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 
eider. 
Many of my readers will know Tromsé and its sur- 
roundings far better than J, and can skip this next bit, 
which I simply take straight out of my journal as it 
stands. 
‘Tromsé, 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. 
‘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 
