and some of the most picturesque land in the world. A perfect swarm of
islands of all sizes and shapes guard the coasts both of Finland and
Sweden. Some of these islands are tree-clad down to the water’s edge;
others are bare, gaunt, smooth rocks, whose surface has been washed
by ten thousand storms—I was about to say ten thousand tides when I
remembered that the Baltic is almost a tideless sea. It is a sea, too,
that is being constantly conquered by the land, for, through some
unexplained action of mighty subterranean forces, without volcanic shock
or earthquake tremor, the land both of the Swedish and Finnish shores is
gradually rising. On the northern end of the Baltic the land gains on the
water at the rate of about four feet in a hundred years, and that the sea
is at a very different level from what it was some thousands of years ago
is shown by the fact that the remains of viking ships are found on the
tops of very considerable hills at some distance from the shores.
After sailing across a strip of clear water free from islands, between
which we thread our way for three hours after leaving Stockholm, we come
to Mariehamn, about halfway between the two shores. Then comes another
little stretch of clear water, and then another great archipelago like
the one on the Swedish shore, and between hundreds of little islands and
great islands our steamer makes its way to its berth in the port of Åbo.
Very much like its neighboring shore on the opposite side is the approach
to Åbo. Some of the islands are mere bare rocks, sticking their heads
only a few feet above the surface of the sea, while others contain farms
and forests and a considerable population. Many beautiful villas adorn
some of these islands, and a rare place they afford for a holiday or a
summer residence.
But the Finnish shore can boast islands enough to furnish one for every
day of a decade, and before the next decade is over very likely some new
ones will arise above the surface of the water, like the one which had
almost come to the surface in 1907, but not near enough to be charted, or
to prevent the wreckage of the Czar’s yacht upon it.
Sweden and Finland rest upon the same submerged plateau of solid rock,
which adds another proof to my contention that, for all practical and
descriptive purposes at least, Finland must still be considered a part of
Scandinavia.
Though one crosses the Gulf of Bothnia in the night, he does not cross
in the dark, for at this midsummer season there is no real darkness in
this fairyland of midnight dawn. I was reminded very forcibly by contrast
of the last time I crossed this bit of blue sea, for it was then a white
sea. As far as the eye could reach, it could rest upon nothing but ice,
solid fields of it, to the north and south, to the east and west.
Soon after we started it grew dark, for it was midwinter then. A blinding
snowstorm came on; the road-way between the ice floes was a narrow
one, and, that we might keep a straight course, a powerful searchlight
rigged to the foremast was set blazing, and its blinding white light,
far out over the expanse of ice and snow, showed the narrow line of blue
through which we must steer. Sometimes we would pass a steamer with a
searchlight of her own, dazzling us for a moment with her radiance, while
we returned the compliment by throwing our searchlight into her eyes.
Men with lanterns and sledges came from the towns on the shore, far out
from the land, to get the cargo meant for their port, and could come
right up to the steamer’s side, for the ice made a continual wharf forty
miles long to the sea.
When we struck the ice on the Finnish shore we found a different
“proposition,” which the little _Wellamo_ attacked right bravely, and
for six hours or more we made good headway. When the ice was only three
or four inches thick she would go through it as a cat would go through a
pan of cream; when it was six or eight inches thick it was like plowing
through soft butter; when it grew to be a foot thick it was like cutting
our way through a stiff old cheese; and when the ice became two feet
thick or more it was too much for the _Wellamo_, powerful as her engines
were.
She would fall back and butt the ice again and again and again, but it
was of no use. She would crunch it under her forefoot, and would almost
rise on top of it, but it would always pile itself up in resistless
masses in front of her.
Another ice-breaker came out from the Finnish shore to help us, but she
proved of no avail, and was soon fast and tight in the ice two hundred
yards from us. All day long the captain and crew worked to get us free.
A dozen men with ice picks and axes hewed away at the frosty enemy that
held us fast, but why the captain let them wear out their muscles in
attempting the impossible I could not understand, for a tribe of Brownies
might just as well attempt to level the Andes.
Families of seals came up through their breathing holes to look at us.
