EXPORTS BY ARCHANGEL AND THE WHITE SBA. 129 
serve them for a launch, by means of which they can 
easily paddle to the bank. 
_ ‘Like the rafts, the praams take on board a great many 
pilgrims from the upper country; giving them a free pas- 
sage down, with a supply of tea and black bread as rations, 
in return for their labour at the paddle and the oar. Not 
much labour is required, for the praam floats down with 
the stream. Arrived at Solaubola, she empties her cargo 
of oats into the foreign ships (most of them bound for the 
Forth, the Tyne, and the Thames); and then she is 
moored to the bank, cut up, and sold. Some of her logs 
may be used again for building sheds, the rest is of little 
use except for the kitchen and the stove.’ 
‘Like all great rivers, says Mr Dixon, ‘the Dwina has 
thrown up a delta of isles and islets near her mouth, 
through which she pours her flood into the sea by a dozen 
arms. None of these dozen arms can now be laid down as 
her main entrance; for the river is more capricious than 
the sea; so that a skipper who leaves her by one outlet in 
August, may have to enter by another when he comes back 
to her in June,’ 
Interesting, amusing, and saddening narratives are 
given relative to the arm by which he entered the river, 
some of them illustrative of the difficulties of dealing with 
provincial authorities in Russia, both in relation to trade 
and to matters of perhaps more importance; and he goes 
on to say :— 
‘In catching a first glimpse of the city of Archangel, 
you are struck by the forest of domes and spires; the 
domes all colour and the spires all gold. . . . On 
feeling for the river-side a captain finds uo quay, no dock, 
no landing-pier, no stair. He brings to as he can, and 
drags his boat into position with a pole. 4 
Archangel is not a port and city in the sense in which 
Hamburg and Hull are ports and cities, with clusters of 
docks and sheds, with shops and waggons and a busy 
private trade. Archangel is a camp of shanties, heaped 
K 
