About the miserable huts, which are shapeless masses of mingled earth, stones, and branches of trees, and scarcely equal to the dwellings of the wretched Fuegians, heaps of stinking fish and other offal taint the air with their pestilential odors. When a stranger approaches, the inmates come pouring out of their narrow doorway so covered with dirt and vermin as to make him recoil with disgust. Not in the least ashamed, however, of their appearance, they approach the stranger and shake his hand according to the code of Lapp politeness. After this preliminary, he may expect the following questions: “Is peace in the land? How is the emperor, the bishop, and the captain of the district?” The more inquisitive of the filthy troop then ask after the home of the stranger, and being told that it is beyond the mountains, they further inquire if he comes from the land where tobacco grows. For as our imagination loves to wander to the sunny regions,
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;
so the fancy of the Lapp conceives no greater paradise than that which produces the weed that, along with the brandy-bottle, affords him his highest luxury.
CHAPTER XIII.
MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTRÉN.
His Birthplace and first Studies.—Journey in Lapland, 1838.—The Iwalojoki.—The Lake of Enara.—The Pastor of Utzjoki.—From Rowaniémi to Kemi.—Second Voyage, 1841–44.—Storm on the White Sea.—Return to Archangel.—The Tundras of the European Samojedes.—Mesen.—Universal Drunkenness.—Sledge Journey to Pustosersk.—A Samojede Teacher.—Tundra Storms.—Abandoned and alone in the Wilderness.—Pustosersk.—Our Traveller’s Persecutions at Ustsylmsk and Ishemsk.—The Uusa.—Crossing the Ural.—Obdorsk.—Second Siberian Journey, 1845–48.—Overflowing of the Obi.—Surgut.—Krasnojarsk.—Agreeable Surprise.—Turuchansk.—Voyage down the Jenissei.—Castrén’s Study at Plachina.—From Dudinka to Tolstoi Noss.—Frozen Feet.—Return Voyage to the South.—Frozen fast on the Jenissei.—Wonderful Preservation.—Journey across the Chinese Frontiers, and to Transbaikalia.—Return to Finland.—Professorship at Helsingfors.—Death of Castrén, 1855.
Matthias Alexander Castrén, whose interesting journeys form the subject of the present chapter, was born in the year 1813, at Rowanièmi, a Finland village situated about forty miles from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, immediately under the Arctic Circle; so that, of all men who have attained celebrity, probably none can boast of a more northern birthplace. While still a scholar at the Alexander’s College of Helsingfors, he resolved to devote his life to the study of the nations of Finnish origin (Fins, Laplanders, Samojedes, Ostjaks, etc.); and as books gave but an insufficient account of them, each passing year strengthened his desire to visit these tribes in their own haunts, and to learn from themselves their languages, their habits, and their history.
We may imagine, therefore, the joy of the enthusiastic student, whom poverty alone had hitherto prevented from carrying out the schemes of his youth, when Dr. Ehrström, a friend and medical fellow-student, proposed to take him as a companion, free of expense, on a tour in Lapland. No artist that ever crossed the Alps on his way to sunny Italy could feel happier than Castrén at the prospect of plunging into the wildernesses of the Arctic zone.
On June 25, 1838, the friends set out, and arrived on the 30th at the small town of Muonioniska, where they remained six weeks—a delay which Castrén put to good account in learning the Lapp language from a native catechist. At length the decreasing sun warned the travellers that it was high time to continue their journey, if they wished to see more of Lapland before the winter set in; and after having, with great difficulty, crossed the mountain ridge which forms the water-shed between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Polar Sea, they embarked on the romantic Iwalojoki, where for three days and nights the rushing waters roared around them. In spite of these dangerous rapids, they were obliged to trust themselves to the stream, which every now and then threatened to dash their frail boat to pieces against the rocks. Armed with long oars, they were continually at work during the daytime to guard against this peril; the nights were spent near a large fire kindled in the open air, without any shelter against the rain and wind.
The Iwalo River is, during the greater part of its course, encased between high rocks; but a few miles before it discharges itself into the large Lake of Enara, its valley improves into a fine grassy plain. Small islands covered with trees divide the waters, which now flow more tranquilly; soon also traces of culture appear, and the astonished traveller finds in the village of Kyrö, not wretched Lapland huts, but well-built houses of Finnish settlers, with green meadows and cornfields.