The population, however, though nominally they had cleared out of their bedchamber for our benefit, had no notion of leaving us to ourselves. The whole lot of them came in to stare at first, and when the ruck had gone, there always remained an escort of at least six of both sexes, who loafed in the doorway, and spat, and watched us as though we had been performing animals. Occasionally we drove them out and would be alone for perhaps two minutes, but then again the door would open and others would come into the room, spit thoughtfully at the floor, and then get their eyes deliberately focussed. They did not speak either to themselves or to us; and if they enjoyed the performance, they did not show it in their faces. They remained always the same wooden, unemotional boors, and we found by experience the only way to deal satisfactorily with the Arctic farmer Finns was to take the upper hand, and keep it. Any attempt at civility they construed as weakness, and then took advantage of us as a matter of course.
It is queer how these people can thus isolate themselves. The Norwegian of the North is one of the most civil and obliging fellows on the face of the earth. The Lapp, though he is frequently a savage in his personal habits, is none the less a courteous gentleman in his intercourse with others. And even the Finn fisher has occasionally some rudiments of civilness and hospitality. But these others are past praying for. They can read and write, they are oppressed by no government stress, they could make an easy livelihood if only they had the gumption and the energy to take it, but they prefer to remain the greatest clods within all the marches of Europe.
Happily for ourselves a ceremony was taking place outside which began to draw off the audience. Between the red house and the lake shore was a building of blackened logs, from the doorway of which smoke had been issuing ever since our arrival. It was a Finnish vapour-bath, and when it was heated up, our carriers and the entire population of Ischinlisvuoni went in in squads to enjoy it.
The Finn of the North seldom or never anoints his person with water in the ordinary way. But still, on the whole, as back-block tribes go, one could not call him an uncleanly person. Almost every farm has its bath-house, and it is very rarely that a fortnight passes without this being heated and used. The bath at Ischinlisvuoni was typical of all the lot, for the pattern varies but little. It was a house of logs, twenty feet by fifteen, and some eighteen feet up to the pitch of the roof. Along one side, half-way up to the eaves, there ran a broad shelf of smoothed wood. The floor was of beaten earth, and at one corner beside the door was a large bee-hive-shaped mound of rubble stones, with a fireplace in the middle to admit burning logs. This primitive stove is heated, and the smoke either escapes by the doorway, or remains inside and blackens the roof. Gradually the air of the place warms, and then water is thrown on to the glowing stones to saturate it with steam. The bathers undress at the dwelling-house, and run across the intervening ground in their birthday attire. Both sexes and all ages bathe together. They douche with cold water first, stand about on the earthen floor for a minute or so, and then climb on to the raised shelf and lie down. Every one has a green birch of sweet-smelling Arctic willow shoots, with which he (or she) switches his neighbour, and so stimulates the circulation. And there they stay for twenty minutes or half an hour. Then out they rush, and if there is snow on the ground they roll on it, or if not, they dip into the coldest water attainable; and then they go back into the house again to cool down.