With Russian Pilgrims. Being an account of a sojourn in the White Sea Monastery and a journey by the old trade route from the Arctic Sea to Moscow ... Also an appendix giving a full history of the Solovetsk Obitel, by the Venerable Archimandrite Melétii. With maps and illustrations

Appendix

GIVING A PULL HISTORY OP THE SOLOVETSK OBITEL, BY THE VENERABLE ARCHIMANDRITE MELETII Unitb /IBaps ano 31 lustrations LONDON WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO 2, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. THIS STORY OF TRAVEL AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SUB-ARCTIC RUSSIA IS , HUMBLY AND AFFECTIONATELY Be&icated TO THE JSeloveO /Ubemorg OF ONE OF THE GREATEST OF BISHOPS, THE RIGHT REVEREND JOSEPH BARBER LIGHTFOOT D.D., D.C.L., LATE BISHOP OF DURHAM, WHOSE WILLING AID AND WARM-HEARTED INTEREST ENCOURAGED BOTH THE MAKING OF THIS JOURNEY AMONG "THE ORTHODOX," AND THE RECORDING OF IT IN ITS PRESENT FORM.

Preface

. In the course of an acquaintance, extending over a considerable time, with the Russian educated classes, the writer of the present work has been struck with the knowledge they display of English affairs gene rally, and in particular with their sense of the ignorance we exhibit, both in our writings and public utterances, of the leading outlines and facts of the Russian religion. He endeavours in this book to take the reader just within the fringe of the curtain of the Eastern Church as we find it in Russia. The work must not be understood, however, as being entirely devoted to the religious aspect of Muscovite life. It is mainly a record of a journey over the old trade route of the sixteenth century, long since abandoned, and includes reminiscences, which it is hoped may prove interesting, of various personal experiences, together with items of miscellaneous information collected from different sources on the way. Those who have means and leisure very seldom

PREFACE.

. VIII travel in Russia, or if they do, they more often cling to the few well-beaten tracks where they are sur rounded by an almost Western atmosphere. Not only is the language severely blamed, but the passport system soundly rated. If wise precautions are taken, and courtesy is shown to those to whom it is certainly due, there is no reason why the pleasant experiences in the very heart of Russia which are here recorded should not be the experience of others. The kindly interest of the late Bishop of Durham in all his clergy did was shown in the letter which the present writer bore with him to the White Sea : — " To the Very Reverend the Archimandrite of Solovetsk. " Grace and peace in Christ Jesus, — "The bearer of this letter, the Rev. A. A. Boddy, is a respected priest in my diocese of Durham, for whom I have a great esteem.

He is desirous of visiting your celebrated monastery, and I shall be greatly obliged for any kindness that may be shown to him. — Your very faithful brother in Christ, "J. B. Dunelm." Seal The writer's warmest thanks are due to W. J. B. for his useful suggestions and for revision of some PREFA CE. IX of the proof sheets. He also desires to record with gratitude his obligations to Professor Orloff, now hold ing the Russian Chair at King's College, London, for a careful examination and correction of the Russian orthography. His note on p. xiv. will be found most useful to those who would pronounce Russian words accurately. Acknowledgment is also made here (as has been made in the body of the work as well, and in the Index) of indebtedness to several writers who have been quoted at considerable length.

The history of the White Sea Monastery in Ap pendix B is valuable. The venerable Archimandrite who supplied it to the writer had the monastery docu ments before him when he penned it. All Saints' Vicarage, monkwearmoutii. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. ROUND THE MURMANSKII NOS j II. ICE-BOUND IN THE SEVERNOE m6rE . . .14 III. RAMMING THE FLOES IN THE ARCTIC SEA. . 27 IV. SOLOMBdLA AND ARCHANGEL ■ • • . 39 V. IN THE ARCHANGEL PRISONS .... 50 VI. MONGOLS ON THE WHITE SEA COAST ... 59 VII. THE ARCHIMANDRIT MELETII .... 66 VIII. TO SOLOVETSK THE HOLY 73 IX. ROUND ABOUT THE MONASTERY .... 83 X. THE MONASTERY IN THE CRIMEAN WAR . . 9S XI. FATHER MELETII'S STORY OF THE BOMBARD MENT I06 XII. ENGLISH MEN-OF-WAR ATTACK US . . 115 XIII. THE MEN-OF-WAR VANQUISHED BY THE MEN OF PEACE 127 XIV. THROUGH THE HOLY ISLES . . . .136 XV.

