There were a good many opinions, too, as to where we ought to go to find the requisite steamer. Some said Kemi, some insisted on Torneo-Haparanda, whilst some were equally certain that we ought to push on down the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia to Uleaborg.
In the meanwhile two or three merchants had been trying to incite us to buy peltries. We were not anxious to burden ourselves with the extra weight, and prices were not very tempting. A good bearskin cost between M.175 and M.200, and though we had one small gray skin offered for M.70, it had been shot almost to pieces, and was not well cured. These skins, of course, are much used in the country for winter wear. Reindeer pelts were cheaper. A fine skin, thick and gray, could be bought for M.8; but then it must be remembered that a whole deer, fat for killing, was only worth between M.25 and M.50.
There was a great store of reindeer antlers in a barn behind one of these stores at Rovaniemi, which we inspected to the accompaniment of giggles from the crowd. They could not see what possible interest lay in a heap of stinking old bone; and when Hayter started to make diagrams of a few of the more curious shapes, they doubled themselves up with laughter. It was funnier than any circus they had ever seen before. We did not mind; it amused them, and the antlers amused us. There must have been five hundred pairs in that barn, and no two pairs could we find anywhere approaching the same pattern. It was the brow-tines which varied most, but the upper branches were also irregular. Some were palmated almost like an elk's; and one which I saw had complete twists in every tine like a narwal's horn.
As a final climax to the entertainment, the landlord chose out a few choice spirits and took them with us down to a hollow on the river-bank out of sight of the town. He had a bottle in his pocket, and with considerable mystery (seeing that it was smuggled) he produced it, and we saw by the label that it was caloric punch. It was half full; and as it had been on tap some time with the cork out, there was a good two inches of black sediment at the bottom, consisting of flies. But nobody stuck at this. It was doled out in a liqueur-glass, and we toasted one another with effusiveness.