When we grew tired of capturing our crawfish in the orthodox manner we adopted another plan; this involved, first, the finding of a shallow place in which, when found, we waded about with a short stick in one hand and a net in the other. When we caught sight of a crawfish wandering along or trying to hide the too expansive volume of his tail beneath a stone designed to conceal a junior member of the family only, all we had to do was to suddenly place the stick in front of his nose, at the same instant holding the net immediately behind him, when the simple creature would promptly commit suicide by running backwards into prison.
Then there was trolling for pike in the quiet pools when we were weary of the crawfish. There were good pike to be had at Sairki, and their favourite food was spoons—so, at least, one would suppose from the voracity with which they endeavoured to devour those we offered for their destruction. Many an exciting half-hour was afforded us by the good-natured Sairki pike; they generally got away in the end, but always thoroughly entered into the fun of the thing and obliged us, while the game lasted, by pretending to be doing their best to escape our unscientific attempts to bring them to book. Probably they could have rid themselves of the bait and us at any moment if they had been so disposed, but they were too good-natured. Now and then we caught one, but very rarely.
And so the summer day would pass with its sport and its bathing and its incalculable sandwiches, until the brilliant sunshine began to wane and the time came to shoulder our nets and hoist our heavily loaded watering-pots and mount the hill to the village. As for our sticks, we hospitably left these in the water in order that the crawfish remaining in the neighbourhood might enjoy themselves to the full and learn to laugh at those of their fellows who were disposed to look with suspicion at bits of meat attached to the ends of sticks. They might now finish the food with absolute impunity, and would come to the feast at our next visit without a thought of danger.
A memorable ceremony was the counting of the victims up at the village. This was performed in the midst of a gaping and ejaculating crowd of Finnish children, a score or so of scantily dressed, fair-haired little maidens and their brothers, who expressed their delight with the outcome of our prowess in a ceaseless chatter of their own language, monosyllabic, but full of extremely expressive inflections. We put ourselves upon the best of terms with these little foreigners by letting loose a number of our scaly captives among their naked toes, a move which caused them to jump about and scream in the wildest delight. The distribution of a few copecks among them completed our popularity thus easily acquired. The Finns are a good-natured, inoffensive race, when properly treated; but proud and stolid and somewhat lazy, and withal dignified and extremely jealous of their personal independence. The commonest Finn peasant considers himself the equal of any other man. Destiny may have put the Tsar in a warmer corner than himself, perhaps, but that does not make the Tsar the better man of the two. "The Tsar has a pair of legs exactly like my own," a Finn peasant once remarked to the writer, and the saying sums up very concisely the attitude of this quiet but dignified member of the human family towards his fellow-men.
Six hundred and thirty-seven was the sum total of our day's netting, besides many others caught and put back: not a bad tally! It was sufficient to supply the whole of the British colony in Mourino, which is a good large one, with crawfish enough to last them for some time. These are most delicious eating, as highly flavoured as the lobster, but much more tender and less stringy. A certain soup made of crawfish is declared by gourmets to be simply unequalled by any other decoction known under the name of potage.
And so, sped upon our way by the shouts of our admiring friends the little Finnish maids and urchins, we set forth once more to brave the perils and discomforts of the return journey. I know not what the unfortunate creatures in the watering-pots and the fishing-baskets may have thought of the bumpings and jars that marked our progress along that terrible road, but I do know that the day's wading and netting had not damped our own spirits in any appreciable degree. The ponies, knowing that they were directed homewards, flew along like mad things; breakneck races were once again the order of the day, and once again did our special Providence preserve us from the destruction we courted. Swiftly, too swiftly for us, the miles were left behind, and the last rays of the setting sun had scarcely lighted up the green cupola of Mourino church when, with whips cracking, drivers shouting, dust flying in clouds, and six human beings (counting schoolboys as coming under that category) and 637 crawfish bumping about like peas on a drum-head, we raced up to the lodge gates—and the day was over.
CHAPTER IV
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.