A Cruise on the S. V. Fectis. 221 



A Cruise on the S.Y. ''Vectis." 



By W. Shore Baily. 

 (Continued from page i/§.) 



Tori^hatten Island is a mountain rising out of the sea with 

 a very curious hole through its top. It took us about an hour to 

 climb to this, but we were rewarded for our exertions by a 

 splendid panoramic view. There were a few native women a- 

 waiting us with bread and goat milk for sale, they also had a 

 few simple curios and some Eider-duck eggs, the latter evident- 

 ly here an article of commerce. The only birds I noticed on the 

 Island, besides a few gulls, were some Lapland Buntings, which 

 looked as if they might have been nesting near. Early next 

 morning we found ourselves at Narvik. This is the terminus of 

 what was at that time the most northerly railway in the world. 

 Since the war the Russians have built one for military purposes 

 at a still higher latitude. The Xarvik railway was built to carry 

 the ore from some important iron mines, just inside the Swedish 

 frontier. After breakfast a trip was arranged to the border by 

 this railway. My recollection of this is that it was an intensely 

 cold expedition, as at the latter end of the journey snow was 

 falling heavily. On the Swedish frontier the weather brightened. 

 Here there is a series of large lakes. On one of these I noticed 

 a flock of Sandpipers flying, but was too far away to indentify 

 them. Possibly they w'ere Little Stints or Curlew Sandpipers, 

 both of which are said to nest in these latitudes. I also saw with 

 some Lapland Buntings some birds I took to be Snow Buntings. 

 The botanists amongst our party were in their element here. We 

 were told that forty different varieties of alpine plants could be 

 collected within a mile of the railway station. All the next day 

 we steamed through the fjords, passing close to the Lofoten 

 Islands, the centre of an important codfishing industry. 



Amongst the splendid mountain scenery, our attention 

 was called to a range called the Seven Sisters, seven peaks of 

 apparently about equal altitude adjoining each other. Numbers 

 of Gulls were now again follow'ing the ship, and amongst them 

 we noticed a few of the large White-winged Burgomasters, a 

 Gull that sometimes visits the English coast in hard weather. We 

 also saw two or three family parties of the Great Northern Diver 



