icity of the old faith was expressed in the simple,
four-sided building, while the rites and ceremonies of the other were
typified in the octagonal form, with its double number of corners
to stumble against. Then we must go and see the monastery--"Skit,"
as it was called--where the six monks had lived, or rather died, from
what people said was scurvy, probably helped out by alcohol. It lay
over against the new church, and resembled an ordinary low Russian
timber-house. The priest and his assistants were living there now,
and had asked Trontheim to take up his quarters with them. Trontheim,
therefore, invited us in, and we soon found ourselves in a couple of
comfortable log-built rooms with open fireplaces like our Norwegian
"peis."

After this we proceeded to the dog-camp, which was situated on a
plain at some distance from the houses and tents. As we approached
it the howling and barking kept getting worse and worse. When a short
distance off we were surprised to see a Norwegian flag on the top of
a pole. Trontheim's face beamed with joy as our eyes fell on it. It
was, he said, under the same flag as our expedition that his had
been undertaken. There stood the dogs tied up, making a deafening
clamor. Many of them appeared to be well-bred animals--long-haired,
snow-white, with up-standing ears and pointed muzzles. With their
gentle, good-natured looking faces they at once ingratiated themselves
in our affections. Some of them more resembled a fox, and had shorter
coats, while others were black or spotted. Evidently they were of
different races, and some of them betrayed by their drooping ears
a strong admixture of European blood. After having duly admired the
ravenous way in which they swallowed raw fish (gwiniad), not without
a good deal of snarling and wrangling, we took a walk inland to a lake
close by in search of game; but we only found an Arctic gull with its
brood. A channel had been dug from this lake to convey drinking-water
to Khabarova. According to what Trontheim told us, this was the work
of the monks--about the only work, probably, they had ever taken in
hand. The soil here was a soft clay, and the channel was narrow and
shallow, like a roadside ditch or gutter; the work could not have
been very arduous. On the hill above the lake stood the flagstaff
which we had noticed on our arrival. It had been erected by the
excellent Trontheim to bid us welcome, and on the flag itself, as I
afterwards discovered by