grayling that lurk and hide from us in the secret depths beneath; as
though each wavelet had such a secret to tell us and were murmuring to
us as it passed, "Down below--just here--oh, such a trout! oh, such a
trout! Quick, or he will be off and away!"
There can be no question of sleeping this night. We must fix up our
rods and choose our phantom minnows, and go out in boats that are
phantoms also, like those ghostly fellows, J. and E. H., there, who
can be seen occasionally passing slowly across the white water in the
distance, silent, mysterious, intent upon their spinning, two
phantoms, in phantom boats and with phantom boatmen, fishing with
phantom minnows, rightly so-called--all phantoms together! What matter
if we catch anything or nothing? We must go, if it be only to steep
our souls in the wonderful silence and beauty of this July night on
the water, and to drink in the intoxicating delight and novelty of the
whole thing.
And in an hour we are there, floating on Voksa's white bosom,
propelled softly hither and thither as our boatmen think best; for
these men know where the huge silver Voksa and Saima trout most do
congregate, and the charm and wonder of the river and of the night are
nothing to them so long as some big ten or fifteen pounder can be
induced to accept the invitation our cruel blue minnows hold out to
them. These superb fish are, so far as I can make out, of three kinds.
First, great silvery fellows with bright red spots, for all the world
like overgrown brothers of the little river trout. Then there are
darker coloured fish, of a golden brown hue, with spots less brightly
accentuated, and, I think, larger heads. Of these two kinds the former
is the handsomer fish, but both are splendid specimens, and are caught
up to twenty-four pounds in weight, C. G. having taken the record in
this respect. The third specimen I saw was a fish which I should have
called a salmon, but, I believe, erroneously. The Finns have a simple
rule. To them all fish over five pounds in weight are "Lochi," salmon
(German, Lachs; Russian, Lososino). Now there are plenty of salmon in
the Neva, and therefore in Lake Ladoga also; and the reader might
suppose that, since the Voksa flows into the Ladoga, there may be
salmon in the Voksa just as well as in Ladoga itself. So there may, in
the lower parts of the river, but between Ladoga and Saima Lakes there
is a barrier, known as the Imatra Falls, which must surely be an
insurmountable obstacle to the most enterprising of salmon. The Voksa
is a broad, generous, full-flowing river, of three hundred yards in
width, which is suddenly compelled at Imatra to compress itself into a
narrow gorge of scarcely twenty yards across, and to pass through this
as best it can for a distance of a couple of hundred yards or so,
after which it is free once more to open itself out to its former
wealth of elbow-room. The reader may imagine with how much protest and
clamour the surprised and tortured waters of the proud river perform
this sudden act of self-compression. Roaring and hissing with rage,
they pile themselves mountain high in an instant, and sweep down the
moderate incline in a furious phalanx of angry wave-warriors, dashing
from one rocky side of the gorge to the other, diving, rearing,
whirling, plunging, hurling angry hisses of spray to this side and
that, and at the foot of the narrow torture-chamber standing up in
mighty water-columns and twisting round to face the rock-walls that
have confined them, as though they half thought of turning again and
rending them ere they depart once more upon their course in unimpeded
freedom and gradually regained calm and majesty. The very idea of any
salmon mounting in safety such a whirling, battling, irresistible fury
of waters as Imatra is surely outrageous. There cannot be salmon above
Imatra. The salmon-like lochi must be a salmon trout, or a lake trout,
or some one of the non-seagoing families of _Salmonidæ_.
Full as the Voksa is of fish, and hard as my friend C. G. and I
worked, both from the platforms with fly and from boat with phantoms
of every shape and size likely to attract the monsters down in the
depths beneath us, it was all in vain--or nearly in vain. We did,
indeed, catch a few fish, but nothing very large, and hardly more than
enough to keep us well supplied with toothsome, dainty fare for our
own table. We offered those fish the choicest delicacies that London
makers could produce; we tempted them with phantoms so fascinating
that one would suppose any fish of decently discriminative powers
would rise from its moist bed and come out, at night, to feed upon
them as they lay on the table within the very house. We dangled these
tempting morsels over the very spots where they were known to lie; but
for two days did these Voksa monsters sulk and turn their faces
steadfastly from us. There was thunder in the air; that, we concluded,
was the mischief; perhaps during Sunday the storm would break. We
would try them again on Monday, and meanwhile we would accept J. H.'s
hospitable invitation and drive over to spend Sunday with him at his
lovely home at Lappin-Haru (the Ridge, or the District, of the Lapps).
Those Lapps who chose this spot for their habitation showed a wise
discrimination and a taste for natural beauty of scene and site which
one would scarcely look for in that unromantic tribe. Lappin-Haru
overlooks the Voksa at one of its loveliest bends; a truly noble
river, flowing through dense forests and by the side of tidy,
cultivated fields; deep and majestic and silent at this corner, and
bursting into rippling laughter at that; a river that bears up the
swimmer as buoyantly and as securely as the sea, so strong and so full
and ample is the beautiful, bright, clear flood of it. My friend J.