ANZERSK AND GOLGOTHA 1 44 XVI. LAST DAYS BY THE WHITE SEA . . . -155 XVII. A RUSSIAN HIGHWAY I74 XVIII. INCIDENTS OF RIVER LIFE IN THE FAR NORTH iSS XIX. ON THE MALAYA DVINA 1 99 XX. DAYS AT USTYUG THE GREAT .... 2 217 XXI. A SLEEPING SERVANT OF GOD .... 235 b CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XXII. UP THE SUCHONA RIVER 24^ XXIIL VOLOGDA AND YAROSLAV . . . • • ■ 263 XXIV. THE TWO CAPITALS OF MUSCOVY. . . . 284 APPENDICES. A. — THE FIRST VOYAGE FROM ENGLAND TO THE WHITE SEA 296 B.— HISTORY OF THE MONASTERY OF SOLOVETSK . 305 INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Picture Procession .... Frontispiece The Courtyard at Solovetsk So The British Bombardment 128 Narrows on the Suchona 248 Village Swings 254 MAPS. Route Map to and from Solovetsk 10 Isles of the White Sea Monastery NOTE. To insure and facilitate correct phonetic reading of Russian words used in this book, a somewhat novel, but uniform, system of spelling them has been adopted.

Every letter has a peculiar sound of its own : there are neither diphthongs nor mutes, and the letters are to be pronounced as follows : — i. Vowels. a— hard, as in ' father,' ' park,' or as in German, French, Italian, and Spanish, its softer sound, as in 'lad,' 'fat,' being represented by ya. e — as in Continental languages, but with y before it, as in yes ; still softer sound, corresponding to the French in 'mieux,' serieax,' is rendered by yo. i — as in Continental languages, its broader sound, as in ' prEtty,' being represented by y ; when i is found after another vowel, it should be pronounced as y in ' gray,' ' slay ' — viz., very short. o — as in English prefix com or con (' a>?>zmunicate,' ' condition ' ). tt — as hard as in German, and therefore somewhat harder than in 'trath,' ' trae,' its softer equivalent, as in 'ananimous,' 'flaent,' being represented by yu. 2.

Consonants. a — Single. Instead of c having two sounds, it is used whenever the former might have been followed by a, o, u, and s in other cases. g — only as in German, or as in English when followed by a, o, u. h — as in 'have,' * Æatch.' / — exactly as in French. s — should never be pronounced as r, but as in ' serve,' ' slave.' b — Compounds. ch — as in German, or in Scotch word ' loch.' tch — as in 'latch,' 'satchel.' sh — as in 'shilling.' ssh — is used as an approximate expression of the most difficult Russian sound, for which some writers, with no better success, marshal as many as six English letters, shstch. Every single consonant (and compound) can have both hard and soft sounds. To show that the latter is intended, a sign of elimination (') has been used after the consonant. Accentuation being most irregular in Russian, and playing most impor tant part in correct reading, all words, with the exception of monosyllables only, are supplied with one uniform sign of it in the shape of acute (') accent.

There being but one accentuated syllable however long a word may be, the whole force is concentrated on the pronunciation of that particular one, all the others being pronounced much quicker and less distinctly — viz., slurred over. Herein an explanation is to be found of the fact that o unaccentuated sounds somewhat like a, or v at the end (in names, e.g.) like/ (the latter giving occasion to Russians themselves to end their names with ff).

Chapter I. Round The Murmanskii Nos

Leaving Tromso — Midnight photography — First glimpse of the midnight sun — The North Cape — Fish-fodder — Whales and their persecutors — A fortress in the Arctic — Russia ahead — The Murmdnskii coast — Russian fisheries in the Arctic Sea. A PLEASANT sojourn amongst the Lapps was ended, and one evening in May at seven o'clock the engine room bells rang, and the order, " Full steam ahead ! " was telegraphed as we commenced our voyage from Lapland to the White Sea. Churning the green crystal water into foam with our propeller, we passed from Tromso Sund into the Grot Sund. It was a brilliant icy Arctic night, yet every object glittered and sparkled in the frosty sunshine. On we steamed through noble estuaries, hemmed in by heights still clad with spotless snow, though the brilliant sunlight above and a blue sky reflected on the wave lets below gave no wintry aspect to the landscape.

