She describes her people, so primitive in their habits

The most notable woman we have aboard is Miss Selma Borg, well known as the translator of Swedish and Finnish novels. She goes for the summer to her home in Finland. We find her a talented, warm-hearted woman, full of enthusiasm in regard to America and her institutions, yet always mindful of her people and her native land. She goes to labor for the Centennial cause, to arouse her countrymen to the importance of their having a proper representation at that time. Despite the apathy of the Russians on the subject, she is determined that Finland shall send specimens of her arts and manufactures. "How shall I go to my family," she said, in her beautiful patois, "how satisfy them about your great land? They will ask me of your government, your public schools, woman's suffrage, social science, and all the great topics of the times; and although I have been among you fifteen years, they have been so crowded with work, that I feel I know nothing thoroughly."

Miss Borg is a strong, vigorous thinker, a woman of large heart and intellect. She is an ardent reformer and searcher after the truth. In connection with Miss Marie A. Brown, she has translated the novels of Madame Schwartz and Gustav Adolph, and has lately made a collection of the lays of Sweden and Finland, which are full of feeling and replete with melodic sweetness and beauty. The weird character of the songs of the Norsemen as interpreted by the Swedish Nightingales, Jenny Lihd and Christine Nilsson, has created in our continent a desire for their translation, and Miss Borg has given them to us in all their wild, quaint, plaintive beauty.

She tells us much that is new, interesting, and instructive concerning Finland: of the days which commence at two o'clock in the morning and last until ten at night, of the fierce cold of the winter, and the warm, beautiful summer, when in three months they sow the seed, have the blossom, the fruit, and the harvest. She describes her people, so primitive in their habits, simple in their tastes, and noble, honest, and loving. But she expresses her determination to spend the remainder of her days in the land of her adoption. Her lines have fallen in pleasant places, for she has made friends with the Quakers of Philadelphia. But no language of mine can express her enthusiasm of words and manner when she speaks of the "dear people among whom I passed my time." Her compagnon de voyage is a countryman, Mr. Fagerstrom, a genuine specimen of the men of the Norseland. He has spent seven years in America in the study of machinery, and goes home to put in practice the knowledge he has gained. But I think there lurks in his heart a fear that he will not be content, after the hurry and enterprise in which he has so long mingled.

Mary H. Wills: A summer in Europe. 1876

The salle à manger we find chequered with tables

The salle à manger we find chequered with tables, where famished individuals are busily engaged, absorbing with astonishing rapidity savoury concoctions of original appearance, the obsequious "Kelner" displays a document, which imparts the refreshing knowledge that matter for refection is obtainable in endless variety from the cuisinal laboratory.

The Finnish has been liberally and literally rendered into the English tongue for our edification, and we have the choice of ox-steak, calf-steak, calf-cutlet, swine-steak, sheep's-leg, and so on, reminding us of some of the Parisian restaurants, where the liqueur "Chinois à l'eau de vie," is translated "a Chinese in brandy." Our lot falls upon calf-cutlet, and an unctuous conglomeration appears, redolent of garlick, and smothered in fennel and other species of the grass kind. Our entremêt is a cock-de-bois, which we innocently imagine might be cock of wood, alias woodcock, but the "rara avis" proves to be a species of capon, old as Methuselah, with a parchment hide, and must have lived at the period of the great fire and then and there been roasted. A supply of Finnish beer, a sort of attenuated rhubarb and magnesia tends to gravitate the solidities, but it is funny stuff, and our paymaster disburses the few farthings necessary in liquidation of expenses, and we adjourn to the billiard-room.

George Francklin Atkinson: Pictures from the north, in pen and pencil; sketched during a summer ramble. 1848

With the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of Heinola

No trace of pursuers were behind them now, though their flight must by this time have been known both in the capital and at Schlusselburg. But in those days there were neither railroads nor electric telegraphs ; so, riding on more leisurely, Balgonie changed horses again near Viborg, and erelong the great Lake of Saima appeared before them, with the distant hills of Swedish Finland beyond its friendly waters.

A boat was procured there; the kabitka was abandoned ; and, with a shout of joy, Usakoff assisted the Finnish boatman to hoist the great lug-sail to catch the breeze of a balmy and beautiful evening, as they bade a long farewell to Russia and all its terrors.

