An endless source of amusement to the natives was the Englishwomen eating jam. Although they have so many wonderful berries in Finland, and make them into the most luscious preserves, they eat the sweetened ones as pudding and the unsweetened with meat, but such a thing as eating Hjortron on bread and butter was considered too utterly funny an idea. At the little café at Wasa the brilliant notion seized us of having white bread, butter, and Hjortron preserve. Our kind Finnish friend gave the order, and the pretty girl repeated—
"Hjortron? But there is no meat."
"We don't want any meat; but the ladies would like some jam with their coffee."
"Then shall I bring you cream to eat it as pudding?" she asked, still more amazed.
"No," was the reply, "they will eat it spread on bread and butter."
"What! Hjortron on bread and butter!" the waitress exclaimed. "Impossible!"
And to her mind the combination was as incongruous as preserves eaten with meat would be to the ordinary English peasant, or as our mint sauce served with lamb seems to a foreigner, who also looks upon our rhubarb tart as a dose of medicine.
Another thing that surprised the folk was that we always wanted salt. It is really remarkable how seldom a Finlander touches it at all; indeed, they will sit down and calmly eat an egg without even a grain of salt. Perhaps there is something in the climate that makes it less necessary for them than other folk, because we know that in the interior of some parts of Africa, the craving for salt is so dreadful that a native will willingly give the same weight in gold for its equivalent in salt.
We stopped at Åbo, the ancient capital of Finland, justly proud of its stone cathedral. Two things struck us as extraordinary in this building. The first were long words painted on several of the pews—"För Nattvardsgäster Rippiwäkä warten," which, being translated into English, notified "For those who were waiting for the communion."
The second thing was a mummy, almost as old as the cathedral itself, which was begun in the year 1258 by Bishop Heinrich. Stay, yet a third thing caught our attention—the Scotch names on the monuments, the descendants of which people still live in Finland. Many Scotch settled in Suomi centuries ago, and England has the proud honour of having sent over the first Protestant bishop to Finland.