A In another month the weather would be warmer, for it was still early in the year ; in fact, we were one of the first steamers of the season bound for Archangel. But before we proceed farther on our journey, I must not forget a photographer I met whilst at Tromso, Schjetne by name. "Can you photograph the s.s. Highlands by the light of the midnight sun ? " I asked him. " Yes, sir," he replied ; " and that I think would be very amusing." He came on board and asked for the first steersman (first mate). He had evidently thought that I was an officer on board the Highlands. I felt complimented (I always had a weakness for being taken for a sailor). So we moored our photographer in a barge boat in the Sund, and the crew and officers, firemen and engineers, grouped themselves on the forecastle and bridge, and the clerical passenger sat on the upper topsail yard, all keenly interested in the proceedings, for it is not everybody who has possessed or even seen a photograph taken at midnight.

Before we left Tromso a German captain had warned us that we should certainly be frozen up in the Arctic Sea. But no such thoughts troubled me while I was feasting my eyes on the scenes which opened out as we passed from one great fiord to another ; for the gaze involuntarily lingered on the glorious mountain ranges stretching up Ulf's Fiord and Syngen Fiord, and wandered back up the Grot Sund. Nobody who has once seen will ever forget the sight of those glaciers and those snow-fields, containing millions of tons of snow waiting for the never-setting sun to liberate them from the power of the Ice-King. Those of my readers who have seen it will permit me to wax enthusiastic about the midnight sun. At midnight, in bright sunlight, we pass into the Arc tic Ocean, over the dark green waves, under a hazy blue sky.

On our starboard bow is Fuglo, a great rocky island of ungainly shape, upon which broods heavily an umbrella-shaped cloud, submerging its plateau summit, and spreading out over the neighbouring sea. For a moment the island obscured our view, but as we pass out into the Arctic waves we come into full sight of the glorious midnight sun, some five or six dia meters above the horizon. According to the captain's observations taken at the time our latitude was 72° 12' north, and our longitude 20° 25' east of Greenwich ; and the apparent altitude of the lower limb of the sun above the horizon, i° 29'. Europe lay beneath us shrouded in darkness, Sun derland was wrapt in slumber, but all around, with the brilliance of midday, the sun poured its light on the rugged mountains and desolate islands, and made a dazzling, glittering path upon the green Arctic Sea.

"Well," said one of the firemen, shading his eyes as he looked straight at the dazzling sun as it began to rise again, " I would never believe that, though I've heerd about it before ; for I guess I'm one of them that never believes what they don't see ; there's so many queer stories afloat." For as we remained on deck, the sun, which up to midnight had been steadily going down, commenced to ascend in the heavens again, and to begin another day's work without any interval of rest. [" Master Chancellor held on his course towards that vnknowne part of the World, and sailed so farre, that hee came at last to the place where hee found no night at all, but a continuall light and brightnesse of the Sunne shining clearly vpon the huge and mightie Sea."1] About three o'clock in the afternoon (May 28th) we are abeam of the " Murmanskii Nos," the Cape of the Murman (or Norman), as the Muscovite still calls the North Cape of Europe.

It is a gloomy looking spot. Dark frowning slate rocks (1010 feet high), with snow clinging to every available projection, jut out into the grey dull Arctic waves. Masses of icy water tumble over and foam as they hurl themselves ceaselessly against this island out post of Europe on Mager O. (The true North Cape of the continent of Europe is the Nordkyn, which we pass later on.) Concerning this spot John Dee wrote in 1 577 : " The North Cape was first so named by the worthy of eternal good fame and grateful memory, my derely beloved Richard Chancellor, whose diligent, painful and faythful service is known in the Muscovy region." Hakluyt in 1598 wrote as follows: — " Wil it not in all posteritie be as great a renowne 1 Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 274. unto our English nation to have bene the first discoverers of a sea beyond the North Cape (never certainly knowen before) and of a convenient passage into the huge Empire of Russia by the bay of St. Nicholas and the river of Dwina ; as for the Portugales to have found a sea beyond the Cape of Buona Esperanza, and so consequently a passage by sea into the East Indies ; or for the Italians and Spaniards to have discovered unknowen landes so many hundred leagues Westward and Southwestward of the Streits of Gibraltar, and of the pillers of Hercules."

