70 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



of low-lying shore in the vague and far-off distance, trend- 

 ing away toward the south, like the trail of an evening 

 cloud. We bend in a southern course between Holy Point 

 (Sviatoi Noss, called in our charts, in rough salt slang, 

 Sweet Nose) and Kanin Cape, towards the Corridor ; a 

 strait of some thirty miles wide, leading from the Polar 

 Ocean into that vast irregular dent in the northern shore 

 of Great Russia, known as the Frozen Sea. 



' The land now lying on our right, as we run through the 

 Corridor, is that of the Lapps ; a country of barren downs 

 and deep black lakes ; over which a few trappers and 

 fishermen roam ; subjects of the Tsar, and followers of the 

 orthodox rite ; but speaking a language of their own, not 

 understood in the Winter Palace, and following a custom 

 of their fathers, not yet recognised in St. Isaac's Church. 

 Lapland is a tangle of rocks and pools ; the rocks very big 

 and broken, the pools very deep and black ; with here and 

 there a valley winding through them, on the slopes of 

 which grows a little reindeer moss. Now and then you 

 come upon a patch of birch and pine. No grain will grow 

 in these Arctic zones, and the food of the natives is game 

 and fish. Ryebread, their only luxury, must be fetched in 

 boats from the towns of Onega and Archangel, standing on 

 the shores of the Frozen Sea, and fed from the warmer 

 provinces in the south. These Lapps are still nomadic, 

 cowering in the winter months in shanties ; sprawling 

 through the summer months in tents. Their shanty is a 

 log pyramid, thatched with moss to keep out wind and 

 sleet ; their tent is of the Comanche type ; a roll of rein- 

 deer skins drawn slackly round a pole, and open at the top 

 to let out the smoke. 



' A Lapp removes his dwelling from place to place, as 

 the seasons come and go ; now herding game on the hill- 

 sides, now whipping the rivers and creeks for fish ; in the 

 warm months roving inland in search of moss and grass ; 

 in the frozen months drawing nearer to the shore in search 

 of seal and cod. The men are equally expert with the 

 bow, their ancient weapon of defence, and with the birding 