H.--the representative in St. Petersburg of a family as well known and
as widely respected in Russia as it is in England--has built him a
house in this corner of the Voksa Paradise, and a splendid house it
is. And though in the very wilds of Finland, yet he is in
communication with all centres of civilisation by means of the
telephone; indeed, you can even speak to him from the island club at
Varpa-Saari, a dozen miles away; while the Imatra trains stop for
passengers within a mile of his front door. So quickly do the
enlightened Finns avail themselves of the discoveries of science that
the southern portion of their province is covered with a network of
telephones, and no one in town or country dreams of being without this
useful adjunct to civilised comfort.
Delightful indeed was it to come into a bit of England that Sunday
morning at Lappin-Haru; delightful to hear English voices and to see
English ladies and English children so far away from the madding
crowd. And so Sunday passed very delightfully; and now Monday, our
last day, has come round. I think it is at lunch this Monday afternoon
that C. G. has an inspiration.
"I am going," he says, "to drive to Imatra and telephone over to
Harraka for leave to fish there to-night." At this I laugh the laugh
of the scornful, for it is well known that Harraka is the Paradise
Lost of the English fishers, and that the present proprietors stand,
figuratively, at the gate armed with the flaming sword of jealousy in
order to keep out, with the utmost strictness, every would-be angler
in their unique and incomparable waters.
Nevertheless, C. G. insists that he will try. "Who knows?" he says. "A
kind and indulgent spirit may be animating for this day only the heart
of Count Arnoff!" (which is not the proprietor's real name); "and,
after all, he can but refuse."
This last proposition is so evidently true that I scoff no more, but
allow my sanguine C. G. to proceed upon his way, though secretly
remaining of the opinion that Count Arnoff would sooner perish than
allow us upon his sacred waters.
Now, C. G. is undoubtedly personally fascinating, but how he contrived
to exercise his fascination through the telephone I really cannot
imagine; yet it is certain that he returned home in a very short time,
and that, as I could see by the sunshine of his countenance long
before the boat bore him to the landing stage on the island, where I
awaited him, he had been successful. The Count himself was away, but
his steward had taken upon himself to grant C. G.'s request for an
evening's fishing, and this very night was to see us afloat in the
magic basin of Harraka. Paradise was to be regained, for one night
only!
Oh! the care with which we dried and attended to our lines and reels;
the loving discrimination with which we looked over phantom and totnes
and whisky-bobbie, and selected the most fascinating that our tin
reservoirs could supply. Oh! the anxiety with which we watched the
weather during the afternoon, and the deep satisfaction with which we
noted that all things tended towards the development of a fine fishing
evening.
Then we took boat, at about eight o'clock, and rowed across to a spot
where a trap awaited us--and such a trap!--and drove away through the
drooping day towards the Count's wonderful water. The trap was a
square iron cage on wheels, and the road--when it left the main track
and branched off into the pine forest which jealously guards the upper
reaches of the Voksa--was not a road at all, but a series of terrible
abysses with no bottom excepting the native rock, which is granite in
those parts, and painful to jolt against. Had the Count so arranged
matters in order to keep intruders from his sacred precincts? We, at
all events, were not deterred from pressing forward, and oh! the sight
that rewarded us--a sight I shall never forget, and such as I had
never thought to see. Try to picture it. When we reached Harraka and
the basin or ante-room between Saima Lake and Voksa opened out before
us, the entire surface of that basin of a third of a mile diameter was
boiling and seething, and positively alive with leaping, gambolling
monsters, so that it looked for all the world as though a shower of
gigantic, long-shaped hailstones were falling over the entire surface
of the water. There was not a square yard of the whole within which,
if you watched it for a second or two, you would not see a mighty
trout jump. Had it been possible to suddenly intercept a huge net
between air and water you would have caught a million.
Even C. G., who has fished this marvellous basin in olden days, before
Paradise was lost, has never seen anything like this. Our fingers, as
we put up our rods, tremble with the mere excitement of seeing such a
sight; we can hardly frame words of wonder and admiration. The feeling
is almost awe----
But the two Finnish fishermen appointed to row us about shake their
heads discouragingly. When the fish are playing in this way, they give
us to understand, they will not take the bait. They are, it appears,
not feeding at all, but merely enjoying life, and endeavouring to rid
themselves of certain parasites which cling to them at this season.
Probably in an hour or two they will feed. This is discouraging, but
we intend to try all the same.
And for an hour we slowly float up and down and across the little
lagoon, and the monster fish leap and play all round us, so that we
might, if we pleased, touch them with our hands; they almost jump into
the very boat at our feet, but neither minnow, nor fly, nor
whisky-bobbie will tempt them.
