Let us cast one glance out of the back window before sitting down to supper (in a long, bare, chilly chamber like a third-class waiting-room), for such a view is not seen every day. We are on the very brink of a deep narrow gorge, the upper part of which is so thickly clad with pines as to resemble the crest of some gigantic helmet, but beneath the naked granite stands out in all its grim barrenness, lashed by the spray of the mighty torrent that roars between its projecting rocks. Just below us, the river, forced back by a huge boulder in the centre of its course, literally piles itself up into a kind of liquid mound, foaming, flashing and trembling incessantly, the ceaseless motion and tremendous din of the rapids having an indescribably bewildering effect.
On quitting our inn the next morning a very picturesque walk of half an hour brings us to a little hut beside the Saima Ferry, where we find a party of "three fishers" from St. Petersburg, comprising a Russian colonel, an ex-chasseur d'Afrique (now an actor at one of the Russian theatres) and an Englishman. The three give us a cordial welcome, and insist upon our joining them; and for the next few days our surroundings are savagely picturesque enough to satisfy Jean-Jacques himself—living in a cabin of rough-hewn logs plastered with mud, sleeping on a bundle of straw, with our knapsacks for a pillow; tramping for miles every day through the sombre pine forest or fishing by moonlight in the shadowy lake, with the silence of a newly-created world all around; and having an "early pull" every morning across the ferry with our host, a squat, yellow-haired, gnome-like creature in sheepskin frock and bark shoes, who manifests unbounded amazement every time he sees us washing our hands.
But the lake itself is, if possible, even more picturesque than the river. It is one of those long, straggling bodies of water so common in the far North, resembling not so much one great lake as an endless series of small ones. Just at the sortie of the river a succession of rapids, scarcely less magnificent than those of the "Foss" itself, rush between the wooded shores, their unresting whirl and fury contrasting gloriously with the vast expanse of glassy water above, crested with leafy islets and mirroring the green boughs that droop over it along the shore. Here did we spend many a night fishing and "spinning yarns," in both of which accomplishments the ex-chasseur was pre-eminent; and strange enough it seemed, lying in the depths of that northern forest, to listen to descriptions of the treeless sands of Egypt and the burning wastes of the Sahara. Our midnight camp, on a little promontory just above the rapids, was a study for Rembrandt—the slender pine-stems reddened by the blaze of our camp-fire; the group of bearded faces coming and going as the light waxed and waned; beyond the circle of light a gloom all the blacker for the contrast; the ghostly white of the foam shimmering through the leaves, and the clear moonlit sky overhanging all.
When a wet day came upon us the inexhaustible ex-chasseur (who, like Frederick the Great, could "do everything but keep still") amused himself and us with various experiments in cookery, of which art he was a perfect master. His versatility in sauces might have aroused the envy of Soyer himself, and the party having brought with them a large stock of provisions, he was never at a loss for materials. Our ordinary dinner consisted of trout sauced with red wine, mutton, veal, duck, cheese, fresh strawberries and coffee; after which every man took his tumbler of tea, with a slice of lemon in it, from the stove, and the evening began.
The sight of the country, however, is undoubtedly the natives themselves. Their tawny skins, rough yellow hair and coarse flat faces would look uninviting enough to those who have never seen a Kalmuck or a Samoyede, but, despite their diet of dried fish and bread mixed with sawdust, both men and women are remarkably healthy and capable of surprising feats of strength and endurance. They make great use of bark for caps, shoes, plates, etc., in the making of which they are very skillful. As to their dress, it baffles description, and the horror of my friend the ex-chasseur at his first glimpse of it was as good as a play. On one occasion he was criticising severely the "rig" of some passing natives: "Voilà un qui porte un pantalon et point de bottes—un autre qui a des bottes et point de pantalon; peut-être que le troisième n'aura ni l'un ni l'autre!" At last came one with a pair of boots almost big enough to go to sea in, and turned up like an Indian canoe. Our critic eyed them in silence for a moment, and then said with a shudder, "Ce sont des bottes impossibles!"
But there needs only a short journey here to show the folly of further annexations on the part of Russia while those already made are so lamentably undeveloped. Finland, which, rightly handled, might be one of the czar's richest possessions, is now, after nearly seventy years' occupation, as unprofitable as ever. Throughout the whole province there are only three hundred and ninety-eight miles of railway.[G] Post-roads, scarce enough in the South, are absolutely wanting in the North. Steam navigation on the Gulf of Bothnia extends only to Uleaborg, and is, so far as I can learn, actually non-existent on the great lakes, except between Tanasthuus and Tammerfors. Such is the state of a land containing boundless water-power, countless acres of fine timber, countless shiploads of splendid granite. But what can be expected of an untaught population under two millions left to themselves in an unreclaimed country nearly as large as France?
Helsingfors can now be reached from St. Petersburg, viâ Viborg, in fourteen and a half hours; but what is one such line to the boundless emptiness of Finland? The fearful lesson of 1869 will not be easily forgotten, when all the horrors of famine were let loose at once upon the unhappy province. Seed-corn was exhausted: bread became dear, dearer still, and then failed altogether. Men, women and children, struggling over snowy moors and frozen lakes toward the distant towns in which lay their only chance of life, dropped one by one on the long march of death, and were devoured ere they were cold by the pursuing wolves. Nor did the survivors fare much better: some reached the haven of refuge only to fall dead in its very streets. Others gorged themselves with unwholesome food, and died with it in their mouths. Fields lying waste; villages dispeopled; private houses turned into hospitals; fever-parched skeletons tottering from the doors of overcrowded asylums; children wandering about in gaunt and squalid nakedness; crowds of men, frenzied by prolonged misery and ripe for any outrage, roaming the streets night and day,—such were the scenes enacted throughout the length of Finland during two months and a half.
But better days are now dawning on the afflicted land. Roads and railways are being pushed forward into the interior, and the ill-judged attempts formerly made to Russianize the population have given place to a more conciliatory policy. A Russian from Helsingfors tells me that lectures are being delivered there, and extracts from native works read, in the aboriginal tongue; that it is being treated with special attention in the great schools of Southern Finland; that there has even been some talk of dramatic representations in Finnish at the Helsingfors theatre. Such a policy is at once prudent and generous, and far better calculated to bind together the heterogeneous races of the empire than that absurd "Panslavism" which is best translated as "making every one a slave."
David Ker.