12 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



and came right along till they crossed the bows of our 

 boat. The odd bird was a grand and lovely drake king 

 cider. 



Many of my readers will know Tromso and its sur- 

 roundings far better than I, and can skip this next bit, 

 which I simply take straight out of my journal as it 

 stands. 



' Tromso, very differently from all the miserable snow 

 pictures I have seen of it, is now very bright and pretty 

 and smothered in bunting. This year it celebrates its 

 hundredth anniversary. The houses are of wood, the 

 more important with red painted roofs, the smaller roofed 

 with turf, overlying a sheeting of birch-bark. This 

 turf bears a flourishing crop of grasses. The roads 

 are very good, with flagged and well-laid pavements. 

 All along the water-front are warehouses built on piles. 

 To the west of the island of the town rise birch-covered 

 hills. Cross currents here run very strongly ; Saxon 

 swinging into a new position about every half hour. 



1 Powys and I crossed with Hyland and the two dogs 

 to the east side, and landed by a stone jetty where is the 

 holding of a most intelligent fisher-farmer, who, as he tells 

 me, has decided to stay at home this summer, after twenty 

 consecutive visits to Spitzbergen. 



'We climbed a rocky hill (1400 feet according to a 

 native) covered on its lower slopes with birch, alder and 

 willow, and higher with another species, as it seemed, of 

 willow with very broad leaves. In a bare rock many 



