FINNISH BATHS
No one can be many days in Finland without hearing murmurs of the
bath-house.
A Finnish bath once taken by man or woman can never be forgotten!
A real native bath is one of the specialities of the country. Even in
the old songs of the _Kalevala_ they speak of the "cleansing and healing
vapours of the heated bath-room."
Poets have described the bath in verse, artists have drawn it on canvas,
and singers have warbled forth its charms; nevertheless, it is not every
traveller who has penetrated the strange mystery. Most strange and most
mysterious it is. But I anticipate.
Every house in the country, however humble that house may be, boasts its
_bastu_, or bath-house, called in Finnish _Sauna_. As we passed along
the country roads, noting the hay piled up on a sort of tent erection
made of pine trunks, to dry in the sun before being stowed away into
small wooden houses for protection during the winter, or nearly drove
over one of those strange long-haired pigs, the bristles on whose backs
reminded one of a hog-maned polo pony, one saw these _bastus_
continually. Among the cluster of little buildings that form the farm,
the bath-house, indeed, stands forth alone, and is easily recognisable,
one of its walls, against which the stove stands, being usually black,
even on the outside, from smoke.
Every Saturday, year in, year out, that stove is heated, and the whole
family have a bath--not singly, oh dear, no, but altogether, men, women,
and children; farmer, wife, brothers, sisters, labourers, friends, and
the dogs too, if they have a mind; so that once in each week the entire
population of Finland is clean, although few of them know what daily
ablutions, even of the most primitive kind, mean, while hot water is
almost as difficult to procure in _Suomi_ as a great auk's egg in
England.
Naturally any institution so purely national as the Finnish _bastu_ was
worth investigating--in fact, could not be omitted from our programme.
Bathing with the peasants themselves, however, being impossible, we
arranged to enjoy the extraordinary pleasure at a friend's house, where
we could be duly washed by one of her own servants; for, be it
understood, there is always one servant in every better-class
establishment who understands the _bastu_, and can, and does wash the
family.
When _she_ is washed, we unfortunately omitted to inquire. In towns,
such as _Helsingfors_, there are professional women-washers, who go from
house to house to bathe and massage men and women alike. Theirs is a
regular trade, and as the higher class of the profession receive about a
shilling for "attending" each bath given at a private house, the
employment is not one to be despised. Neither is it, as proved by the
fact that there are over 300 public bathing-women in little Finland.
On the eventful night of our initiation, supper was over, the
house-party and guests were all assembled on the balcony, the women
engaged in needlework, and the men smoking cigarettes, when _Saima_, the
Finnish servant, arrived to solemnly announce in a loud tone that the
English lady's bath was ready. Taking a fond farewell of the family, I
marched solemnly behind the flaxen-haired _Saima_, who had thoroughly
entered into the spirit of the joke of giving an English lady a Finnish
bath, neither the bather nor attendant being able to understand one word
of what the other spoke. Down an avenue overshadowed by trees we
proceeded, getting a peep of a perfectly glorious sunset which bathed
one side of the lake in yellow hues, while the other was lighted by an
enormous blood-red moon, for in those Northern climes there are many
strange natural effects far more beautiful than in the South. It was a
wonderful evening, and I paused to consider which was the more
beautiful, the departing day or the coming night, both of which were
fighting for supremacy.
_Saima_ would brook no delay, however, so I had to hurry on. Immediately
before us was the _bastu_--a wee wooden house like a small Swiss châlet,
the outer room, where I undressed, containing a large oven. The inner
room boasted only one small window, through which the departing day did
not shine very brilliantly, luckily for my modesty. Its furniture was
only a large-sized tin bath filled with cold water, opposite to which
were seven very wide wooden steps like a staircase, twelve feet wide
perhaps, the top step forming a kind of platform where there was just
room to sit without one's head touching the tarred ceiling above. The
steps and the platform were covered with straw--Finnish fashion--for the
great occasion.
I wondered what next, but had not much time for speculation, for
_Saima_--who only took off her outer dress--grasped me by the hand, her
face aglow with the intense heat, led me up the wooden staircase, and
signed her will that I should sit on the straw-strewn platform afore
honourably mentioned.
