18 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



harbour. Boats and steamers crowded the place, ponies 

 were beine hoisted on to decks, fish cut up and packed, 

 and over all wheeled kittiwakes, herring gulls and lesser 

 black-backs in hundreds. 



' They do not up here use the words 'keks,' but name 

 their boats by the number of oars they carry ; as 

 femboring (5-oared), ottring (8-oared, though now they 

 have but four oars), sekring, and so on. The boats are 

 of the same light and graceful cut as those lower down. 

 The gunwale stroke — splayed out so as to act as a bilge 

 chock — is always painted some bright colour, red, yellow, 

 blue or green, the gunwale itself being invariably 

 white. The rest of the boat is of simple varnished pine. 

 The femboring are the largest boats, and carry besides 

 the ' raaseil ' (square sail) a fore and aft sail, the ' sne-seil,' 

 and have in the stern a cabin roofed with pine or birch 

 bark. At the present time there are a thousand of these 

 boats in Vardo. 



Vardo also has one hundred and twenty boats of a 

 larger size called ' Kobrumsbots ' — boats containing tanks 

 for ' kobs ' or seals. 



An incredible number of codfish are taken in these 

 waters. Indeed, Vardo is chiefly a huge codfish drying 

 ground. There are miles of split fish drying on rails. 

 The current price this summer of a fresh cod, without 

 head or liver, was 10 ore, i.e. one penny. A year or two 

 asfO it was worth twice as much. 



Mr. Carl Holmboe, the British Vice-Consul, very 