They usually consisted of the old father and mother seal and one or two
white, shaggy little babies, that looked like little polar bears. They
were very tame and would let me go within twenty feet of them, when I
left the steamer to pay them a visit. Then they would waddle off into the
water. Sometimes a mother seal would poke her baby off the ice floe into
the water out of harm’s way, which the little fellow apparently resented,
for he would shake his shaggy head and scramble up on the ice again.
Surrounded by these interesting and novel scenes, we spent thirty hours
ice-bound in the Baltic. Then the biggest ice-breaker of all, the
_Sampo_, came to our rescue and landed us safely in Finland, after two
nights and a day in the ice floe.
I was forcibly reminded of this memorable journey, because last night we
sailed on the same stanch little steamer, the _Wellamo_, across smiling
waters and between charming islands, with the sun to light our way for
the most part instead of the electric lights, and when we reached the
harbor there was that same benevolent old _Sampo_, the ice-breaker, that
released us from our imprisonment, lying at the wharf. Her occupation is
gone for the present, for, until next winter at least, she will not have
to relieve any smaller steamers in distress, but can shove her ugly but
useful nose in and out among the islands, whose people doubtless welcome
her coming as we so gladly welcomed her on that January night which I
have described.
The interesting sights and peoples whom I found on my arrival in Åbo I
must describe in another letter.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
THIRTEENTH LETTER
Relates to Åbo, the ancient capital of Finland; tells of
its famous castle and the picture of the scene once enacted
there; its market place; its hospitable people; its fine old
Cathedral; the tombs of the heroes of the Thirty Years’ War and
of Queen Katherine, the peasant queen of Sweden.
ÅBO, FINLAND, July 10.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
Finland has four important commercial ports—Åbo, Hangö, Helsingfors, and
Viborg. The two former are available in winter, for though not ice free,
as the experience I related in the last chapter proves, the icebreakers
can usually plow their way through and reach their berths in the course
of time. Helsingfors and Viborg, however, are usually impossible in the
winter time.
I was not sorry that my engagements led me first to Åbo, for historically
it is the most interesting town in Finland. It is true that it is
robbed of its ancient glory as the capital of the country and the seat
of its great university, for both the capital and the university have
been removed within the last hundred years to the more eligible site of
Helsingfors. But Åbo has lost little time in crying over spilt milk or
bewailing its ancient glories. Especially of late she has been making the
most of her fine situation, as the city nearest to its neighbor, Sweden,
and has greatly developed its commercial possibilities.
The port is a mile or more away from the heart of the city, with which it
is connected by a line of electric cars. Almost the first thing that I
saw on landing was a huge building covered with gray plaster. I found it
difficult to decide whether it was a warehouse, a factory, or a prison. I
was wrong in all my guesses, for it was Åbo’s famous castle, one of the
great historic landmarks of Finland, and now converted into a museum,
where one can study the costumes, the ancient armor, the furniture, and
the articles of home life of this hardy, vigorous race.
The scene of one of the most interesting pictures that I ever saw is laid
in this old castle. It is by Edelfelt, and now hangs in the national
gallery at Helsingfors.
In a room of state in the old fortress lies an open coffin, in which is
seen the face of a stern warrior with a long, flowing beard. Another
soldier is standing by, with wrath upon his features, and, violating the
sanctity of death, he pulls violently at the dead man’s beard. A lady of
noble mien is standing near, resentment and haughty indignation depicted
on her queenly face.
The great picture, perhaps the most famous and dramatic one ever painted
by a Finnish artist, tells its own story, and when we know a little of
Finnish history we can easily interpret it. The old man in the coffin
is Klas Fleming, the commander of the castle; the soldier standing by
and pulling the dead man’s beard is Duke Carl of Sweden, afterwards King
Charles IX, who was striving to gain the throne and whom the Finns had
vigorously opposed in favor of Sigismund their king. The duke could not
capture the castle while the old commander was alive, but when he was
killed it soon capitulated.
Angry at the long resistance, Duke Carl could only vent his wrath by
showing an indignity to the dead. Turning to the commandant’s wife, who
was standing by, he said, “If your husband were living his head would not
be as safe as it is now.” But the countess, undaunted, replied, while her
eyes flashed fire, “If he were living, your highness would not be here.”