A little west of the North Cape is a long jutting point of land on Mager Island, which without a com pass might easily be mistaken for the Cape, as it stretches out farther, but not towards the true north ; it is called Knivskjær-Odde. Beyond the North Cape the Porsanger Fiord opens out and stretches for miles to the south, a favourite haunt for fish, and especially a species of cod, the Sei (Gadus virens), which is found in great shoals, ruffling the water as with a breeze. That foreland yonder across the fiord is Svcerholt klub, its clayey slate rock rising perpendicularly iooo feet, covered with gulls (Larus tridactylus). Just at the east side, close to the sea, stands the residence of the Landhandler, the most northerly, I should think, of all houses. Whales sometimes disturb his sleep by gambolling in front of his house, and he goes back to bed dreaming that he is the prince of whales.

He tells us that the shoals of cod are so thick that he could not get a line with a pound of lead to sink amongst them, and he caught 500 in a day ; and it is said that he is a very truthful man. The last thing he says is that he kills gulls and sends them off" in barrels for fodder after putting them in a sort of silo. The cattle find this less difficult to swallow than we do. During the dog-watch some sailors began to climb up and roost on the rails of the forecastle deck and flap their wings and crow. " What's that tomfoolery about ? " growled the captain. " Well, ye see, captain," said the boatswain, "it's all along of this yere 'oiler meat. They says they've had so many cocks and hens forrad that their wings are sprouting, and they'd take it kindly if you'd let 'em have some hard salt tack again."

The fowl-fed cows at the Wardhous Fortress will soon be cackling when they supply their milk in the morning on the same principle. At the eastern side of the Svœzholt is the great inlet known as Laxe Fiord, an inland sea shut in by the Spirte-Nyarga and the Corgas-Nyarga, two great penin sulas, and at the northern extremity of the latter is the Nordkyn or Kinner-odde. This is the true North Cape, though the " special midnight sun and North Cape pleasure-trip steamers" do not generally come hither. The scenery is, if anything, grander than that of the cape on Mager O. As we sail past in the evening a smart shower sweeps over its rugged, snow-sprinkled form, but we are in fine weather farther out on the Arctic Ocean. As we get near Vardo we pass a school of whales ; spouts of spray rise in all directions, and now and then a black shiny back appears above the water.

The whale has many enemies. Yonder among the fish a whaling steamer from Vadso has fired a harpoon gun, and has succeeded, as far as we can make out, in harpooning one, and is commencing to tow it to the establishment of Svend Foyn at Vadso, where train oil and manure are manufactured. The sword-fish is another enemy which relentlessly tortures the whale, attacking him from below, while the huge " thresher " flings itself on the top of the whale and attacks the helpless dazed creature from above. While we were among the whales one of these thresher fish kindly performed for us, and leaping in the air, came down upon the whale with its full force, belabouring it with its powerful tail. One day on the Atlantic, when I was chaplain on the Vancouver, a big whale created a sensation. The upper deck was covered with loungers, for it was a lovely summer afternoon, and all the deck chairs had their novel-reading occupants.

He was sleeping in the sunshine, and suddenly he felt his tail tickled by the passing monster, and he leapt bodily out of the water in his anxiety to hurry away. The fashionable crowd gave a shout; novels flew and chairs emptied them selves quickly as every one rushed to the rail ; but the whale dived, and an infant's voice said, " Ma, did the whale jump out of the cabin window ? " The thresher, called also in Russian kosatka (" little scythe "), is a frequenter of the neighbourhood of the Varanger Fiord and the Gulf of Motover and harbour of Novaya Zemlya, between the Fisher Peninsula and the mainland. Apropos of this creature, Tradescant wrote in his diary here : " The 14th daye being Fridaye we saw mani whales, whearat the owner of ship saw one chased with a thresher and called me to see it, but they rose no more."

Dr. Hamel says : " Just one hundred and nineteen years after Tradescant's visit to Russia, viz., 1737, the thresher, as well as the sword-fish, were instanced by Dr. John Brickell, by hearsay, in his Natural History of North Carolina, as deadly enemies to the whale." Dr. Brickell writes : " These fish (the whales) are never found dead or floating to the shore with their tongues in their heads, for it is the opinion of many in these parts that the thresher and sword-fish (which are mortal enemies to the whales wherever they meet them) eat the tongue out of their head as soon as they have killed them ; but whether this be done by the fish above mentioned, or by others of the same voracious nature, I will not take upon me to determine." In 1725 Paul Dudley communicated to the Royal Society the following report : " Our whale men have given this fish (that preys upon the whales) the name of killers.

