128 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
his offering on the lonely coast. “When the peril is sharp, 
the whole ship’s crew will land, cut down and carve tall 
trees, and set up a memorial with names and dates. All 
round the margins of the Frozen Sea these pious witnesses 
abound ; and they are most of all numerous on the rocks 
and banks of the Holy Isles. Each cross erected is the 
record of a storm. ee 
‘Climbing up the river you come upon fleets of rafts and 
praams, on which you may observe some part of the native 
life. The rafts are floats of timber—pine logs, lashed 
together with twigs of willow, capped with a tent of planks 
in which the owner sleeps, while his woodmen lie about 
in the open air when they are not paddling the raft and 
guiding it down the stream. These rafts come down the 
Dvina and its feeders for a thousand miles, Cut in the 
great forests of Vologda and Nijni Konetz, the pines are 
dragged to the water-side, and knitted by rude hands into 
these broad, floating masses. At the towns more sturdy 
helpers can be hired for nothing; many of the poor 
peasants being anxious to get down the river on their way 
to the shrines of Solovetsk For a passage on the raft 
these pilgrims take a turn at the oar, and help the owners 
to guide her through the shoals. 
‘In the praams the life is a little less bleak and rough 
than it is on board the rafts. In form the praam is like 
the toy called a “ Noah’s Ark ;” a huge hull of coarse pine 
logs, rivetted and clamped with iron, covered by a peaked 
planked roof. A big one will cost from 600 to 700 roubles 
(the rouble may be reckoned for the moment as half-a- 
crown), and will carry from 600 to 800 tons of oats and 
rye.- A small section of the praam is boarded off to be 
used as a room. Some bits of pine are shaped into a stool, 
a table, and a shelf. From the roof-beam swings an iron 
pot, in which the boatmen cook their food while they are 
out on the open stream, and at other times—that is to say, 
when they are lying in port—no fire is allowed on board, 
not even a pipe is lighted, and the watermen’s victuals 
must be cooked on shor-. Four or five logs lashed together 