There are two more very interesting centers in Åbo of which I must tell
you. One is the market place, and the other the ancient cathedral. In the
market place one can learn what people are to-day; in the cathedral one
can learn from the monuments and the inscriptions something of what they
were seven hundred years ago.
These open markets in the central square of most European cities are a
great institution, and if Americans really want to reduce the cost of
living, about which we all talk so much and so vehemently, they cannot do
better than to establish such a country market in every considerable town
throughout the Union.
To the market place in the center of Åbo come the farmers and their wives
from all the surrounding country, some with large loads and some with
little loads, but all ready to sell to any customer an infinitesimal
quantity of their produce for an infinitesimal price. You can buy a
single egg, or one carrot, or three or four potatoes, or a pat of butter
that would not weigh an eighth of a pound, and you pay only what a single
carrot is worth, or the price of an eighth of a pound of butter.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
Interior of a Finnish Cottage.]
The lady of the house, even if she be a lady of high degree, does not
consider it beneath her dignity to go to market herself, though she may
often send her maid, or take her along to carry the market basket. In
this sort of marketing you do not have to pay two or three middlemen’s
profits, nor do you have to pay your grocer or butcher for the salary of
several high-priced attendants and for an automobile, or a two-horse team
to deliver the goods.
The most curious thing I saw in the Åbo market was the bread, which was
being peddled by many an old woman from the back of her cart. The cheaper
kinds are made of rye meal, and are as hard as the nether millstone. The
loaves are flat and about the size of a dinner plate, with a large round
hole in the middle. They would make admirable quoits, which you know is
my favorite game, and if my Finnish friends would not have considered it
altogether too frivolous I should have bought some of these loaves and
inaugurated a quoit tournament on the spot.
In some places the bread is baked only once in six months, and the older
the bread the harder to masticate.
Some edibles are “not as nahsty as they look,” as our English friends say
of certain of our American dishes, but to the uninitiated this Finnish
black bread is quite as nasty as it looks, for it is sour as well as
hard, and in the back districts, when harvests are poor, chopped straw
and bark are mixed with the meal.
I would not have you imagine, however, for a moment, that in the
well-to-do families, or in the comfortable hotels and restaurants, we
are reduced to such fare as this. In fact, I know of no country in the
world, unless it be Sweden, where food is so abundant, so varied, and so
deliciously cooked.
As I wandered in and out among the stalls of meat and vegetables and
bread and cheese, woolen stockings and aprons, and butter and sausages,
where one could find almost anything he might want to eat or drink or
wear, I was most interested in the faces of these rugged, weather-beaten
peasants.
Ernest Young has well described the character of the Finnish people
when he says: “Nature, fate, and tradition have stamped a common mark
on the Finnish type of character, which, indeed, varies considerably
in the country, but is easily recognized by the foreigner. The general
traits of character are hardened, patient, passive strength; resignation;
perseverance, allied to a certain obstinacy; a slow, contemplative way of
thinking; an unwillingness to become angry and a tendency, when anger has
been aroused, to indulge in unmeasured wrath; coolness in deadly peril,
but caution afterwards; … adherence to the old and well known; attention
to duty; a law-abiding habit of mind; love of liberty, hospitality,
honesty; a predilection for religious meditation, revealing itself in
true piety, which, however, is apt to have too much respect for the mere
letter.”
My own briefer acquaintance with the Finns has confirmed Mr. Young’s
study of their traits of character, and I could imagine that even in the
market place, as I walked back and forth, I could discover in the faces
many of these admirable traits.
When one meets the upper, I will not say better classes, one is sure to
be charmed with his Finnish friends. Their abundant hospitality, which
always presses upon us two cups of coffee (delicious coffee at that)
when you really only want one; their deferential courtesy, shown not
only in words, but in a multitude of kind and thoughtful actions; their
intelligence; their intimate knowledge of the great world outside their
own boundaries; their pleasing vivacity (for in this respect they differ
from the quiet stolidness of the less educated peasantry) all these
qualities combine to make them the most charming of hosts and companions.
