monks, and impressed a hardy fisherman into our service. I supposed we
had already seen the extent of the inlet, but on reaching its head a
narrow side-channel disclosed itself, passing away under a quaint bridge
and opening upon an inner lake of astonishing beauty. The rocks were
disposed in every variety of grouping,--sometimes rising in even
terraces, step above step, sometimes thrusting out a sheer wall from the
summit, or lying slant-wise in masses split off by the wedges of the
ice. The fairy birches, in their thin foliage, stood on the edge of the
water like Dryads undressing for a bath, while the shaggy male firs
elbowed each other on the heights for a look at them. Other channels
opened in the distance, with glimpses of other and as beautiful harbors
in the heart of the islands. "You may sail for seventy-five versts,"
said the painter, "without seeing them all."

The fearlessness of all wild creatures showed that the rules of the good
monks had been carefully obeyed. The wild ducks swam around our boat, or
brooded, in conscious security, on their nests along the shore. Three
great herons, fishing in a shallow, rose slowly into the air and flew
across the water, breaking the silence with their hoarse trumpet-note.
Farther in the woods there are herds of wild reindeer, which are said to
have become gradually tame. This familiarity of the animals took away
from the islands all that was repellent in their solitude. It half
restored the broken link between man and the subject-forms of life.

The sunset-light was on the trees when we started, but here in the North
it is no fleeting glow. It lingers for hours even, fading so
imperceptibly that you scarcely know when it has ceased. Thus, when we
returned after a long pull, craving the Lenten fare of the monastery,
the same soft gold tinted its clustering domes. We were not called upon
to visit the refectory, but a table was prepared in our room. The first