Northern Husbandry

Near SASTMOLA I came across ‘Acer’ [maple] and ‘Filix foemina, ramosa’ [buckler fern].6

The road between GJÖLBOL and Hvisbofjärd runs down along the edge of the sea. The grass was extraordinarily tall here and all kinds of interesting plants grew among it: ‘Ribes insipida’ [Mountain Currant] was very abundant. (‘Opulus’ [Guelder Rose] and ‘Xylosteum’ [Fly Honeysuckle] reappeared for the first time.) NB. the shrub with blackish brown berries that Mr. Höjer said grew out on the islets was possibly ‘Xylosteum’ as the leaves were certainly like bird-cherry. ‘Rubus saxatilis alp.’ [Stone Bramble] very abundant; it was pleasant to see ‘Lupulus sativ.’ [Hop] growing wild and twining itself prettily around aspen trees etc. ‘Hepatica’ together with ‘Cracca alis dentatis, floribus striatis’ [Wood Vetch] and ‘Orobus vernalis’ [Spring Pea] were also first seen here. The ‘Gramen panicul. panicula compressa in spicae formam’ [Reed Canary-grass] that is used for cleaning out tobacco pipes was growing here very abundantly and taller than me; also ‘Cyperus’ [White Beak-sedge] in the marshy ground, and plenty of ‘Iris’.

The road has been so close to the sea almost the whole way from Kemi that it has been possible to see the water through the forest.

29th. Michaelmas Day – and I was travelling the whole day.

When a Finn shoots a bear he immediately runs to one side, for the bear rushes at the smoke unless the shot has killed it outright. Thus the hunter evades it.

The farmers near the skerries judge the coming weather conditions from the crows: crows love boggy ground and always fly to it in the evening in the direction that the wind will come from the following morning so that they will not have the wind against them then.

The churchyard at ULVILA is full of skulls; I counted 40 of them in a heap. The church is very old-fashioned.

It was so hot when I went into a cabin that my nose could have been burnt off, yet the people there were perfectly happy and the boys were even jumping around on the benches in fur-coats. The stove is built like those in Småland bath-houses but there were stones on top of it in the form of a wall up to the height of a man. The old women spin yarn on their naked thighs and are naked to the navel – indeed, often completely naked.

There is a river between HYVELӒ and TATTARA which is navigable for the most part and said to be 9 fathoms deep. There is a ferry there. 3 miles south of here, right by the highway and between 2 small bridges that lie close together, there was a sandhill of very fine sand.

30th. Arrived in the evening in the town of ÅBO, which is the same size as Örebro, well-built but often destroyed by the enemy and often burned down by accident – which would be less likely to happen if there were fewer wooden cabins.

The stoves I saw were not particularly tall. They were open in the sense that loose stones lie on top of one another above the opening and these trap the heat and thus augment the warmth.

Finnish “lura” is made like any other drink except that it is not boiled. Red-hot stones are thrown into it instead, and it is from this that it gets its purgative effect, which is similar to that of iron.

Black, long; long rat with white lower lip, catches birds in trees, in water, rolls in a ball, bites. 4 prominent teeth. Finnish mink.

A mineral spring about 1/2 mile from the town, opened up by Tillands, older than Medevi.7 It flows so vigorously that a citizen of the town built a mill to which he leads its water – though it does not drive it the whole time.

A mine has been opened outside the town though it is not yet producing properly. It contains iron, mixed with a little pyrites here and there; the rock is black mica; right by the town.

The library is pitiful; 2 academies, one next to the other.