The cathedral of Åbo stands not far from the market place, across the
little river that runs through the town, and on a sightly eminence of its
own. It was begun in 1229, and was not finished until the year 1400. How
patient these old builders were! They did not run up their jerry-built
houses and churches in a month, but when they were built they stood for
centuries.
This cathedral is of purely Gothic architecture, much like the cathedral
in Upsala, and it dates from about the same period. It has not been
renovated out of all resemblance to its original self, however, like the
Upsala dome, and on that account is more interesting, in my opinion. The
lofty brick walls are scarred by the storms of the centuries and eaten
out here and there by the tooth of time, but the church is well preserved
in spite of its nearly seven hundred years, and is filled, Sunday after
Sunday, with a throng of honest worshipers.
The mural paintings about the altar, though of modern date, are well
worth studying, one of them, especially, which represents the first
baptism in Finland at a spot very near to Åbo by Bishop Henrik, an
English missionary, who in 1157 undertook the perilous task of converting
the heathen Finns. The good bishop died in Finland, and was buried in
this old church, where his bones rested in peace until 1720, when the
Russians, for some unexplained reason, dug them up and carried them off.
No man in these days knows his sepulchre. In some of the side chapels
are buried heroes of the Thirty Years’ War, famous generals—whose suits
of armor, scarred and dented by the enemy’s bullets, still stand beside
their tombs.
The most famous tomb of all in the old Dom Church is that of Queen
Katherine of Sweden, wife of Eric XIV, the oldest son of Gustavus Vasa.
Eric had a checkered career, both politically and matrimonially. He was
finally deposed from the throne, but while he occupied it his hand had
been refused by Queen Elizabeth, by Mary Queen of Scots, and by two
German princesses. He seems to have been very cosmopolitan in his love
affairs, wooing Protestant and Catholic, Anglo-Saxon and Teuton with
equal avidity. At length, having apparently no luck in court circles, he
turned to a beautiful girl among his own people, and married a peasant’s
daughter named Karin (or Katherine) Månsdotter. The following is the
story which one often hears in Finland:
“One day King Eric was strolling through the market place at Stockholm,
when his attention was attracted by a singularly fair and graceful
child, the daughter of a common soldier, who was selling nuts. He sent
her to his palace to be educated, and when she was old enough he asked
her to marry him. All kinds of objections were raised by his nobles and
his relatives, and accusations of witchcraft were made against Karin,
but the wild and passionate monarch took his way and married the little
nut-seller. Then a brother prince, who felt deeply the disgrace that had
been brought upon the royal order by this unseemly match, sent Eric a
present of a handsome cloak in the back of which was sewed a patch of
rough, homespun cloth. Eric accepted the gift, had the patch of homespun
embroidered with gold and studded with jewels until it was the most
brilliant and valuable part of the garment, and then returned it to the
donor.”[5]
The peasant queen well repaid his love and devotion. She was buried in
Åbo Cathedral, where her great black marble sarcophagus reminds every
visitor of the little nut-seller who became a queen and who showed her
queenly qualities in adversity and exile. A stained-glass window in the
cathedral shows her dressed in white robes, with a crown upon her head,
stepping down from her throne on the arm of a Finnish page.
The country round about Åbo is, for Finland, fertile and productive,
and in this region is made much of the delicious butter that is sent to
England, and often much farther afield, but which on its way through
Denmark often gets labeled “Danish butter.”
It is interesting for those who butter their bread with the Finnish
product to know that in the many steam creameries “the dairymaids in
spotless white linen dresses and aprons receive, weigh, and sterilize the
milk before it is made into butter, while all the churning, scalding, and
butter-packing rooms are models of cleanliness.” It is always a wonder to
me why countries that make such delicious butter seem to be so fond of
margarine, for everywhere on the railway stations, in the tramcars and in
the newspapers in Scandinavia one sees “Pellerin’s Margarine” advertised.
But there are some questions which polite travelers must not be too
inquisitive about, and this is one of them.
Butter would naturally lead us to cows (unless the suspicions excited by
these advertisements turn us aside), and cows lead into the country, but
I have not room in this letter to tell you of country life in Finland, a
fascinating theme, which must be reserved for another letter.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
FOURTEENTH LETTER
Wherein something is told of the charming lakes of Finland
and the canals that link them together; of the “Kalevala,”
the great Finnish epic; of the Finnish farmhouse, without and
within; of the inevitable bathhouse; of a melancholy Finnish
wedding and the more cheerful Finnish funeral.