They go in company by dozens, and set upon a young whale, and will bite him like so many bulldogs; some will lay hold of his tail to keep him from threshing, while others lay hold of his head, and bite and thresh him till the poor creature, being thus heated, lolls out his tongue, and then some of the killers catch hold of his lips, and if possible, of his tongue ; and after they have killed him they chiefly feed upon the tongue and head, but when he begins to putrefy they leave him." Vardo, down yonder in Varanger Fiord, is now a little town of 1300 inhabitants upon a small H-shaped island, containing a fortress which formerly was a terror to the Russians of the North. It is now manned with sixteen soldiers. Wardhuus, as it was called in Chancellor's time, was the meeting-place arranged for the Bona Venture, the Bona Esperanza, and the Bona Confidentia.

Chancellor waited here a week in vain, and then sailed on to the east. Here in those troubled times the Danish ships of war would lurk to catch the merchant-ships coming from the White Sea laden with treasures ; and it was often an anxious time when they were passing this spot in those days, as may be seen by an extract from Tradescant, who was then on a voyage to the Dvina : " The air is cold, the land high, all Hands, with many bayes. Tues day morning (7) one of the King of Denmark's men-of war demanded of us to come on board to show our pase, but we ansered that our boat was stowed, we could not ; beside, we had an Inglish Ambassador on board, which he presentlie desisted from his demand. Our consort also tould him in like sort that he had a Russ Ambassa dor aboard. Also in his company we found the Com panye's other shepe who had bin from her port from Hamborow 3 weeks with other two in her company, also two Hollanders, who he caused their boats to come abord.

We at that time had been out of England 5 weeks lacking a day. The man-of-war laye to waft or watter the fishermen that fishe upon that coast of Ward house whear the King hathe a castell withe great com mand of Lapland, whear many Danes live with the Laps, which, if I might have the whole Kingdom to be bound to live there, I had rather be a portter in London, for the snow is never of the ground wholly. The King's man-of-war gave us a peece or gun, which we ansered with another, and so parted, being now short of Wardhouse 3 leagues." A little farther down the Varanger Fiord stands Vadso, with about 1500 inhabitants, strong in smells and the whaling business. This is the terminus of the fiord journey for the steamers from Hamburg, which come weekly up the whole coast of Norway. Vads O means " water island," and formerly the town was on the island ; now it is on the mainland opposite to Water Island.

We leave Norway now behind us, and early next morning we see the cold Murmanskii coast on the K61a peninsula of Russian Lapland. My last sight of Russia had been the fast receding heights of Inkerman as our vessel was cleaving the dark waters of the Black Sea bound for the Bosphorus, and now from the Arctic Ocean I look on the low hills of the Rybatchii Poluos trov (the Fisher Peninsula) still retaining their winter coat of snow. The Russian boundary had been finally rectified in 1826, and the Pasvig Reka was henceforth the boundary line. But Russia wished for a square verst of Swedish land just towards this river, for on it had stood the shrine and monastery of Boris and Gieb, erected by Tri'fon, the Muscovite apostle to the Lapps. This concession was made by the Swedes, though with the utmost unwillingness ; more recently the Petch^nskaya Obitel has been revived by a mission from Solovetsk.

We pass the north-east corner of the Fisher Penin sula, where is the small fisher town of Sibtnavelok, and then we are opposite the entrance to the Kola Fiord, west of Kildin Island. Up yonder Kola Fiord, in the war-time of 1854, steamed, it is said, the Miranda in the bright summer time, and when she was within sight of the white church of Peter the Great and the grey houses, she sent some sailors ashore for water, &c. The patriotic Karelians or some local officials shot our men. Then the guns of the Miranda (which belched forth fire and shot at Solovetskii monastery), after twenty-four hours' grace, wrecked a hundred houses, two churches, one old battery, and the Government stores of corn and salt. The natives have never forgotten this occurrence. Two hundred years before (in 1 5 56) came Burroughs, searching for Sir Hugh Willoughby and his ship, which had been wrecked three years previously near Svyatoi Nos, a hundred miles to the east.

He found the fishing industry here very active, some thirty lodfies lying in the bay destined for walrus hunting in Novaya Zemlya. WITH RUSSIAN PILGRIMS. 12 Every year from these northern towns sail small vessels for Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, where the crews spend the summer months in hunting reindeer and fishing for seal and walrus, mostly using some wealthier man's boat, net, and implements, and having to give him the lion's share of results on returning. The men do not often live here in the winter, but tramp from their homes in the far interior. We sat down to our comfortable dinner on the s.s. Highlands as we skirted along the Murmanian coast in its raiment of snow. Though it is called Lapland, there are in the whole peninsula only 2214 Lapps to 4970 Russians and 1950 Karelians ; they thus form only one-third of the population.

