BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 85 



6 lbs. for I rouble 70 copeck, and two cakes of white bread 10 inches 

 diameter and 2 J inches thick, flavoured with aniseed and a little 

 peppermint ! the only kind available except black rye-bread, for which 

 he paid fivepence each. A line of mail steamers has recently been 

 established between this coast and Archangel which enables the fisher- 

 men to send their catch to market while fresh, and thus obtain a 

 better price for it. At present they are receiving fifteen roubles per 

 pood (equal to lo^d. per lb.) for salmon in Archangel. 



While Kjeldsen was at Lutni he saw one of our tents suddenly 

 collapse ! and as we descended the hill after our walk we also realised 

 one was prostrate ; so we hurried down, to find one end of the top pole 

 smashed off and both the other poles badly damaged. Being made of 

 bamboo, and three or four years old, I suppose the strain of the gale 

 had been too much for them ; but I believe the disaster was partly 

 caused by the upright poles being gradually forced into the soft ground, 

 and thus leaving the ropes too slack ; so afterwards we always put 

 a piece of board under them to prevent their sinking. On our arrival 

 Kjeldsen was already busy repairing damages, and few but a Norwegian 

 could have done it with an axe and knife as his chief tools. He cut 

 down some of the straightest birch he could find, fitted them into the 

 bamboos, and bound them with copper-wire and string ; but the most 

 difficult thing was to bore a hole through the birch to receive the iron 

 spike on the top of the other pole, for of course all the tools required 

 were on the steamer. After two hours' work the tent was ready for 

 re-fixing ; this proved no light task, for the wind was still very heav}^ 

 and once wrenched the whole away from us, though fortunately with- 

 out doing further damage. I decided to have ash poles in future. 

 This delayed us so much that it was 9.30 p.m. before we turned out 

 for our daily walk, which eventually brought us to the river seen on 

 the 13 th, but two miles higher up its course. The chief event of the 

 night was finding a Lapland-Bunting's nest with six eggs, and securing 

 both the old birds. The nest contained a quantity of reindeer hair 

 felted with fine grass, also two or three white feathers, and was in the 



