THROUGH FINLAND. 
2ig 
get nothing but herrings and milk, they Ihould bring you water 
in a filver veflel of the value of fifty or fixty rix dollars. The 
•women are warmly clad; above their clothes they wear a linen 
fhift, which gives them the air of being in a fort of undrefs, and 
produces an odd though not difagreeable fancy. The infide of the 
houfe is always warm, and indeed too much fo for one who 
comes out of the external air, and is not accuftomed to that tem¬ 
perature. The peafants remain in the houfe conflantly in their 
fhirt fleeves, without a coat, and with but a fingle waiftcoat ; they 
frequently go abroad in the fame drefs, without dread either of 
rheumatifm or fever. We fhall fee the reafon of this when we 
come to fpeak of their baths. The Finlanders, who accompany 
travellers behind their fledges, are generally drefled in a kind of 
fliort coat made of a calf’s-fkin, or in a woollen fliirt, faftened 
round the middle with a girdle. They pull over their boots 
coarfe woollen {lockings, which have the double advantage of 
keeping them warm, and preventing them from flipping on the 
ice. 
The interior of the peafants’ houfe prefents a picture of con- 
fiderable intereft. The women are occupied in teafing or fpinning 
wool for their clothing, the men in cutting faggots, making nets, 
and mending or conftrudling their fledges. 
We met at Mamola with a blind old man, having his fiddle 
under his arm, furrounded by a crowd of boys and girls. There 
was fomething refpedlable in his appearance; his forehead was 
bald, a long beard defeended from his chin, white as fnow r , and 
F f 2 covered 