We must leave the place at midnight, alas! for the Count's huge
establishment--he has built a palace in this once beautiful place,
beautiful in the fullest loveliness of prodigal nature--the Count's
many servants and officers and stewards and clerks will not retire
until we depart, and we cannot decently keep them all up later than
twelve. Nevertheless, we will rest for half-an-hour, no more, and then
try again for an hour or three-quarters of an hour; perhaps we may yet
tempt at least one of these million monsters from his element. At
present it is too tantalising to bear; we must turn our backs upon the
seething basin and walk inland for the half-hour of enforced
idleness--and then----
C. G. tells me that his fisherman has recognised him as an old friend,
and declares that he, C. G., in the old club days, gave him, Mikki, a
pair of trousers. C. G. does not remember the circumstance, but feels
that the trousers were garments well bestowed, for Mikki will
certainly take him to the best places by virtue of the gift. Cast your
bread, says C. G., upon the waters, or in other words, freely
distribute old pairs of trousers, and you shall reap the benefit of
your liberality after many days.
Then we returned and settled ourselves once more in our luxurious,
red-velvet cushioned boats, selected our biggest and most fascinating
phantoms, and started. It was now past eleven o'clock. The fish had
nearly finished their tantalising antics at the surface and had
disappeared into the secret depths; the swirling water was scarcely
broken by a single leaping monster. Night had fallen at last: it was
as still, as silent, as mysterious, as bewitching as a dream-river.
You could hear the roar and turmoil of the Voksa breaking away in
rapids at the far end of the basin, but here in the smooth water there
was no sound--only a strong, silent draw of deep current towards the
place where lake and river parted. Where were the fish? What had
become of the thousands of sportive giants of half-an-hour ago? I
tried to imagine them at the bottom, each lying behind stone or
snag--lying with moving gill and bright silver body waving in the
current, on the look-out for prey. Did they watch my blue phantom as
it passed, and half rush out at it, but hold back at the last moment,
noticing something which aroused suspicion in the cut of tail, or
fin, or red marks on the white belly? There is something fearfully
sacrilegious about all this. How dare I float with impunity out
here, at night, above these millions of scaly beings, intent on
their destruction and fearing nothing for myself? What about the
water-spirits--the _Vodyannui_ of Sclavonic folklore? This is
their own place: it is probably a sacred retreat of theirs. At any
moment they might----
Away go thoughts of water-folk and of everything else, for there is a
great jerk. My heart goes off at a hand gallop; my rod instinctively
stands upright. Fifty yards away there is a rush and the sudden flash
of a silver streak of light--I lower the point for an instant, an act
of courtesy always to be paid to a leaping fish--then there is a whirr
and a few moments of delirious, delicious agitation. Yohann, my man,
is making for the land where the Count has built him a wonderful
granite embankment for the convenient landing of fish; we reach it and
I step out; but my captive has not the smallest intention of giving in
yet; he is closer in now, but repeatedly he bolts away and increases
the distance again. Suddenly I perceive that C. G. is beside me: he,
too, is playing a fish--a big one he tells me. It is a race who will
requisition the huge landing-net first. Up and down the embankment we
go, and the fish are leaping and struggling close in now; but C. G.
gets his home first, a beauty of nearly twenty pounds; and mine, tired
out, is ready to be landed as soon as the net is free. A truly lovely
fish, too, but smaller than his by several pounds--no time to weigh
either of them now.
Back we go, and in three minutes both are on land once more, and each
is busy in the deliriously fascinating occupation of battling with
another giant. Oh! this is life indeed. Better half-an-hour of Harraka
than a cycle of Cathay! Quick, C. G.; land your fish and give me the
net, and let us both start again; this is too splendid to waste a
minute!
And again we put forth our fatal phantoms, and two more beauties are
presently transferred from the secret places of this wonder-tank to
the hot granite of the Count's quay--and then, alas! it is midnight,
and we must go. Seventy-five pounds, in six fish, in little more than
half-an-hour; it is good enough, C. G. Furthermore, we are the richer
by more than these mere seventy-five pounds of trout-flesh, for we
have seen a great sight to-night; we have been in Paradise; we have
burst, this day, into the secret places of the trout people, the very
sanctuary and central rendezvous of the tribe.
What should we have caught had we been able to continue our fishing on
that marvellous night? Who can tell? If the fish are on the feed,
really on the feed, in that wonderful basin, I believe you might catch
any number while the appetite of the community lasted; there is no
lack of them. No possible amount of angling could produce the smallest
visible effect upon the numbers of the thousands we saw that night,
when the basin boiled and splashed again with the play of them. A
paradise indeed for anglers is this Finland paradise of the Voksa,
and, alas! a paradise lost.