The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

The university has five separate departments, law, medicine, theology, &c., with thirty-one professors, and it is older than any university in Russia. It was founded in 1630 by the Empress Christina, eleven years before the art of printing was introduced into Finland. Its charter was signed by Axel Oxenstiern, a famous name in his country’s annals. The library contains 200,000 volumes, in all languages and in every realm of human learning. It is admirably arranged in a series of beautiful rooms, in niches and galleries, having an air of repose and seclusion inviting to quiet study, such as Ptolemy anticipated when he put over the Alexandrian doors the fitting inscription, “The food of the soul.”

And the halls, floors, walls, and the whole interior, are kept with a scrupulous neatness unknown in any institution of learning claiming the dignity of a college, or university, that my feet ever entered, in the most enlightened, civilized, and beloved land in the world. Yet there is little in the way of literature in the Finnish language, which is spoken only by the peasants, the Swedish being the language of law and social life among the other classes. Some rich treasures of popular poetry have been discovered floating about in the memories of the people, and these have been gathered as curious specimens of an unlettered, but imaginative race. Kalewala, an epic poem, was first printed in 1835, and an earnest effort has been made to rouse young Finland to seek laurels in the fields of song. Two of the professors deliver lectures in Finnish. Schiller and Shakespeare have been done into the native tongue of the Finns. And the imperial decree has gone forth that after 1883 the Finnish language shall be the official tongue of the country. If Russia would be as kind and considerate of the feelings of Poland, she would conciliate her southern subjects as readily as she has her northern.

We were now led to the Senate-house. The Diet, or Congress of Finland, consists of four chambers, the nobles, the clergy, the citizens, the peasants. Each of them has a hall of its own for meeting; that of the nobles has a large chamber, with two hundred or more handsome chairs. On the walls is placed the coat-of-arms of each noble family in Finland, with the name inscribed upon it, an ostentatious display indeed, but very interesting. We came upon one familiar name; it was that of our friend who was our guide. His brother is the head of the family, and, in his absence, the next in order, our friend, takes his seat in the senate.

We rode out of town a mile to the beautiful Botanical Garden, one of the resorts of the ladies and gentlemen of the city. Here they come toward evening, and enjoy themselves in social intercourse, and take a cup of tea in the grounds. The park is laid out tastefully,—beautiful shaded avenues, green meadows, banks of flowers, and the walks lead up to rocky heights overlooking the bay and sea; and these heights have been fortified to resist the coming foe. The guns, which were brought up here in the Crimean war time, are now lying about useless; but they are doing as much service when dismounted and rusting on the ground as they did in the fight, for they were not big enough to reach the ships of the enemy, whose bombs went easily over these heights into the town.

Below, and in front of a beautiful “House of Refreshments,” tables are scattered about in great numbers, and at one of these our company sat, to enjoy the hospitality of Herr Edelfelt, our new-made friend, who insisted upon entertaining us at tea in the Finland fashion out of doors, as we had declined his invitation to his own house. This custom of taking dinner, tea, or supper at a garden or restaurant is prevalent among respectable people in many parts of continental Europe, and, by the accession of Europeans into the United States, is gradually becoming an accepted custom there.

Near to this garden is a health establishment of great repute. All the medicinal springs of Europe and America, and of Asia and Africa too, I presume, are reproduced by skilful doctoring, and whosoever drinks may be cured of whatsoever disease he has, provided the disease is curable by any of the waters of the world. To this many-mouthed fountain of life thousands resort in the morning and drink the waters. As they are required by the rules of health to take a brisk walk up the heights and down again, before and after taking the refreshing draught, there can be no manner of doubt that strangers resorting hither must derive great benefit. The air is salubrious, the scenery magnificent, the climate bracing, the regimen judicious, and the morning exercises quite as edifying for invalids as those prescribed by Dr. Jay, of Bath. It is quite probable that this artificial fountain in Finland has cured as many patients as Baden or Kissingen, and yet it has not been celebrated half so widely. Besides drinking, bathing is plentifully enjoyed; and his case must be hard that is not softened somewhat by the internal and external application of pure cold water, with plenty of exercise in the open air, on the heights of Helsingfors, in Finland. I drank none of the water, inhaled the air, took the constitutional walk, and was perfectly well when I came away. As I stayed there only about an hour, the inference is fair that if I had used the waters and remained a week or two, I should have been competent to give the cure a first-rate certificate.

We are now at the sixtieth degree of north latitude, eighteen degrees further north than New York city, or more than a thousand miles nearer the North Pole. We have returned to the ship, and night is nominally about us, but no darkness settles on the world. We can read and write all night without a candle, if we are so disposed. And there is no sleep to be had, for all the livelong night the natives are pouring on board with freight; passengers are coming; they fill up the cabin and spend the parting hours with friends, eating, drinking, laughing, and talking obstreperously; and the leaving-taking, with the inevitable indiscriminate kissing, keeps the place in a constant uproar, that knows no alleviation until at four in the morning we put to sea, and find rest in the cradle of the deep.

We are now going further north, by narrow passages among islands simply masses of rocks, utterly barren, washed by the waves till they are perfectly smooth; and not a tree, nor shrub, nor blade of grass is in sight upon them. The channel is very tortuous, marked by poles, and sometimes it is so near the rocks that we seem to be grazing their precipitous sides. The weather is cool, clear, and delightful; though midsummer, the overcoat or shawl is agreeable; and the exhilaration of the day and the passage among the islands became general among the passengers, who throng the hurricane-deck to enjoy the scenery. Some of the islands that we pass in the course of the day have some available land and a few inhabitants, whose chief pursuit is fishing. And these scattered islands, and the adjoining shores on the mainland, furnish sailors that enter the service of other countries, and are among the most hardy, healthful, and valuable seamen to be found. The subjects of the Russian government, either here or in any other part of the empire, are not allowed to expatriate themselves at their own pleasure, as thousands would gladly do, if they could make their way into some more hospitable portion of the globe. But they can often find opportunities to get on board merchant vessels as seamen, and they are not slow to avail themselves of such opportunities. The soil does not give them food. They have no market for the fish that the sea would furnish. They are therefore very poor, and in bad seasons famine overtakes them. The people that have money, the well-to-do people,—and there are many such in Finland,—have plenty of dried salmon, and fresh too, beef and potatoes, which, with bread and butter, make good enough living for anybody; and to these staples they add some of the luxuries that money will command anywhere. But the poor are very poor, and they constitute the masses of the people,—the great multitude whose condition we go to look into when we visit foreign lands.

Abo is pronounced Obo. It is the name of the northernmost town of any note in Finland, and a famous old town it is. We were told that the hotel is the farthest north of any hotel in the world. Away up above us on the borders of the Gulf of Bothnia,—and Abo is at the dividing line between the Baltic and Bothnia,—is Bjonneborg, and Christireestad, and Wasa, and Uleaborg, and Tornea on the very head of the gulf, where there is something in the way of a house of refreshment for travellers, I have not a doubt. Perhaps this is the last that aspires to the distinction of a hotel on the European plan, and we will enjoy the comfortable satisfaction of thinking that, as we are going no farther north, there is no place of rest and entertainment to receive us if we should.

A large crowd of people was standing at the wharf to see the steamer, to greet friends expected, and to hear the news. They were quiet, orderly, and well-looking. There was no rush to the gangway, no pulling and hauling to get on, or get baggage and passengers, though there were hundreds waiting for any kind of a job by which a little money could be made. The hotel—the Society House, as it is called—is close by the landing, and affords all the substantial comforts a traveller requires.