FINLAND (_Continued_).
AT the close of a delightful day’s sail along the coast of Finland, we
reached the harbor of Helsingfors. The distant sight of the city is
imposing, and one’s admiration is doubtless heightened by the surprise
he feels when first finding such splendid structures in this part of the
world.
The Fortress of Sweaborg, commanding the approach to the city, is rather
a series of fortifications than a single fort. The works of nature have
been turned to as good an account at this point as in the Straits of
Gibraltar. Seven islands were placed by the Great Maker in just the
right position for the purpose of being fortified to protect the city,
and they have been so strongly fortified as to defy the force of any
foe. The combined fleets of France and England tried their guns upon it
in 1855, and retired from the trial, quite content to get away.
Peace is reigning now. The fortress fell into the hands of the Russians
in 1808, after the garrison was reduced to the last extremity by famine,
and it was the last stronghold that Sweden held in Finland. When this
was gone, all was gone, and the Finns changed masters. But their
subjection is rather nominal than real, as we shall see when we enter
the town. On the shore where we land is the “Society House,” or, as we
should call it, “The Company’s Hotel;” and we find similar houses in
many parts of northern Europe. They are hotels built by the company
running the steamers, or by associations, and they combine many of the
features of the first-class hotels at watering-places in England or
America. Near it is the palace in which the Emperor of Russia, who is
also the Grand Duke of Finland, resides when he makes his brief visit,
now and then, to this remote and “outlandish” part of his empire. His
accommodations here are very narrow, but just as comfortable as those in
the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, holding five thousand people.
On the ship we had formed the acquaintance of a gentleman of
Helsingfors, whose pleasant manners and intelligent conversation had
greatly interested us during the voyage. As we had now reached his home,
and were going ashore, he gave us a warm invitation to his house, which,
of course, we declined, and then he insisted upon being our guide to see
the famous old town. It is one of the richest in historical interest in
the north.
On a grand square stand the chief public buildings, and they present an
appearance that would be commanding in Paris or London. The senate-house
stretches across one side of the square, the Lutheran church adorns
another, the university fills a third, and from the fourth a broad
avenue opens, half a mile long, to the foot of a hill crowned with an
OBSERVATORY.
The University of Finland! In our ignorance, we had associated
Finlanders with the Laps and the Esquimaux, and had never thought of
letters and science and art in connection with this race. Among the
pleasures of a visit to Finland we had not reckoned an introduction to a
venerable university, endowed, sustained, and flourishing on a par with
those of Germany. In fact, very few of the German universities have
accommodations and advantages equal to this at Helsingfors. It would be
considered first-class in England or France, and there is nothing
comparable to it in the United States. It has a magnificent stone
edifice of architectural proportions and finish, that make the building
a perpetual lecture on the beautiful and sublime in art; and within is
the most complete system of rooms for every department of knowledge here
pursued,—for museums, laboratories, lectures, recitations. The
professors were in session in the great audience-room as we entered it;
the place was adorned with a full-length portrait of the Emperor
Alexander I., who is styled, in the Latin inscription, “the father of
his country and the university.” The prophecy is added that art will
preserve his features, and his fame will fill the whole earth. The
professors seemed an earnest set of men, mostly young, all fine-looking
and well dressed. I took them to be happy and successful in their
calling, and I wished much that I understood their language, so as to
enter into the sympathies of a set of scholars giving their lives to the
pursuits of science in Finland.
The university has five separate departments, law, medicine, theology,
&c., with _thirty-one professors_, and it is older than any university
in Russia. It was founded in 1630 by the Empress Christina, eleven years
before the art of printing was introduced into Finland. Its charter was
signed by Axel Oxenstiern, a famous name in his country’s annals. The
library contains 200,000 volumes, in all languages and in every realm of
human learning. It is admirably arranged in a series of beautiful rooms,
in niches and galleries, having an air of repose and seclusion inviting
to quiet study, such as Ptolemy anticipated when he put over the
Alexandrian doors the fitting inscription, “The food of the soul.”
