She was pulled on to the bank and lay bottom upwards, and who she belonged to we did not know--or care. We were in the mood then to have cheerfully annexed the Czar's own private dinghy even with sure foreknowledge that he wanted it himself during the next half hour. And the carriers seemed to be similarly without scruple. The packs went down to the ground in quick time; the loppy-legged boy said something funny and laughed; even the squint-eyed man smiled. The canoe was rolled on to her keel and shot into the water. The luggage and ourselves went amidships; the Finns distributed themselves forward and aft; and away we went with rather less than an inch of free-board.
Now so long as we were in smooth water, this method of travelling was delightful. The mosquitoes were comparatively absent--we had merely a paltry thousand or two to remind us of the ravening swarms elsewhere. There was a brilliant sun. And the hump-backed man, who was squatting on the floor forward, paddled us on at an excellent pace. But when we got out in broader water, there was a good ripple on, and the lake came over both gunwales merrily. The canoe, moreover, was thoroughly sun-cracked, and leaked like a basket, and nothing but industrious baling kept us afloat at all. There were always two of us at it, watch and watch about; and we worked till our arms ached.
The Finns, being brought up in a country full of rivers and water-ways, naturally could not swim, and if we two foreigners had only had our two selves to think of, I fancy we should have let that canoe swamp. We had suffered many things at the hands of those carriers, and we should much have liked to have seen them--well, inconvenienced. I know this sounds brutal here from a distance, but we were warmed up to it then, and meant what we said, as other people who have met the Northern Finn on his native marsh will possibly understand. But we had the baggage to consider, and the baggage turned the scale. We made them hug the weather shores, and kept the balers going without intermission.
It was not all plain rowing, even then. Twice the lake-chain broke; the rivers which linked the broader water were too shallow to carry a canoe; and we were forced to make a portage. But if the canoe was small on the water, she was small also on land; and many hands made light work; and we had her out, up, over, and launched in almost as quick time as one could have walked over the intervening necks of land.