Oh, the heat! Many of us know Turkish baths; but then we take them
gradually, whereas in the _bastu_ one plunges into volcanic fires at
once. Blinking in the dim light, I found that beside us was a
brick-built stove, for which the fire, as I had noticed while disrobing,
is in the outer chamber, and when the washing-woman threw a pail of
water upon the surface of the great heated stones, placed for the
purpose inside the stove, the steam ascended in volumes, and the
temperature went up, until I exclaimed, in one of the few Swedish
sentences I knew, "_Mycket hett_" (very hot), at which agonised remark
_Saima_ laughed uproariously, and, nodding and smiling, fetched another
pail of water from the cold bath, and threw its contents on the brick
furnace in order that more steaming fumes might ascend. Almost stifled I
blinked, and gasped, and groaned by turns, repeating again and again,
"_Mycket hett_," "_alltför hett_" (too hot), "_Tack så mycket_" (thank
you), in tones of anguish. Much amused, _Saima_--who, be it understood,
was a Swedish-speaking Finn--stood smiling cheerfully at my
discomfiture; but, happily, at last she seemed to think I might have had
enough, for, after waving my hands hopelessly to the accompaniment of
"_Nej tack, nej tack_" (no thank you), she apparently understood and
desisted.
A moment later, through the steam, her smiling face ascended the stairs,
with a pail of hot water in one hand, and a lump of soft soap in the
other, on which was a large bundle of white fibre, something like hemp.
Dipping this in the pail, she soon made a lather with the soap, and,
taking up limb after limb, scrubbed hard and long--scrubbed until my
skin tingled, and in the damp mysterious heat I began to wonder how much
of my body would emerge from the ordeal. This scrubbing was a long
process, and if the Finns wash one another as industriously as _Saima_
washed me, no one in Finland should ever be dirty, although most of them
must lose several skins a year. Pails of water were then thrown over me,
over the straw, over everything, and I heard the soapy water gurgling
away into the lake below, which was covered with yellow and white
water-lilies. Lilies cannot object to soap, or they would never bloom in
Finland as they do.
"_Mycket bra_" (very good), I called again and again, hoping that
appreciation might perhaps make _Saima_ desist, as the exclamations at
the heat did not seem to alarm her. More water was thrown on to the
steaming bricks, and _Saima_ retired, returning immediately with a great
bundle of birch leaves, tied up with a string, such as I had often seen
her on former occasions sweeping the floors with. Dipping the branches
of the birch into a pail of hot water she proceeded to beat her victim
all over! Yes, beat me, beat me hard. She laughed, and I laughed; but
the more I laughed the harder she thumped, till the sharp edges of the
leaves left almost a sting, while the strong healthy _Saima_ beat me
harder and harder, dipping the leaves into hot water continually, and
grinning cheerily all the time.
The peasantry in Finland are occasionally good enough to wash one
another, and stories are told of a dozen of them sitting in rows on the
wooden steps, each man vigorously beating his neighbour with birch
boughs.
At harvest time, when the heat is very great, and the work very hard,
labourers have a bath _every night_! Frequently, after our wonderful
experience at _Ilkeäsaari_, we saw, while journeying farther into the
country, shoals of human beings strolling off to enjoy their _bastu_ or
_Sauna_.
It was a weird and wonderful experience. I was really beginning to feel
the heat dreadful after an hour, and was confident the blood must be
galloping through my veins. Finally the good-tempered Finnish maid
appeared to be of the same mind, for she fetched a pail of cold water,
and, pouring a good drop on my head--which made me jump--she dipped her
birch branches therein and switched them over me. Had I followed true
Finnish fashion I should then have taken a midnight plunge straight into
the lake outside--or in winter taken a roll in the snow--but, our bath
being rather more aristocratic, I only descended the slippery steps,
really gasping with the heat and treatment, and jumped into that bath of
cold water previously mentioned; before--clad only in burning hot
towels--returning to the outer room to dress.
I puffed and panted, and, quite exhausted, longed for a Turkish divan
and quiet rest before, robed in fur coats and thick under-garments, I
trotted home to bed.