And the halls, floors, walls, and the whole interior, are kept with a
scrupulous neatness unknown in any institution of learning claiming the
dignity of a college, or university, that my feet ever entered, in the
most enlightened, civilized, and beloved land in the world. Yet there is
little in the way of literature in the Finnish language, which is spoken
only by the peasants, the Swedish being the language of law and social
life among the other classes. Some rich treasures of popular poetry have
been discovered floating about in the memories of the people, and these
have been gathered as curious specimens of an unlettered, but
imaginative race. Kalewala, an epic poem, was first printed in 1835, and
an earnest effort has been made to rouse young Finland to seek laurels
in the fields of song. Two of the professors deliver lectures in
Finnish. Schiller and Shakespeare have been done into the native tongue
of the Finns. And the imperial decree has gone forth that after 1883 the
Finnish language shall be the official tongue of the country. If Russia
would be as kind and considerate of the feelings of Poland, she would
conciliate her southern subjects as readily as she has her northern.
We were now led to the Senate-house. The Diet, or Congress of Finland,
consists of four chambers, the nobles, the clergy, the citizens, the
peasants. Each of them has a hall of its own for meeting; that of the
nobles has a large chamber, with two hundred or more handsome chairs. On
the walls is placed the coat-of-arms of each noble family in Finland,
with the name inscribed upon it, an ostentatious display indeed, but
very interesting. We came upon one familiar name; it was that of our
friend who was our guide. His brother is the head of the family, and, in
his absence, the next in order, our friend, takes his seat in the
senate.
We rode out of town a mile to the beautiful Botanical Garden, one of the
resorts of the ladies and gentlemen of the city. Here they come toward
evening, and enjoy themselves in social intercourse, and take a cup of
tea in the grounds. The park is laid out tastefully,—beautiful shaded
avenues, green meadows, banks of flowers, and the walks lead up to rocky
heights overlooking the bay and sea; and these heights have been
fortified to resist the coming foe. The guns, which were brought up here
in the Crimean war time, are now lying about useless; but they are doing
as much service when dismounted and rusting on the ground as they did in
the fight, for they were not big enough to reach the ships of the enemy,
whose bombs went easily over these heights into the town.
Below, and in front of a beautiful “House of Refreshments,” tables are
scattered about in great numbers, and at one of these our company sat,
to enjoy the hospitality of Herr Edelfelt, our new-made friend, who
insisted upon entertaining us at tea in the Finland fashion out of
doors, as we had declined his invitation to his own house. This custom
of taking dinner, tea, or supper at a garden or restaurant is prevalent
among respectable people in many parts of continental Europe, and, by
the accession of Europeans into the United States, is gradually becoming
an accepted custom there.
Near to this garden is a health establishment of great repute. All the
medicinal springs of Europe and America, and of Asia and Africa too, I
presume, are reproduced by skilful doctoring, and whosoever drinks may
be cured of whatsoever disease he has, provided the disease is curable
by any of the waters of the world. To this many-mouthed fountain of life
thousands resort in the morning and drink the waters. As they are
required by the rules of health to take a brisk walk up the heights and
down again, before and after taking the refreshing draught, there can be
no manner of doubt that strangers resorting hither must derive great
benefit. The air is salubrious, the scenery magnificent, the climate
bracing, the regimen judicious, and the morning exercises quite as
edifying for invalids as those prescribed by Dr. Jay, of Bath. It is
quite probable that this artificial fountain in Finland has cured as
many patients as Baden or Kissingen, and yet it has not been celebrated
half so widely. Besides drinking, bathing is plentifully enjoyed; and
his case must be hard that is not softened somewhat by the internal and
external application of pure cold water, with plenty of exercise in the
open air, on the heights of Helsingfors, in Finland. I drank none of the
water, inhaled the air, took the constitutional walk, and was perfectly
well when I came away. As I stayed there only about an hour, the
inference is fair that if I had used the waters and remained a week or
two, I should have been competent to give the cure a first-rate
certificate.
