CHAP. XV. TIMBER RAFTS. 175 



together with willows and hazel boughs. These' rafts are 

 raanned by a large- crew, some of whom help to steer it down 

 the current with oars and poles, and others are hired for the 

 season to assist in loading the ships at Alexievka. Many of 

 the men bring their wives with them to cook for the party ; 

 sleeping-huts are erected on the raft, and it becomes to all 

 intents and purposes a little floating village, which is fre- 

 quently three months in making the voyage down the river. 

 Marriages have been known to take place on these rafts; 

 occasionally a funeral has to be performed ; and sometimes 

 all hands are engaged in helping to keep the raft from 

 ruuning ashore or grounding on a sandbank. Sometimes in 

 stormy weather it is necessary to moor the raft under the lee 

 of an islander a promontory, to avoid the danger of having it 

 broken up by the violence of the waves. With the greatest 

 care in the world, this will sometimes happen. The Russian 

 has a good deal of the fatal facility to blunder which charac- 

 terises the Englishman, and shiploads of stranded logs of 

 larch are strewed on the islands of the delta, and on the 

 shores of the lagoon of this great river. 



When we landed on the island of Alexievka it was a 

 rapidly drying-up willow swamp of perhaps half-a-dozen 

 square miles, some six feet above the level of the Petchora, 

 which swept past it with a rapid current. In some places the 

 willow swamp was impenetrable, in others bare grassy oases 

 ■varied the flat landscape, and there were one or two larger 

 lakes on the island. During the floods which accompanied 

 the breaking-up of the ice, the whole of the island was under 

 water, and the men were busily clearing away the mud 



