Ethel Alec-Tweedie - Through Finland in Carts

When I was first approached by Messrs. Nelson and Sons for permission to publish Through Finland in Carts in their shilling series, I felt surprised. So many books and papers have jostled one another along my path since my first journey to Finland, I had almost forgotten the volume.

Turning to an old notebook, I see it was published in 1897 at sixteen shillings. It appeared in a second edition. The demand still continued, so a third edition, entirely revised and reprinted, was published at a cheaper rate. Others followed, and it now appears on the market at the reduced price of one shilling. Cheapness generally means deterioration of goods, but cheapness in books spells popularity.

Since the last revise appeared, a few years ago, I had not opened the pages of this volume; and strange though it may seem, I took it up to correct with almost as much novelty as if it had been a new book by some one else. An author lives with his work. He sees every page, every paragraph, by day and by night. He cannot get away from it, it haunts him; yet once the bark is launched on the waters of Fate, other things fill his mind, and in a year or two he forgets which book contains some special reference, or describes some particular thought. This is not imagination but fact. The slate of memory would become too full and confused were such not the case.

Finland has been progressing, and yet in the main Finland remains the same. It is steeped in tradition and romance. There are more trains, more hotels, larger towns; but that bright little land is still bravely fighting her own battles, still forging ahead; small, contented, well educated, self-reliant, and full of hopes for the future.

Finland has Home Rule under Russia, and her Parliament was the first to admit women members.

For those interested in the political position of Finland, an appendix, which has been brought up to date in every way possible, will be found at the end of this volume.

London, Easter 1913 .

It is worth the journey to Finland to enjoy a bath; then and not till then does one know what it is to be really clean.

Finland is famous for its baths and its beauties; its sky effects and its waterways; its quaint customs and its poetry; its people and their pluck. Finland will repay a visit.

Foreign travel fills the mind even if it empties the pocket. Amusement is absolutely essential for a healthy mind.

Finland, or, as the natives call it in Finnish, Suomi , is a country of lakes and islands. It is a vast continent about which strangers until lately hardly knew anything, beyond such rude facts as are learnt at school, viz., that "Finland is surrounded by the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia on the South and West, and bordered by Russia and Lapland on the East and North," and yet Finland is larger than our own England, Scotland, Ireland, aye, and the Netherlands, all put together.

When we first thought of going to Suomi , we naturally tried to procure a Finnish guide-book and map; but no guide-book was to be obtained in all London, except one small pamphlet about a dozen pages long; while at our best-known map shop the only thing we could find was an enormous cardboard chart costing thirty shillings. No one ever dreamed of going to Finland. Nevertheless, Finland is not the home of barbarians, as some folk then imagined; neither do Polar bears walk continually about the streets, nor reindeer pull sledges in summer – items that have several times been suggested to the writer.

Nothing daunted by want of information, however, we packed up our traps and started.

We were three women, my sister, Frau von Lilly – a born Finlander – and the writer of the following pages. That was the beginning of the party, but it increased in numbers as we went along – a young man here, a young girl there, an old man, or an old woman, joined us at different times, and, alas, left us again.

Having made charming friends in that far-away land, and picked their brains for information as diligently as the epicure does the back of a grouse for succulent morsels, we finally – my sister and I – jogged home again alone.

This looks bad in print! The reader will say, "Oh, how disagreeable they must have been, those two, that every one should have deserted them!" but this would be a mistake, for we flatter ourselves that we really are rather nice, and only "adverse circumstances" deprived us of our friends one by one.

Love and Friendship are the finest assets in the Bank of Life.

Grave trouble had fallen at my door. Life had been a happy bounteous chain; the links had snapped suddenly and unexpectedly, and solace and substance could only be found in work.

'Tis often harder to live than to die.

Immediate and constant work lay before me. The cuckoo's note trilled forth in England, that sad, sad note that seemed to haunt me and speed me on life's way. No sooner had I landed in Suomi than the cuckoos came to greet me. The same sad tone had followed me across the ocean to remind me hourly of all the trouble I had gone through. The cuckoo would not let me rest or forget; he sang a song of sympathy and encouragement.

It was on a brilliant sunny morning early in June that the trim little ship Urania steamed between the many islands round the coast to enter, after four and a half days' passage from Hull, the port of Helsingfors . How many thousands of posts, growing apparently out of the sea, are to be met with round the shores of Finland! Millions, we might say; for not only the coast line, which is some eight hundred miles in length, but all the lakes and fjords through which steamers pass are marked out most carefully by wooden stakes, or near the large towns by stony banks and painted signs upon the rocks of the islands. Sometimes the channels are so dangerous that the little steamers have to proceed at half-speed, carefully threading their way in and out of the posts, as a drag at Hurlingham winds its course between barrels at the four-in-hand competitions.

Many places, we learnt, are highly dangerous to attempt at night, on account of these stakes, which are put down by Government boats in the spring after the ice has gone, and are taken up in November before it forms again, because for about seven months all sea traffic is impossible. Sometimes the channels are so narrow and shallow that the screw of the steamer has to be stopped while the vessel glides through between the rocks, the very revolutions of the screw drawing more water than can be allowed in that particular skär of tiny islands and rocks. At other times we have seen the steamer kept off some rocky promontory where it was necessary for her to turn sharply, by the sailors jumping on to the bank and easing her along by the aid of stout poles; or again, in the canals we have known her towed round particular points by the aid of ropes. In fact, the navigation of Finland is one continual source of surprise and amazement.

Finland is still rising out of the sea. Rocks that were marked with paint one hundred and fifty years ago at the water's edge, now show that the sea has gone down four or five feet. This is particularly noticeable in the north: where large ships once sailed, a rowing boat hardly finds waterway. Seaports have had to be moved. Slowly and gradually Finland is emerging from the waters, just as slowly and gradually the people are making their voice heard among other nations.

Few people in Great Britain realize the beauties of Finland. It is flat, but it is fascinating. It is a land of waterways, interspersed with forests. The winter is very cold, the summer very hot; the winter very dark, the summer eternal light. Helsingfors is one of the most picturesque harbours in the world. It is not like anywhere else, although it resembles Stockholm somewhat. It is so sunny and bright in the summer, so delicious in colourings and reflections, that the primary thought of the intricate watery entrance to the chief capital is one of delight.