TRADE OF IIAMMERFEST. 31 



looks, and I suppose is, big enough to contain the 

 entire population of the place ; the latter amounts 

 to about 1300, who mostly live in miserable, rot- 

 ten-looking wooden huts, although the consuls and 

 some few of the principal merchants have excellent 

 and well-built houses. 



This was quite the busy season here, and a good 

 deal of trade appeared to be going on, as the har- 

 bor was full of small Russian luggers and other 

 coasting craft. This trade consists chiefly in the 

 exportation of dried fish and walrus-skins to Arch- 

 angel and the other ports on the White Sea ; get- 

 ting from thence, in return, rye meal, salt beef, tar, 

 hemp, and cordage. They also export seal and wal- 

 rus oil, fish oil, and seal-skins to Newcastle and 

 Hamburg, in return for cutlery, hardware, stone- 

 ware, dry goods, etc. 



Hammerfest, in addition to the honor of being 

 the most northerly town in the world, may assur- 

 edly lay claim to another superlative, viz., that of 

 being the most unsavory place in the universe. 

 The immense quantity of cod, ling, and seythe or 

 coalfish, which are caught on the coast of Finmar- 

 ken, are cured without salt, being merely beheaded 

 and gutted, and laid down on the rocks or hung up 

 on hurdles to dry. There were a great many acres 

 of fish undergoing this process in and around Ham- 

 merfest at the time of our visit, and the whole at- 

 mosphere was redolent of semi-putrid fish in conse- 

 quence. 



