From all this it will be inferred the boat is extraordinarily light, or it could never be got home again--but when twenty-four or twenty-eight barrels, each weighing four to five hundred pounds, are in it, the water comes right up to the gunwale, so an extra planking of a foot wide is tied on in the manner aforementioned, to keep the waves out, and that planking is only half an inch thick. Therefore the barrels are only divided from the seething water by three-quarters of an inch, and the waves are kept back by even a slighter barrier.
It is amazing that such a long fragile craft can survive that torrent of water at all.
When the last boats go down in October, ice has already begun to form, and they frequently suffer very much from its sharp edges, for which reason the perils of those late journeys are often hideous. When the tar-barrels reach _Kajana_ from the forests they are only worth from twelve to eighteen marks each, and if one considers the labour entailed to get them there, it seems remarkable that any profit can be made out of the trade. Very cleverly the heavy tubs are lifted by a crane into the boat, which is just wide enough to take them in twos and twos lengthwise--three or four perhaps being placed on the top of all. The biggest cargo consists of twenty-eight barrels. Before the tubs are really shipped they are tested, as wine is tested, to see that the quality is all right, and that they are worth the perilous carriage. So many of these boats ply backwards and forwards during July, August, September, and October, that sometimes as many as a hundred will pass _Kajana_ in one day. This gives some idea of the industry and its enormous importance to that vast tract of country. Indeed, from 50,000 to 70,000 barrels find their way down the _Uleåborg_ river alone during these months.
Owing to the courtesy of _Herr Fabrikor Herman Renfors_, to whom the Governor of the Province had kindly given us an introduction, we went a mile and a half up the rapids and through a couple of locks in his private tar-boat, just for the experience. The heat being tropical, we did not start till six P.M., when we found _Herr Renfors_ waiting at the entrance to the first lock, as arranged, in a real tar-boat, which he was steering himself, for, being an enthusiastic fisherman, he goes out alone for days at a time, and can steer up or down the rapids as well as any pilot. No one who has not seen a rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with a nice wide shallow Thames lock may think he knows all about such matters; but in reality he does nothing of the kind. For this Finnish lock, and there are two of them close together, is very long, forty-five feet being required for the boat alone, and nearly as much for the rush of water at each end to prevent that single boat being swamped. As the rise of water is over twenty feet, the lock is some forty feet deep and only six or seven feet wide. The walls are tarred black, and, although the sun blazed outside, when we entered this long narrow vault the air struck chill and cold, and it was so dark and weird that it seemed like going into an underground cellar, or an elongated coffin. As those massive wooden doors closed behind us, we felt as though we were about to be buried alive in a well, or were enacting some gruesome scene fitted for Dante's wondrous pen when dipped in ink of horror. The gates slammed. The chains grated. The two oarsmen steadied the boat by means of poles which they held against the sides of those dark walls, the steersman with another pole kept her off the newly shut massive wooden door--and then--oh! we gasped, as a volume of water over ten feet descended a little in front of us, absolutely soaking the oarsmen, and showering spray over every one.