In a quaint old Church of Finland, by the eastern shore of the Lake of Saima, and in view of its little archipelago of granite isles, — a lonely little fane, buried amid groves of plum and cherry trees, built of wood and painted red, with a little holy bell jangling in its humble belfry, — Charlie Balgonie and his fugitive bride were united by the old Curate, with the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of Heinola ; and there a thousand roubles spent among the poor spread in the primitive district a happiness, the tradition of which is still remembered with many a grateful exaggeration.

After this, poor Usakoff, finding himself perhaps, as a third person, rather in the way, left them to become a soldier of fortune; and he is supposed to have perished in one of the Polish struggles for freedom ; at least, they heard of him no more, after their final journey to Scotland.

James Grant: The secret dispatch; or, The adventures of Captain Balgonie. 1874

But they are much less rude and barbarous

The inhabitants of Russian Finland were formerly very similar to those of Lapland, and have indeed the same origin; but they are much less rude and barbarous. Those of the towns are engaged in commerce and various trades, while the inhabitants of the country follow agriculture, hunting and fishing. The latter are laborious, and in general very prudent. Their dress also is similar to that of the Swedish peasants. They most commonly let their beards grow; some, however, only wear mustachios. Their clothes are generally made of a coarse kind of cloth, called walmar, which is manufactured by the women; but they sometimes purchase a finer sort. In winter they wear pelises, made of sheep or other skins. Some wear shoes made of skin, some wooden shoes, and others make their shoes of the bark of some tree laced together. They wear a leathern girdle, generally untanned, in which they carry a large knife. Their hair hangs loose; and they cover their heads with a sort of felt hat.

William Alexander: Picturesque representations of the dress and manners of the Russians. (1814)

It is very beautiful, certainly, but it is a very poor one

I WAS tempted to make an excursion from Helsinfors to Abo, a distance of one hundred and fifty English miles, in order to see a part of Finland which I had heard represented as a very beautiful country. It is very beautiful, certainly, but it is a very poor one. I saw only two mansions on the road, and they were nearer to Helsinfors than to Abo; the latter town having been formerly the capital of Finland, as the other is now. You see fir, beech, and mountain-ash trees, with alder and juniper plants, clustered together very picturesquely, forming glades, and crowning mountain-tops; and you have an eternal variety of small lakes, barren scaurs, and cultivated grounds. In spite of the abundance of water, we could find no fish to eat on our road; and there was only one decent inn, which was at Nyby, rather less than half way between Helsinfors and Abo. But when I speak of a good inn, my readers must not imagine that they will be received in a papered room, with sofas and tables, and a neat chimney-piece, adorned with fly-catchers in papers; —no, they will have to mount a small scaffold of steps, (for all the houses here are of wood, and built on an above-ground foundation of stone); you then enter a room which is unpainted, and the whole of the rafters stuffed with moss, to prevent the air from penetrating; the floors are clean, and you generally find a stove which keeps the whole warm.

Frank Hall Standish: Notices on the northern capitals of Europe. 1838

If the weather is stormy, the ice assumes all the appearance of waves

“To visit Langhorn and to relieve his distress, Ledyard crossed from Hamburg to Copenhagen, thus leaving the direct course to St. Petersburg, and, as you shall hear, increasing the distance many hundred miles. From Copenhagen he went to Stockholm, intending to cross over to Abo in Finland, and thus proceeding to the place of his destination.

“The manner in which the passage between Stockholm and the place I have just mentioned is made in the winter season, is so singular that I must describe it to you. The traveller, muffled up in furs, is seated on a sledge, which is drawn by two or three horses. The ice is sometimes so smooth that the passage is comparatively easy; but, if the weather is stormy, the ice assumes all the appearance of waves, and immense masses, heaped one upon another, offer the most fearful impediments. The sledge is frequently upset, and the horses sometimes become unmanageable and run away. When, however, there happens to be an open winter—one in which the frost is not sufficiently intense to freeze the passage entirely over, the water yet contains so much floating ice that no vessel can sail through it. This happened to be the case in the season in which Ledyard arrived, so that he found it necessary either to stay at Stockholm till the spring, or to proceed round the gulf, a distance of twelve hundred miles, over trackless snows, and in regions thinly peopled, where the nights are long and the cold intense, and all this to advance on his journey only about fifty miles.