The bath was taken, the mystery unravelled; I had been washed according
to native ideas and customs, and understood what the whole thing meant.
Some pleasures are too nearly allied to pain to be really pleasant.
Whether it was the heat, or exhaustion, or the loss of one skin or many,
I know not; but after a glass of _mjöd_, that most delicious and
refreshing of Finnish drinks, I slept splendidly--the first time after
weeks of anxiety and grief--and felt fit next morning for any amount of
hard work, even for a journey to Russia through Finland, though we did
not speak or understand the language of either country. Adversity may
develop character, but it is mighty unpleasant.
The Finnish peasant thinks nothing of being seen by his friends or his
neighbours in a state of nature, _apropos_ of which peculiarity a
well-known general told us the following story--
He had been inspecting a district, and for his benefit parades, etc.,
were held. Some hours afterwards he went for a ride, and on returning to
the village he passed a _Sauna_, where the folk were enjoying their
primitive kind of Turkish bath. According to the usual custom one of the
men came out to dress himself; but, having left his clothes in a little
pile some twenty feet from the _Sauna_ door, he had hardly looked out
his things when he noticed that the general was upon him. Though not in
the least confused by the fact of his nakedness, for which he made no
apology, he nevertheless exclaimed in tones of horror, "The general! the
general!" and began rummaging among the articles on the ground, till at
last he pulled forth a wig, which, all in a hurry, he clapped on his
head wrong side up, then standing proudly erect he saluted the general
as he passed.
The poor fellow evidently considered his wig of much more importance
than his shirt. Modesty is a matter of climate and custom, just as
morals are a matter of geography.
Another amusing story is told of an elegant Englishman who had heard so
much of Finnish baths that he determined to try one; having arrived at
some small town, he told the _Isvoschtschik_ to go to the _bastu_. Away
they drove, and finally drew up at a very nice house, where he paid the
twopence halfpenny fare for his cab, rang the bell, and was admitted by
a woman servant. He only knew half a dozen words in Swedish, but
repeated _bastu_ to the smiling lass, being surprised at the elegance
of the furniture in the room into which he had been shown. The girl
smiled again and left him. However, thinking it was all right, he
proceeded to undress, and, having entirely disrobed, he stood ready to
be escorted into the bath, and accordingly rang for the woman to come
and wash and massage him. A few moments later the door opened, and a
very beautiful young dame stood before him. She was no masseuse, but the
wife of the pastor, into whose house he had come by mistake owing to his
want of knowledge of the pronunciation of the language. Tableau!
We had many curious experiences when bathing in the lakes, and seemed to
excite as much interest in the peasantry of Finland as a Chinaman with
his pigtail would in a small country village in England. At _Sordavala_,
for instance, there was a charming little bath-house belonging to our
next host, for which we got the key and prepared to enjoy a swim. A
bathing-dress was not to be bought for love or money. No one had ever
heard of such a thing, but my sister's modesty forbade her appearing
without one so near a town, and, now that we had left our kind hostess
at _Ilkeäsaari_, she could no longer borrow one. Through the town of
_Sordavala_, therefore, we marched from shop to shop until we lighted
upon a sort of store where linen goods were procurable. Blue and
white-striped galatea exactly suited the purpose, as it would be light
for packing, and the colour could not run. We bought it, we paid for it,
and home we marched. In less than an hour that gown was cut out by the
aid of a pair of nail scissors, without any kind or sort of pattern
whatever, and was sewn up ready for use. Out my sister went to bathe,
triumphant; but so rare was a bathing-dress that the onlookers thought
the English lady had fallen into the water by mischance with all her
clothes on.
My sister had hardly taken a plunge from the spring-board into the water
below, before every man, woman, and child in the neighbourhood began
exclaiming one to the other, "The English lady has tumbled in," and,
absolutely, before the bather's head could appear again from the depths
of the water they had all run to the bank to have a look at the
phenomenon, more prepared to rescue her from drowning than to see her
swimming far out into the lake with clothes on. Of course their interest
was heightened by the appearance of the dress and cap, for even the
better-class Finlanders very rarely wear any covering on their bodies
while bathing, and as the women never dive or swim under water a cap is
not necessary to keep their hair dry. They evidently considered my
sister and her attire something remarkably funny.
