In this Estonian village the ice-cream man looked as if he had just been scrubbed by a Swedish bath lady. He carefully picked up the biscuit with a pair of tongs, dropped it into a paper cone, and then proceeded to fill it up with ice-cream. Thus, when it was handed to me, it had not been touched by human fingers, however clean. Of course, I don't claim that the method of selling ice-cream is indicative of the standard of a country's education and culture. But I am quite certain that any Estonian peasant would be profoundly shocked if he could see some of our sales methods in England, where comestibles are freely handled by dirty paws.
Cleanliness is a passion in Estonia.
They did tell me the number of British visitors in a year. I forget the exact figure, but it was under a thousand. An occasional cruising liner touches at Tallinn, but the number of real tourists is absurdly small. Many people are put off by the difficulty of the language. Make no mistake about it, Estonian is difficult-Russian and Polish are comparatively simple when compared to this strange tongue.