IN FINNISH LAKELAND, July 10.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
If you will study for a moment your _Universal Atlas_ you will see that
“Lakeland” is a most appropriate name for Finland, for, if the land in
your atlas is represented as white and the water as blue, you will find
Finland more than a quarter blue. In the southern and most populous part
of the peninsula there is more lake than land in many sections.
The country has been called, poetically, the “Land of a Thousand Lakes,”
but this title has “the power of an understatement.” To call it the “Land
of Ten Thousand Lakes” would still be below the truth. Why could not the
geographers, while they were about it, have given this romantic country
a more romantic name? “Finland” or Fen-land, as the word means, suggests
bogs and swamps and impassable morasses. The name “Suomi,” by which the
Finns designate their beloved country, is no better in its implications,
for that, too, means “Swamp-land.”
However, since we cannot change the name we must take out of it all
suggestions of miasmatic swamps and read into it suggestions of sparkling
waters, cold and limpid; of birch-bordered lakes, studded with emerald
islands; of quiet thoroughfares of water that lead from one lovely piece
of water to another; a country where you can journey for three days
through a constant succession of beautiful lakes without retracing your
steps.
Man has assisted nature in making this waterway, and it is especially
interesting to Americans to know that the great Saima Canal, which links
together the longest stretch of lakes, was built by Nils Ericsson,
the brother of the immortal engineer who built the _Monitor_, and who
invented the screw which to-day drives every ship across the Atlantic.
None need ask for a more delightful trip than on these lake-linked
canals, where one is continually passing from one lovely sheet of water
to another, which now expand into a little wave-lashed sea, now narrow
to the dimensions of a river. Again our boat twists around a granite
headland, stern and precipitous; then skirts a tree-clad shore, or a
meadow spangled with flowers of many colors, and again threads a narrow,
tortuous passage for a mile or two, or is hoisted by a convenient lock to
a higher level and another equally beautiful lake. The scenery is wilder
but no less beautiful than in Swedish lakeland, which I have before
described.
[Illustration: In Finnish Lakeland.]
Though our vessel is driven by steam and not by wind, one can appreciate
the lines of the ancient Finnish poet who wrote:
“Pleasant ’tis in boat on water,
Swaying as the boat glides onward,
Gliding o’er the sparkling water,
Driving o’er its shiny surface,
While the wind the boat is rocking,
And the waves drive on the vessel,
While the west-wind rocks it gently,
And the south-wind drives it onward.”
What poem do these lines remind you of, Judicia? I know that you will
promptly respond _Hiawatha_. But the Finns would put it the other way
about, and tell us that _Hiawatha_ reminded them of the _Kalevala_, and
they would be right, for Longfellow learned this meter from a German
translation of _Kalevala_, a meter in which all varieties of Finnish
verse are written. _Kalevala_ means the “Land of Heroes,” and is a long
poem describing every phase of Finnish life, animate and inanimate.
It is a collection of the folk lore and ancient runes of the people,
gathered together with infinite pains and put into modern rhyme and meter
by Elias Lönnrot, a poor country doctor, who spent all his life in an
inland village but yet made the greatest of all contributions to Finnish
literature. We must take the _Kalevala_ along with us as we travel
through Finnish lakeland.
This unknown old poet of the folk songs, who wrote before the recorded
history of Finland began, serves as a pretty good botanical guide to the
trees and shrubs along the banks of this great waterway when he tells us
that Sampsa, the good and all-powerful genius of the older time, planted
the trees which delight us in these later days.
“On the hills he sowed the pine-trees,
On the knolls he sowed the fir-trees,
And in sandy places heather;
Leafy saplings in the valley.
In the dales he sowed the birch-trees,
In the loose earth sowed the alders,
Where the ground was damp, the cherries,
Likewise in the marshes, sallows.
Rowan-trees in holy places,
Willows in the fenny regions,
Juniper in stony districts,
Oaks upon the banks of rivers.”