We are now at the _sixtieth_ degree of north latitude, eighteen degrees
further north than New York city, or more than a thousand miles nearer
the North Pole. We have returned to the ship, and night is nominally
about us, but no darkness settles on the world. We can read and write
all night without a candle, if we are so disposed. And there is no sleep
to be had, for all the livelong night the natives are pouring on board
with freight; passengers are coming; they fill up the cabin and spend
the parting hours with friends, eating, drinking, laughing, and talking
obstreperously; and the leaving-taking, with the inevitable
indiscriminate kissing, keeps the place in a constant uproar, that knows
no alleviation until at four in the morning we put to sea, and find rest
in the cradle of the deep.
We are now going further north, by narrow passages among islands simply
masses of rocks, utterly barren, washed by the waves till they are
perfectly smooth; and not a tree, nor shrub, nor blade of grass is in
sight upon them. The channel is very tortuous, marked by poles, and
sometimes it is so near the rocks that we seem to be grazing their
precipitous sides. The weather is cool, clear, and delightful; though
midsummer, the overcoat or shawl is agreeable; and the exhilaration of
the day and the passage among the islands became general among the
passengers, who throng the hurricane-deck to enjoy the scenery. Some of
the islands that we pass in the course of the day have some available
land and a few inhabitants, whose chief pursuit is fishing. And these
scattered islands, and the adjoining shores on the mainland, furnish
sailors that enter the service of other countries, and are among the
most hardy, healthful, and valuable seamen to be found. The subjects of
the Russian government, either here or in any other part of the empire,
are not allowed to expatriate themselves at their own pleasure, as
thousands would gladly do, if they could make their way into some more
hospitable portion of the globe. But they can often find opportunities
to get on board merchant vessels as seamen, and they are not slow to
avail themselves of such opportunities. The soil does not give them
food. They have no market for the fish that the sea would furnish. They
are therefore very poor, and in bad seasons famine overtakes them. The
people that have money, the well-to-do people,—and there are many such
in Finland,—have plenty of dried salmon, and fresh too, beef and
potatoes, which, with bread and butter, make good enough living for
anybody; and to these staples they add some of the luxuries that money
will command anywhere. But the poor are very poor, and they constitute
the masses of the people,—the great multitude whose condition we go to
look into when we visit foreign lands.
Abo is pronounced Obo. It is the name of the northernmost town of any
note in Finland, and a famous old town it is. We were told that the
hotel is the farthest north of any hotel in the world. Away up above us
on the borders of the Gulf of Bothnia,—and Abo is at the dividing line
between the Baltic and Bothnia,—is Bjonneborg, and Christireestad, and
Wasa, and Uleaborg, and Tornea on the very head of the gulf, where there
is something in the way of a house of refreshment for travellers, I have
not a doubt. Perhaps this is the last that aspires to the distinction of
a hotel on the European plan, and we will enjoy the comfortable
satisfaction of thinking that, as we are going no farther north, there
is no place of rest and entertainment to receive us if we should.
A large crowd of people was standing at the wharf to see the steamer, to
greet friends expected, and to hear the news. They were quiet, orderly,
and well-looking. There was no rush to the gangway, no pulling and
hauling to get on, or get baggage and passengers, though there were
hundreds waiting for any kind of a job by which a little money could be
made. The hotel—the Society House, as it is called—is close by the
landing, and affords all the substantial comforts a traveller requires.
The old castle, historic, romantic, and famous, is in full view; a
massive stone tower on which the storms of centuries, in war and peace,
have spent their fury. The streets of the town are wide and the houses
low, and one looks in vain for the appearances of a city that was
founded by Eric the Saint, who reigned from 1157 to 1160, the time when
the Sun of Christianity first softened the rigor of this northern clime.
The castle was founded then, and for long centuries held in check the
Russians who sought the conquest of Finland.
