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On Finnish food:
It is difficult to descend the mountain. After having got down through
a little wood, we met with large and slippery rocks, lying very unevenly
; afterwards we entered into a forest which stretched to the foot of
the mountain, where we found the river Tengelio, which on three sides
runs round it, and afterwards empties itself into the great river Torneo.
In going up and down these mountains, notwithstanding their difficulty,
two of our soldiers, marching with a steady pace, carried on their shoulders
our two feet quadrant, and so by two and two our baggage and provisions
: they never objected to the labour, although it was incessant. Notwithstanding
their fatiguing work, these Fins ate very little ; a few dry fish, which
they carried in a bag, made of the bark of the birch tree, and which
hung at their side, with a cask of soured milk, was all their food and
beverage. They sometimes have a little barley-cake, extremely dry, and
as they empty their cask of sour milk, they replenish it with water.The
inhabitants of the neighbourhood came to our mountains in flocks : many
of them offered their boats and their services ; we gave two thalers
per day to each man, which is about twenty-four sols French money, very
high wages for that country. The ardour which inspired them to serve
us engaged some to buy their places of those who brought us from Torneo
; others brought us milk, sheep, or fish. On the two first mountains,
Nieva and Cuitaperi, we ate a quantity of fresh salmon : we bought one
at Cuitaperi, three feet ten inches long, for which we paid three livres,
and the seller thought it a great deal ; he would not have obtained
for it more than forty sous from his country people. (p. 282)
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On spices:
They season all their meats with sugar, saffron, ginger, lemon and
orange-peel, and mix cummin in all their bread. The ordinary drink is
beer, which they make very good : they have a little white wine at Torneo,
which they call Vin de Picardon : all red wines they call Pontacte.
Many country people know nothing of red wine : some of those who followed
us to the mountains, seeing us drink of it, imagined we were drinking
the blood of the sheep we had bought of them. (p. 304)
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Threshing barley:
Friday morning, the seventh, one of the Lapland women, very infirm,
came, drawn by a rein-deer, to M.de Maupertuis, to bring him a basket
which she had made, and which she told to him. A six o'clock we set
off in five boats ; we ascended all the cataracts on foot as far as
Cainunkila. While waiting there for our boats we saw them thresh their
barley : they put it first in a room to dry, in the corner of which
is a kind of stove : it is a large square block of stone, rather longer
than wide, through the middle of which a cavity is cut which runs its
whole length. They kindle a fire in this hollow. As we do in our ovens,
and this causes an amazing heat, which continues for a great length
of time in the block of stone. It is in this room that they finish the
drying of on large ladders, which are erected for this purpose near
to every house : there are even some in the middle of the town of Torneo.
They thresh their grain, thus dried, with flails, sufficiently resembling
those which the country people make use of in France ; and after clearing
the grain, by throwing it from one side of the barn to the other to
separate the dust, they complete the operation of cleaning in rather
deep baskets, which serve them for fans. (p. 294)
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On horses:
During the month of May, earlier or later according to the length of
winter, the horses leave their masters on the first thawing of the snow,
and go into certain quarters of the forests, where they seem to have
established among themselves a rendezvous. These horses form separate
troops, which never interfere or separate from each other : each troop
takes a different quarter of the forest for its pasturage, and keeps
to that which its fixed upon without encroaching on the others. When
their food is exhausted they decamp, and go in the same order to occupy
another pasture. The police of their society is well regulated, and
their march so uniform, that their masters always know where to find
them, if by chance they should want in the spring or summer to travel
any where in a carriage or sledge, which sometimes happens to be the
case ; or if any traveller should want horses. In that case the countrymen,
receiving the orders of the gifwergole, that is to say, the postmaster,
go into the woods to fetch their horses, which after rendering the services
required, return to the forest of themselves, and join their companions
again. When the season becomes bad, which it began to do in the month
of September, the horses quit their forest in troops, and every one
proceeds to his own stable : they are small, but excellent, and lively
without vice : their masters lay hold of them sometimes by the tail
to catch them, and they seldom make resistance. There are however some,
in spite of their general docility, who defend themselves on taking
them, or attempting to harness them to carriages. They are very healthy
and fat when they return from the forest ; but their almost continual
labour during the winter, and the little food given them, makes them
lose their good appearance very soon. When fastened to the sledges,
they frequently as they run seize on mouthfuls of snow ; and as soon
as released they roll amid the snow , as ours are wont to do in the
grass : they pass the night as frequently in the yard as the stable,
even in the sharpest frosts : they frequently are in want of food, particularly
when the winter is very long ; the horses then go and forage for themselves
in places where the snow has begun thaw. (p. 295)
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On cows:
Not so with the cows ; in the villages along the rivers they go
to no distance from the houses to which they are daily taken to be milked,
At Torneo, in the summer, there are few cows brought
to the town : during rainy years, when the isthmus of Nara is overflowed
by the river, they can only
reach it by swimming ; on this account many of the burghers have sheds
on the western banks of
the river, south of Mattila, to which their wives and maids go by water
to milk them ; they are small, almost all white, and many without horns.