Again at _Iisalmi_, another place of some importance, when we went down
to the bath-house we found it surrounded by dozens of boys of all ages
and descriptions, who were enjoying themselves gamboling in the water.
A Finnish gentleman of the town, to whom we had an introduction, kindly
came with us to unlock the door and see that everything was
satisfactory, and he quickly explained to the boys they must go away
into the next cove as strange ladies were about to bathe. Very
reluctantly they went, and, wishing us good-bye and a pleasant dip, he
went too.
We undressed, donned our aquatic attire, plunged into the water, to
discover, in a few moments, a row of grinning spectators, varying in age
from three years old to thirty, sitting up on the banks like monkeys in
a cage, thoroughly enjoying the joke. They laughed and they chatted,
they pointed, they waved their arms, and they evidently considered our
performances most extraordinary.
These are only two instances out of many, for everywhere we went we
caused interest and amusement.
One of our party through Northern Finland was a magnificent swimmer. He
had a cheery way of jumping into a boat, rowing himself far out into the
lake, and then taking a header which excited the admiration of all
beholders. At _Kuopio_ he rowed far out as was his usual habit, while
the old women of the bath-house watched his performance from the shore.
One minute went by, and he did not reappear; two minutes went by, and
they still did not see his head. "He is drowned, he is drowned," they
shrieked in despair, and great was the hubbub and dismay which ensued
before he came up again smiling some distance from the spot where he had
originally plunged from the boat. Besides being a strong swimmer, he was
a remarkable diver, and if two minutes and a half be the length of time
a human being can breathe under water, then we can safely say two
minutes and a half was the length of time he always stayed, for in every
town we halted he invariably caused consternation in the heart of some
one, who thought the stranger in their midst had gone to a watery grave.
He preferred the boat for the sake of his dive, but, as a rule, every
one in Finland bathes from the bath-houses, where there are little rooms
for undressing, in front of which a big stretch of the lake is walled in
as a swimming bath. A penny is the usual charge, and an extra penny for
the towel.
Although every Finlander bathes, as, indeed, they must do during their
hot summers, every Finlander does not swim, and it is a remarkable thing
that among the women, who go daily--sometimes twice a day--to the
swimming bath, most of them will sit on the steps or haul themselves
round by means of a rope, and never learn how to keep themselves afloat
without artificial help.
Walking through the park at _Kuopio_ one day with the Baroness
Michaeloff, my attention was arrested by the extraordinary number of ant
hills we passed.
"They are used for baths," she explained.
"For what?" I asked, thinking I could not have heard aright.
"For baths," she repeated; "formerly these _muurahais kylpy_ (ant-heap
baths) were quite commonly employed as a cure for rheumatism and many
other ailments; but now I fancy it is only the peasants who take them,
or very old folk, perhaps."
"Can an ant bath be had here?"
"Certainly. But surely you don't think of taking one?"
"Indeed I do, though. I am trying all the baths of Finland, and an
ant-heap bath must not be omitted, if it is possible to have such a
thing."
The kindly lady laughed heartily as she said, "Mais, Madame, est-ce que
possible que vous vouliez prendre un de ces bains?"
"Certainment, cela me fait plaisir," I replied, and accordingly we then
and there marched off to the bath-house to see how my desire might best
be accomplished.
The whole matter did not take long to arrange. Next day, at ten o'clock,
the _muurahais kylpy_ bath was to be ready, and, in spite of all the
chaff round the governor's dinner-table that night about my queer
experiment, nothing daunted I presented myself at the appointed hour.
The head _Fröken_, who luckily spoke German, explained that my bath was
ready.
Into a dear little room I went, and lo, the hot water in the bath was
brown! while, floating on the surface, I saw a small linen sack, shaped
like a pillow-case, securely tied at the end. The cushion contained the
ant-heap, on which boiling water had been poured, so that the animals
were really dead, the colour of the water having come from their bodies,
and the room was impregnated with the odour of pines.
