WINTER BATH IN FINLAND.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9475, 18 June 1909, Page 3

WINTER BATH IN FINLAND.

lu the course of an article on p' Liie in Northernmost Finland,” whioh he contributes to the current number of “Travel and Exploration,’ Mr Knud Rasmussen, the Danish ex- ' plorer, describes the wav in which the Finnish peasants take a bath in winter: — , „ . We pulled off onr clothes inside, in the general room, and stalked off—Guolna. an old ptarmigan hunter, Kuhmeneu, and I—into the Bijow and a temperature of *l6 degrees below zero. A light'breeze was blowing from the north, and the icy wind was like a cold suit of mail round pur naked bodies. The bathroom was a hundred yards or so so away from the house. It was a little shed of rough boards, and had a stove in it built into the wall with stones. A huge fire was burning, aud when we threw cold water on the stones there rose from them clouds of hot steam that made us gasp tor breath. Along [the wall were raised shelves on whioh we could lie and pant, while the snow dripped down on our steaming bodies,., The temperature was 145 degrees. Suddenly Guolna sprang up, flung the door wide open, aud leaped out into'the snow. I was drowsy with the heat, and half fancied some fman had jumped over a precipice. What was happening to Qnolna? I oonld not see. A’rush of cold air filled the room and'almost took my breath away. Then 1,.t00, sprang up and ran one. And behold, there was Guolna swimming vigorously in the snow, like a white whale cutting through the water. “Hob ho!” he shouted j “come on! come on!” After lying half an hoar *on our shelves in ;the boiling heat inside, with muscles relaxed, we now stood naked in a temperature of 36 degrees below zero. Never, in my whole life, have I experienced such a delightful muscular sensation as when, urged by a frolicsome whim, I made off bare-footed and naked over the frozen fields of snow. Guolna laughed and followed, and like two, swift Greek runners, we dashed on through the oold and dark. The anew beneath onr feet did not feel oold at all, and we ran, under the Northern Lights, like two ghosts, scarcely touching the ground. We took a leap upwards, and with outstretched arm ploughed side by side into a huge freshly-formed snowdrift. We swam, langhing, ont of snow, and even before wb were fully cool again found ourselves back in the bathroom, where old Knhmenen was keeping up fire and steam. We lay down on onr shelves again . for a few minutes, robbed the perspiration from our bodies with snow, and the bath was over.