(p. 296)
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Observations on sauna and the farmhouse living room:
The inhabitants began to bathe frequently : their bath is so hot that
M. de Maupertuis, who wished to try it, found that the thermometer of
Reaumur rose to 44° above the freezing point. In their baths
they have a kind of stove, exactly resembling that which I described
as in use among them for drying their corn ; it is as well placed in
the corner of the chamber. When the block of stone which forms it becomes
well heated, they throw water upon it, and the steam from this water
makes their bath : they generally go in two together, each holding a
handful twigs, with which they whip each
other to excite perspiration. I have seen very old men at Pello go out
of a bath quite naked, and violently sweating, and pass across a court
through the frosty air, without receiving any injury from it. At Corten
Niemi, and in the house of every farmer at all of easy circumstances,
besides the room designed for the bath, they have another larger, wherein
there is a stove : two or three little square holes, of six inches wide,
serve for windows ; here the family sleep during the winter. In the
day-time the men work at mending their nets for the fishery, or making
new ones ; the women sew, or weave cloth ; they are, as it were, in
a hot-house in these rooms, which are called Porti, or Pyrti.
Small slips of deal, exceeding thin, two or three feet long, which they
light, serve them instead of lamp or candle : these slips of wood, which
are very dry, burn well, but do not last long ; the wick which falls
off on its being consumed, is received into dishes of snow, to prevent
danger from fire.
(p. 298)
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On court yards and houses:
All the houses in town as well as country have a large court, inclosed
at least on two sides by apartments, and on the two others by stables
and hay sheds. In the country these courts are perfectly square; in
town they are oblong. The sleeping-rooms have the chimney in the corner,
as was the café in all ours : the chimney-places are no more
than from two feet and a half to three feet wide, by four or four feet
and a half high. Above the chimney-piece there is a very narrow horizontal
slit, in which a plate of iron is inserted, called Spihel, in order
to shut the funnel of the chimney entirely, or in part, at will.
When they make a fire, the wood is placed upright in sufficiently large
quantity, and as soon as lighted it is speedily reduced to charcoal
; the spihel is then shut, and a degree of heat proportionate to their
wish is communicated to the apartment. In my room I made the thermometer
of Reaumur rise to thirty-six degrees above the freezing point, at a
time when the glasses of my windows were covered with ice. A candle
placed in a candlestick near the window became so soft, that it bent
and fell.
In the country, the bed-rooms and the kitchen are made pretty nearly
in the same manner as in town; the chimneys are made of brick and unhewn
stones, which is the only mason's work known in the country : frequently
under the same chimney-flue, near the fire in the kitchen, they have
an oven for baking bread ; and sometimes an alembic for distilling brandy
from barley.
Beyond Torneo, in going up the river, every countryman has a kind pavilion,
which they call Cotta, larger at top than at the bottom, and higher
than the rest of the house, at top of which, at the end of a long pole,
is a weather-cock. Close to the window of the cotta, without the housem
there is a well ; through the window the water is made to pass into
cauldrons, where it is heated, and where snow for the cattle is sometimes
thawed ; occasionally, as well they make their brandy there. Moreover
they have their granariers, which are several small apartments separate
from the house, their baths, their rooms for drying and threshing their
barley, somewhat resembling their baths ; and besides, their kitchen,
and room called Pyrti, of which I have before spoken ; ordinarily they
have two very decent rooms for strangers, to whom they always offer
the best in every thing.