The cathedral has been an object of intense interest for ages past, as
the first monument of Christianity in this region, and the burial-place
of the most illustrious persons in the history of the country. One of
the tombs bears the name of Catharine Monsdotter, who was taken from
humble life and married to the King of Sweden, and by one of those
strange reverses, now ceasing to be strange, she returned to Finland and
died in obscurity, and her husband perished in prison. Her remains
repose among queens and princes, but she finds no compensation in this
for the loss of a diadem. Two white marble statues, life-size, stand on
a sarcophagus in one of the chapels, over the dust of a man and wife who
were celebrated for their wealth and noble birth, having the blood of
kings; and the statue of the wife is even now decked (not adorned) with
necklace and bracelets,—gaudy jewelry indeed to garnish a whited
sepulchre.
In 1827 an awful conflagration swept over this city of only 20,000
inhabitants, and consumed two-thirds of all the houses in it; the inside
of the cathedral was destroyed, the university and its great library,
and the chief public edifices fell a prey to the flames, and the town
will never recover from the disaster. Its university was removed to
Helsingfors, where we have already visited it. Its trade is now of no
account. The interior of the country furnishes little or nothing for
export, and the glory of Abo—for it once had some glory—is departed for
ever.
The Gulf of Bothnia extends six degrees to the north of Abo, but there
is no trade or travel that requires a steamer, and ours is now to strike
across the gulf, through the Aland Isles to Stockholm. We are bound
there to visit Sweden and Norway. Those who have not this trip in view,
and wish to see more of the country, can remain at Abo and go back to
Wyborg and St. Petersburg by land. There is semi-occasionally a coach
for travellers in Finland, but the more excellent way is by private
carriage, or _carriole_, the carriage of the country; a narrow low
sulky, with room enough for one, hardly for two, besides the driver. It
has no top; but there is another trap called a _kibitka_, a long, narrow
wagon with no springs, and a leathern hood which you can draw over you
in case of rain, and with a bed in the bottom of it, on which, if not
too long, you can stretch yourself out, while the driver attends to the
little animal ahead, that tears up and down hill, through the sand, at a
fearful pace, regardless of an occasional break-down and turn-over. This
is a Russian innovation, and in the Paris Exhibition there were several
very handsome specimens of the vehicle, which is far more pleasant to
read about than to ride in. The _bondkara_ is still another wretched
contrivance, about the same thing as our _buck-board_; with this
essential, not to say fatal difference, that ours has four wheels, and
the board extending from the forward to the hind axle makes an agreeable
spring; an experienced driver sitting before, and the passenger behind
him, holding on with both hands, can ride astride and not suffer much.
The _bondkara_ of Finland has but two wheels, and the bench, without a
back, is fastened to the axle-tree, the driver before, the traveller
behind; the equilibrium must be preserved with care or the load goes to
the ground, and when the wild horse tears down hill as if running away,
the passenger must hold on tight with both hands on the sides of the
seat, and the other—but he has no other, unless he’s a little
behindhand, in which case he would do well to use it as best he can. The
average speed of ten miles an hour is made, and that is pretty well in
such a country as this.
It is very strange that the intercourse of nations does not lead to the
more rapid adoption of improvements which have been found to be useful.
Nations are slow to learn of one another. We in America have railroad
arrangements that Europeans know, but will not introduce. They have many
things in their system that we ought to apply, but will not. People of
different countries have an idea that what they do not know is not worth
knowing, and so they prefer a poor way of their own to a better way of
others. But we have nothing to learn from Finland in the line of travel.
Patient endurance is something, and the people of Finland deserve credit
for the spirit with which they have borne themselves through the long
period of their dreary history. They are not numerous, the entire
population amounting to but 1,800,000 souls: 40,000 are members of the
Russian or Greek Church; the rest are Protestants, mostly Lutherans. It
embraces only 6,844 geographical miles of surface, and no other country
is so much covered with water. Yet it has a splendid university, with
thirty-one professors; it abounds in churches, it has a peaceful, moral,
and intelligent population, and some of the gentlemen and ladies whom it
was my pleasant fortune to meet were among the most agreeable and
cultivated persons I have encountered abroad.