Thomas Bingley: Tales about travellers - their perils, adventures, and Discoveries. 1841

The rowers in many cases were women, the men lazily reclining

We had been informed that the Finnish church-going and service was a grand sight. At about eight o'clock on Sunday morning, I climbed the rocks above the post-house to have a survey, but little had I anticipated what now burst upon my view. A whole fleet of boats, forty or fifty in number, with their white sails set, was bearing down the lake to the church at Ruokalaks. From every creek they seemed to drop out, and soon there was the number I have named. In addition to these, there was a steamer heavily freighted, and a number of boats propelled by oars. The rowers in many cases were women, the men lazily reclining, and smoking their long pipes. The sight was magnificent in the extreme, and reminded me of a fleet of fishing-boats leaving the harbour-mouth. In the light of the language of Scripture it might be said, 'Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?' 

And soon the road past the post-house was alive with pedestrians, and peasants driving their swift carrioles. Each carriole held two passengers. Every cross-road seemed to furnish its contingent, and by the time they were all assembled round the church, their numbers must have exceeded one thousand. The men were dressed mostly in grey clothing. You would have said all the grey coats of Cumberland were there. The women wore dark blue dresses, with a scarlet border at the bottom, two inches deep. Two kerchiefs covered the head, a white one upon the hair, with a long pendant falling down the back, and a gay-coloured one over it. Some of them wore massive silver ornaments, as large as the hollow of a saucer, on their breasts. They were all cleanly and wholesome to look upon, and bore manifest traces of hard toil and of the severe climate. Many of them carried baskets of raspberries gathered in the woods, to refresh themselves by the way, and around the church-doors I saw several groups reclining on the grass, and eating bread and fruit, before entering the holy place to receive food for their souls. The women all carried the Psalter and Liturgy. Between two and three hundred carrioles were tied up in the vicinity of the church, and the whole scene forcibly reminded one like myself, of a Presbyterian Communion Sunday in the country, in the olden time. 

Hearing some plaintive singing proceeding from the churchyard, I went there and witnessed three funerals. One was that of a grown- up person, the others were those of little children. A huge pit had been dug in the sandy formation, and two men going down into it by means of a ladder received the three coffins, and placed them alongside each other. Hundreds accompanied these funerals. Who were the mourners it was impossible to tell. No mourning-dress was worn, and no signs of grief were visible. The Finns are not a demonstrative race. The chant over, the pastor, dressed in black, and wearing a white tie and bands, came to the edge of the grave, and casting three wooden spadefuls of sand on each of the coffins, repeated three sentences. He then read several prayers, and after all had said 'Amen,' in token of their submission to the Divine will, and of their faith in the resurrection that is to be, and a short silent prayer had been offered up, the pastor leading, all quitted God's-acre, and accompanied him to the church. 

Taking their seats, and, as in the Lutheran Church everywhere, the women sitting apart from the men, the preparatory service began. This consisted in the singing of a Psalm, to a tune led by the clerk, who stood before a desk in the front of the gallery, and was assisted by a number of young men and women. This would continue for twenty minutes, the church meanwhile gradually getting better filled. When the pastor, a professorial-looking man, entered, the singing ceased, and ascending the lofty pulpit of the huge church, capable of holding two thousand people, he began his part of the duty by reading prayers. The sermon followed ; it was short, and read in an unimpressive manner. During the delivery of this sermon, in a monotone, I did not wonder at seeing a number of the people fast asleep. They had been working hard at harvesting all week, had come many miles that morning, and on sitting down, an unusual thing with these hard workers, in the church, were overcome with heaviness. Who would lack the charity to say of them, 'The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak'? Had the pastor 'delivered' his sermon instead of reading it, and had he possessed a little of the Boanerges fire, it is more than probable that he would have had a more wakeful and attentive audience. 

At the close of the sermon the pastor prepared to administer the Communion, and a number repaired, according to the Lutheran custom, to the communion-rail. All who had come to the church, by no means entered it during this service. Another was to follow, and those who were then standing and gossiping about the door were probably waiting for it. One thing struck me very forcibly as being different from our church usage. People kept coming in during the whole of the service, and a hum of undertoned conversation filled the church, which must have proved utterly distracting and intolerable to any English preacher. 

There is a law in Finland against Sunday trading, but it seems to be a dead letter, for the three shops in Ruokalaks were open, and filled with customers. This Finnish trip was enjoyable and instructive to a degree. It now only remained to make our way back 150 miles to St. Petersburg, which falls to be first noticed in our second chapter.

James Christie: Men and things Russian or holiday travels in the lands of the czar. (1879)