The burghers in town, no more than the country people, use above one
blanket on their beds, a coverlid of white hare-skin serves instead
of a second. Many of these farmers have silver forks, large spoons,
and goblets ; with those who are less rich they are of wood : they are
kind, studious of making themselves serviceable, and perfectly honest.
I said before that every farmer had his magazines ; the greater part
of those of Torneo along the side of the river. This magazine is a room
built of wood, like the blocks of stone, to keep away rats : they get
up to them by a wooden ladder, which is divided from the door by the
space of a foot. It is in this room that they inclose a good part of
their provision, Those who are in easy circumstances have several of
these magazines.
They are forbid having many coats of the same colour : they are not
allowed to wear any cloth coat which is not marked in the folds with
the King's signet ; any venturing to do so would have it seized. There
are officers whose duty it is to go from house to house to see if the
chimney-places are properly kept ; if they have a lanthorn ; in short,
if every thing be in proper order. (p. 303-304)
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Tornio church:
The church, which also is of wood, is somewhat separated from the
houses, although within the palisades which surround the town, and which
as well incloses a space of ground which is cultivated of rather considerable
extent.
In this church the prayers are read in the Swedish language, on account
of the burghers, who speak that language. The town and this church are
situated in an island or peninsula, called Swentzlar. There is another
church, built with stone, in another island, called Biorckholm, a quarter
of a mile to the south of the town : here the service is read in the
Finnish language, for the benefit of the servants of the town and the
peasantry of the neighbourhood ; very few of whom understand the Swedish.
(p.. 303)
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On agriculture:
At Pello the ninth of September there was rye already up,very green
and promising. They cultivate the land with shovels and spades alone,
and know nothing of either ploughs or carts. The second of October,
as the earth was much frozen, they suffered their horses to graze this
fine rye. They sow barley at the earliest in May, but generally in June
and it is ripe in the beginning of August, as well as the rye ; they
then reap it with a fickle, the same as in France. All the barley is
round-eared, and makes a very well-tasted bread. The inhabitants have
near their houses long poles, placed horizontally into holes made in
two or three upright beams ; the whole forms a kind of ladder, very
wide, on which they expose their barley to the rays of the sun, during
the remainder of the month of August, while it yet appears for some
time above the horizon : when the season is adverse, they take them
into the rooms set apart fot threshing ; they place them on large ladders,
with the ears downwards, so that birds not being able to perch on them,
should do them no damage.
Their harrows are contrived very ingeniously ; they are composed of
small pieces of wood, which are fastened together very much in the manner
of certain chains made for watches : there are several ranges of these
pieces,each range consisting of twelve ; the first rank hung entirely
upon two cross pieces, to which the harness is fastened, by which the
horse draws. (p. 304-305)
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Observations on trees and plants:
Besides fir and birch, there are some sallows, and here and there aspins,
very high and straight
In the meadows is seen a kind of narcissus, very pretty ; the leaf
is thick, and like that of clover ; it is called spectrum Carolinum,
and known to the French botanists by the same name. We saw a small lily
of the valley, much less than ours, whose leaf was heart-shaped. They
have also pirola, golden rod, cudweed, or goldy locks, and a plant with
long leaves, whose root has two bulos ; it bears, on a lofty stem, a
bunch of hoodshaped flowers ; they are not handsome, but have exactly
the same smell as honeysuckle. There is besides, a sort of serpent's
tongue, or herb without partition, a great quantity of small shrubs,
which they call small broom ; most of the marshes are full of them.
(p. 305-306)
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Life at Torneo:
We lived very comfortably at Torneo. M. Duries, lieutenant-colonel,
the rector named Proubst, that is to say, priest,answering to deans
in our dioceses, our ancient host M. Piping, M. Vigelius, the brother
of M. Brunius, made up our general society ; they were plesant and sensible
men: as for the rest, our interpreter for the Finnish language, informed
us at dinner on Wednesday, the twenty-eighth, that several countrymen
wished to go to France with us, where they said they would teach our
fishermen how to take salmon.(p. 308)
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