Did I shiver at the thought? Well, a little, perhaps; nevertheless, I
tumbled into the warm water, and was scrubbed Finnish fashion by the
old bath-woman, with her scrubbing brush, her soft soap, her birch
branches, and, afterwards, her massage (given under the water), the
_Fröken_ sitting all the while on the sofa, chatting affably, and
describing how the peasants omitted the sacks and simply threw the
ant-heap _au naturel_ into the bath.
The small room had two doors--one opening into the passage, and one into
the douche-chamber, which also served for another bathroom. Presently
the first of the doors opened, and a girl, without apology, entered and
took away a sponge. Did this intrusion make me feel shy? Well, you see,
one gets over shyness after being washed like a baby once or twice; but
she had hardly disappeared before the other door opened, giving
admission to a second woman, who came in and deposited a towel; a moment
later some one else appeared, and after a good stare departed; then came
a fourth on some pretext or other, and I was beginning to think of the
queer stories told of Japan, where the whole paper wall slides back, and
the natives enjoy the spectacle of English folk bathing, when yet a
fifth came into the room. This was too much, and I asked the _Fröken_
why they had all forgotten so many things.
She laughed merrily.
"I'm afraid it's curiosity to see an English lady having an ant-heap
bath, so please don't be angry," and she laughed again.
A spectacle, verily! But who could be angry with such innocent people? I
had come to try a strange Finnish bath which interested me--why should
they not come to see a queer Englishwoman if it amused them? Flinging
shyness to the winds, therefore, I smiled and grinned at the next woman
who entered as though I liked being on view and she went away happy.
What was a _muurahais kylpy_ like? Candidly, it resembled any other
ordinary warm bath, only the water was very black, and there was a
strange aromatic odour about it; but there was nothing horrible in the
experience, although I had a good douche--three kinds of good douches in
fact--for the sake of peace of mind afterwards.
A douche is delightful, especially on a hot day, and the bath-woman was
particularly anxious that I should try the various kinds arranged from
the floor, the ceiling, and the walls of the room.
"But," I explained to the lady with a good deal of patting and
gesticulation, "hair a yard long cannot be wet every day, even in the
summer time, and to have a shower-bath was impossible, as she could not
lend a cap."
She looked distressed, but she was not going to be beaten, and beckoning
for me to wait, she departed, returning a few minutes afterwards with a
small white china basin; this she put on her head upside down, to show
me that it would serve the purpose of a cap, and holding the rim with
both hands she moved it round and round, in a way which indicated that
wherever the water of the shower-bath was falling most was the side to
move the basin to.
It was an original idea this shower-bath trick, and it answered very
well, but then baths in Finland are an art, and Finland without its
bath-houses would not be Finland at all, so I had the shower feeling
like a plum pudding inside a basin.
The reason that the _muurahais kylpy_ bath is efficacious for rheumatism
and of strengthening property is due to the amount of formic acid the
ants contain. Added to which, these industrious little animals live upon
the pine needles, and therefore suck all the strength from the most
juicy part of the turpentiny pine, and, as we all know, turpentine is
much employed in all kinds of embrocation used for rheumatism, lumbago,
and sprains. Soon we shall give up these appliances in favour of
inoculation maybe.
The next strange bath we experienced was in a waterfall, and was yet
more remarkable. Yes, in a real waterfall where a tremendous volume of
water dashed down about ten feet. It was at _Kajana_, a town lying on a
stretch of the famous _Uleå_ rapids. The real fall is about forty feet,
over which not even the tar-boats--described in a later chapter--dare
venture; consequently, two locks, each containing twenty feet of water,
have been made for their use. No one could swim, even in the calmer
waters above or below the locks, because of the cataracts, so a
bath-house has been erected beside the fall, to which the water is
brought, by means of a wooden trough, to a sort of small chamber, where
it rushes in. That waterfall bath was a most alarming place. It was
almost dark as we entered the little chamber through which the water
passed.
