i8 BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 



with flour and other stores for sale to the peasants. A telegraph 

 station has recently been established here, from Avhich messages could 

 be despatched to Norway, Archangel, and intervening stations. 



After interviewing two or three young monks, and finding that none 

 of them understood anything besides Russian and Finnish, we went 

 to the telegraph station ; here a pleasant young fellow spoke a mixture 

 of High and Low German combined with Norwegian — a complete 

 jumble. However, we learnt from him that horses and carriages could 

 be obtained to take us to the upper and principal monastery, 2 5 versts 

 ( 1 7 miles) distant. We also found a Norwegian who had been engaged 

 here the last two years as head boat-builder, and was turning out some 

 very good work, dilapidated old caricature of a man though he was. 



A walk of two miles through much snow and water brought us 

 to the original monastery founded by Saint Triphon. On the way 

 we passed a large brick-kiln belonging to the monks; two sizes of 

 bricks were being made, both differing from those usual in England. 

 The clay was obtained from a large glacial deposit close to, which had 

 been exposed by a small river, a tributary of the Pechenga. Great 

 stacks of timber surrounded the kiln, the produce of some acres of 

 well- wooded country. 



At the time of our visit the principal building appeared to be 

 empty. It was a well-constructed house, built up of large pine trees 

 laid horizontally. One or two monks were living in a small cottage 

 near. Two churches completed the group, the first a small low 

 building of considerable age, and the second a larger one, square, with 

 octagonal roof covered with sheet-metal painted green. It was here 

 we first discovered what an absolute fraud our pilot was as a Russian 

 interpreter, the work for which he had been principally engaged. He 

 knew very little more Russian than we did, and generally spoke to the 

 natives in English ! for his brain found considerable difficulty in sorting 

 out the various odds and ends of languages he had acquired. A 

 pleasant Russian, clad only in shirt and trousers in spite of the heavy 

 rain, showed us the churches ; but of course we could learn nothing 



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