70 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
of low-lying shore in the vague and far-off distance, trend- 
ing away toward the south, like the trail of an evening 
cloud. We bend in a southern course between Holy Point 
(Sviatoi Noss, called in our charts, in rough salt slang, 
Sweet Nose) and Kanin Cape, towards the Corridor; a 
strait of some thirty miles wide, leading from the Polar 
Ocean into that vast irregular dent in the northern shore 
of Great Russia, known as the Frozen Sea. 
‘The land now lying on our right, as we run through the 
Corridor, is that of the Lapps; a country of barren downs 
and deep black lakes; over which a few trappers and 
fishermen roam ; subjects of the Tsar, and followers of the 
orthodox rite; but speaking a language of their own, not 
understood in the Winter Palace, and following a custom 
of their fathers, not yet recognised in St. Isaac’s Church. 
Lapland is a tangle of rocks and pools; the rocks very big 
and broken, the pools very deep and black ; with here and 
there a valley winding through them, on the slopes of 
- which grows a little reindeer moss. Now and then you 
come upon a patch of birch and pine. No grain will grow 
in these Arctic zones, and the food of the natives is game 
and fish. Ryebread, their only luxury, must be fetched in 
boats from the towns of Onega and Archangel, standing on 
the shores of the Frozen Sea, and fed from the warmer 
provinces in the south. These Lapps are still nomadic, 
cowering in the winter months in shanties; sprawling 
through the summer months in tents. Their shanty is a 
log pyramid, thatched with moss to keep out wind and 
sleet ; their tent is of the Comanche type; a roll of rein- 
deer skins drawn slackly round a pole, and open at the top 
to let out the smoke, 
‘A Lapp removes his dwelling from place to place, as 
the seasons come and go; now herding game on the hill- 
sides, now whipping the rivers and creeks for fish ; in the 
warm months roving inland in search of moss and grass; 
in the frozen months drawing nearer to the shore in search 
of seal and cod. The men are equally expert with the 
bow, their ancient weapon of defence, and with the birding 