How shall we describe it? It was a small room about eight or ten feet
square, with a wooden floor and walls. The top of the wall facing us did
not join the roof by about a foot, so as to enable the water to rush in,
and the bottom of the wall behind us did not reach the floor by another
foot, so as to allow the water to rush out. Some half-dozen stairs
descended from the platform on which we stood to the floor below, but as
the only light came in where the falling water was always dripping, the
walls were soaking wet, and therefore quite black. It was dull and
mystic to say the least of it. Once the full force of the water was
turned on by the large wooden arm, it poured in with such tremendous
force from about ten feet above, that in a moment the floor below was a
bubbling, seething, frothing pool, and as we descended the steps into
this bath, now some two or three feet deep, the force of the stream was
so great that we had actually to hold on by the rail of the stairs to
keep our feet at all on the slippery floor below. It was a lovely
sensation. A piece of bacon bubbling about in the fat of the frying-pan
must experience something like the same movement as we did, bobbing up
and down in this rapidly flowing stream. It almost bumped us over, it
lifted us off our feet, and yet, as the water swirled round us, the
feeling was delicious, and its very coldness was most enjoyable after
the heat outside, and the dust we had travelled through.
As we grew courageous and accustomed to the darkness, we walked more
under the fall itself, but the water, simply thumping on our backs and
shoulders, came with such force, that we felt exactly as if we were
being well pummelled with a pair of boxing-gloves, or being violently
massaged, a delicious tingling sensation being the result. It washed our
hair and rinsed it in a way it had never been rinsed before; but the
force of the water was so great that it was impossible to keep our whole
head under the fall for more than a second at a time, as it almost
stunned us. The volume was so strong that it would have rendered us
quickly insensible. We women all emerged from the waterfall-bath like
drowned rats; or, to put it more poetically, like mermaids, feeling
splendidly refreshed, and wider awake than we had probably ever felt in
our lives before. The magnitude and force of that waterfall-bath makes
me gasp even now to remember. It requires a stout heart to stand
underneath it; nevertheless, how delicious the experience to the
travel-stained and weary traveller, who had been suffering from tropical
sun, and driving for days along dusty roads in springless carts.
We four women had taken the opportunity of washing our powdered hair,
the accumulation of many days' dust, back to its natural colour, and, as
we all possessed locks which fell considerably below our waists, they
would not dry in five minutes, therefore, each with a towel over her
shoulders, we came up on to the little pier, hat in hand, and our hair
hanging down our backs. It certainly was somewhat primitive to sit all
in a row, with our backs to the sun, on the fashionable promenade or
pier of the town. But the town was not big, and the fashion was not
great, and we gradually screwed up our courage, and finally walked home
through the streets in the same way, carrying our hats, with towels over
our shoulders for cloaks. That was all very well, but when we reached
the small hotel the dinner was already on the table, for we had dallied
so long over our bath that our gentlemen were impatiently waiting for
our advent, and persuaded us not to stop to dress our hair as they were
starving, so down we sat, just as we were, to partake of the meal.
But one hardly ever does anything uncommon or a little out of the
ordinances of society, in this world, without being sorry for it
afterwards, and having put off struggling with knots, tangled plaits,
and hair-pins, until after dinner, we were horrified when the door
opened and three unknown men marched in to join our meal. There was no
escape; we were caught like rats in cages. What on earth they thought of
strange women sitting in towels, and with dishevelled locks, we dare not
think. Imagine our confusion.
One was a lieutenant in the army; he was young and shy, and his
discomfiture at the scene was even greater than our own. The second
proved to be a delightful man; a young engineer who was employed in
planning the route for the new railway to _Kajana_. He told us that he
had been for over a month travelling through the forests and bogs of the
country, surveying for the best route for the projected line, and that
the wooden staves we had noticed so often along the road, as we drove
from _Kuopio_, were the marks laid down as the most suitable direction
for the railway to take.
He had heard of us, for some peasants had told him, with great
excitement, that morning that a party of eight people were driving
through _Savolax_, and some of them were English. Poor man, he told us
of his sufferings in the bogs, and how in some of the low-lying
districts the mosquitoes had tormented him so awfully that he had been
quite ill. Even Finlanders suffer sometimes, it would seem; therefore
strangers need not complain. Sir Ronald Ross has done so much to
obliterate the malaria-carrying mosquito, perhaps he would like to turn
his attention to Finland and Lapland where mosquitoes are a veritable
curse to enjoyment if not to health.
In spite of our dishevelled locks, we after all enjoyed a very pleasant
meal.