128 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



his offering on the lonely coast. When the peril is sharp, 

 the whole ship's crew will land, cut down and carve tall 

 trees, and set up a memorial with names and dates. All 

 round the margins of the Frozen Sea these pious witnesses 

 abound ; and they are most of all numerous on the rocks 

 and banks of the Holy Isles. Each cross erected is the 

 record of a storm 



' Climbing up the river you come upon fleets of rafts and 

 praams, on which you may observe some part of the native 

 life. The rafts are floats of timber pine logs, lashed 

 together with twigs of willow, capped with a tent of planks 

 in which the owner sleeps, while his woodmen lie about 

 in the open air when they are not paddling the raft and 

 guiding it down the stream. These rafts come down the 

 Dvina and its feeders for a thousand miles. Cut in the 

 great forests of Vologda and Nijni Konetz, the pines are 

 dragged to the water-side, and knitted by rude hands into 

 these broad, floating masses. At the towns more sturdy 

 helpers can be hired for nothing; many of the poor 

 peasants being anxious to get down the river on their way 

 to the shrines of Solovetsk For a passage on the raft 

 these pilgrims take a turn at the oar, and help the owners 

 to guide her through the shoals. 



' In the praams the life is a little less bleak and rough 

 than it is on board the rafts. In form the praam is like 

 the toy called a " Noah's Ark ;" a huge hull of coarse pine 

 logs, ri vetted and clamped with iron, covered by a peaked 

 planked roof. A big one will cost from 600 to 700 roubles 

 (the rouble may be reckoned for the moment as half-a- 

 crown), and will carry from 600 to 800 tons of oats and 

 rye. A small section of the praam is boarded off to be 

 used as a room. Some bits of pine are shaped into a stool, 

 a table, and a shelf. From the roof-beam swings an iron 

 pot, in which the boatmen cook their food while they are 

 out on the open stream, and at other times that is to say, 

 when they are lying in port no fire is allowed on board, 

 not even a pipe is lighted, and the watermen's victuals 

 must be cooked on shor j. Four or five logs lashed together 



