58 BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 



the requirements of the inhabitants. The southern part of the 

 peninsula consists of low-lying tundra and marshes interspersed with 

 numbers of lakes and tarns. At the narrowest part of the peninsula, 

 south of Cape Konushin, boats could at one time proceed up the 

 Chizha river to Lake Oboodna and thence down the Chesha river 

 into Cheshskaya bay on the east coast, a distance of twenty-five miles ; 

 but this is now impracticable, as the upper waters have silted up and 

 become a marsh. In a collection of Voyages published in 1694 by 

 Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, there is a chart of the Polar 

 Regions as then known, in which a wide channel is depicted between 

 the White Sea and Cheshskaya bay, where these rivers now run, thus 

 making Kanin into an island. Although the chart shows considerable 

 knowledge of the White Sea district, I do not advance this as a proof 

 of how much the land has risen here since the seventeenth century ! 

 It is rather probably a curious instance of a much more ancient state 

 of things having been accidentally recorded. The country gradually 

 rises north of the Kiya river, and culminates in a range of hills 400 

 to 500 feet high occupying most of the northern part of the peninsula. 

 The Samoyeds migrate with their reindeer to these hills every summer 

 to avoid the mosquitoes, which are then unbearable in the marshy 

 lowlands. There are no reliable charts of these coasts; rocks and 

 shoals — often miles from land — cause all ships to give them a wide 

 berth, and the ice rarely leaves them before midsummer. 



We left England May 9 th, and after a quiet voyage over the 

 North Sea — marred only by occasional performances on the fog-horn 

 — reached Stavanger on the iith and Throndhjem on the 13 th. 

 Here we were detained two days as usual, for Wilson's boats do not 

 correspond with those for the north, so that it was the 19th before 

 we arrived at Tromso. We found the little Expres waiting for us, 

 with Captain Hansen again in command. But all was not bright, for 

 the season, although not so dreadful as 1899, was a bad one, and the 

 hills were covered with snow down to the sea. The woods in Troms- 

 dalen were difficult to walk in, having more than a foot of snow on 