We passed Malyi Ole'nii, the little island beyond Kildin, then sighted Tiriberskii Point and Opasova fishing-station, and Gavrilov or Gabriel's Town. In a few weeks now these deserted and inhospitable regions will be alive with Norwegian and Russian fishermen. This is the middle fishing district, extending from Kola Fiord to Sem Ostrovov. The western district is beyond the Fisher Peninsula, and the K61a district is around K61a Bay and the Fisher Peninsula, while the fourth or eastern district extends from Seven Islands to Cape Sweetnose (Svyatoi Nos — the Holy Cape). They fish for the Greenland shark, haddock, halibut, flounder, cod, &c. The latter is not found beyond Holy Cape, as it is too cold, but the herring boldly pushes on to the White Sea and the mouths of the Petchora, the Ob', and the Yenesei.

The air gets colder and colder, the deck becomes slippery, one's breath comes out of one's mouth in white puffs of vapour, and the steam-winch on the forecastle deck freezes up. On we go through the Polar Sea, and we wonder if after all we shall be able to double the Holy Cape. Thick jerseys, mittens, double woollen socks, and great ulsters are now in requisition, and we stamp up and down the deck to promote circulation, and specu late vainly as to how it fares with the fisher-folk of Gavrilov yonder, who snare the Greenland shark in winter time from the edge of the ice. I might here acknowledge my indebtedness in this and some subsequent chapters to Dr. Hamel's " Early Voyages to Russia," Rae's "White Sea Peninsula," Dr. Friis' " Summer in Finmark and North Karelia," and Mackenzie Wallace's most thorough book, so well deserving its title, " Russia."

Chapter II. Ice-bound In The Severnoe

M6RE. Ice ahead — Seven Islands — Nokuev Island— Frozen heroes in 1554 — Holy Cape — Letter-writing on an iceberg — Amateur sealing — Maksim Jdsifovitch Loyushkin — The Tchisov — Sailings of the White Sea coasting steamers. THERE is something exciting in the cry from the look out at the bows of " Ice ahead ! " The news speedily travels round the ship, and all turn out. I have seen it produce great improprieties of conduct when in the North Atlantic : a hundred saloon passengers have been solemnly going through a dinner of many courses on a great "liner," and some one has inconsiderately remarked in a loud voice, "There are some icebergs in sight." Knives and forks and manners have all been dropped, and there has been a scamper upon deck, whilst seasoned travellers only have continued the repast to great advantage.

" Ice ahead ! " brought me out of my bunk that Arctic midnight, and I was on deck as soon as I could get into my clothes. How bitterly cold it was, every drop of moisture freezing on deck in this polar atmosphere. Nor had we any compensation, for on this occasion the midnight sun was shrouded by heavy leaden clouds. ICE-BOUND IN THE SEVERNOE MORE. 15 We were now off Sem Ostrovov — Seven Islands : Charlov, Litskii, Vishnyak, Zelenets, Malyi Zelenets, Kuvshi'n, and Kosogory. These islands, spread out on the Murman coast for eight miles or so, are covered with a deep mantle of snow, the dazzling reflection from which lit up the sombre clouds hovering over Russian Lapland. Near us in the slate-coloured water were floating detached pieces of ice of considerable thickness, white, and here and there brilliant green, whilst ahead we could see what appeared to be an impenetrable barrier of white ice reaching far across our path, while to the north the horizon was studded with what we took at first to be small icebergs.

As we drew nearer to the pack we could see an opening. " Port a little ! " sung out the captain. " Ay, ay, sir ! " and bringing her round, we went right through the masses of strange-shaped ice without a collision. It was bitterly cold on the bridge, especially when suddenly turning out of a snug bunk. Such was evi dently the opinion of the captain, for he remarked, " 1 think your friend Mr. Rae must have had pretty cold lodgings if he pitched his tent near the Seven Islands." He then went on to tell me about an English pilot on the Yang-tsi-kiang who had a strange remedy for cold. He was a teetotaller, and one freezing night (sometimes 300 of frost were registered) he had to be on the bridge for twelve hours. The captain (who knew him to be a teetotaller) said, " I suppose I cannot offer you anything, pilot ?