By the same Author. THE RECIPE FOR DIAMONDS. HONOUR OF THIEVES. THE PARADISE COAL-BOAT. ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE.  ...

It seems customary in a book of travel to make frequent allusions to other voyagers who have journeyed over the same ground, or at least the same district, and to make constant references to them, and give copious quotations from their works. Of course we ought to have gone to the British Museum before starting on our travel, and there read up all books which in the least bore upon the country which we were going to visit. We omitted to do this, firstly, because we preferred to observe things fo

The wharves of Katherine Dock were black with many thousands of people, and all their eyes converged on a little auxiliary barque which was working out of the basin under her own gentle steam. The barque carried a white tub at her mainmast-head, was rigged with single topsails, bore many white double-ended boats upturned on skids amidships, and was decorated with sundry other matters which even to the shore eye would seem strange in London river. Stacked in her waist were bags of coal, crates, p

One of the most looked-forward-to items of our original programme had been to see the Windward pull her anchors out of European mud for the last time before she went to wrestle with the Arctic floe. But the ship’s carpenter ashore who had in charge that new main-topsail yard was slow even in his sober moments; and although every one in authority raged at the delay, not even statements in Anglo-Saxon (or Scottish) as to his personal worthiness could bustle him out of his dawdling gait. So in the

The Lapp in Lapland has his moments of personal cleanliness, as will be remarked in their place. The Russian Lapp, who resides outside Lapland proper, especially if he be of the fisher variety, scorns the outward application of soap and water. In summer a good cake of dirt, especially if it be well smeared in with tar, goes far to ward off the incessant gnawings of the mosquito; and in winter, when the mercury of a thermometer moves always sluggishly far below zero, what poor man would willingly

The salmon fisheries of the Neiden River are jealously guarded assets. Some are held by riparian proprietors whose rights go to the imaginary line of mid-stream. These are Norwegians and Finns for the most part, though they might be Hebrews from the carefulness with which they strive not to be defrauded of a single fish. And the balance is State’s land, rented out in the usual way. Nets are abundant, set out to stakes, with one end on shore; but rod-fishing is growing commoner. The local rod-fis

When it came to the point, our Neiden carriers, to use a colloquialism, climbed down abjectly. We roused very early, escorted our baggage (once more made up into three twin sacks) down to the shore, and stowed it in the boat on either side of the mast. The carriers hung about, but we ignored them as though they had been men of glass. At last the squint-eyed headman stated their willingness to accept their just dues, and they were handed the contracted-for number of rouble notes with a few impres

It was manifestly absurd to drag the Marlin and its cartridges any farther. In the first case there was absolutely no probability of finding big game for it to shoot; in the second it was more than likely that carriers would be unprocurable farther inside the country, and we should have to hump all necessaries on our own backs, and the rifle would have to be jettisoned. In mid-Lapland it was unlikely also that we should find a purchaser, and here in Enare one offered. Who does not know the delig

We had small appetite for breakfast next morning after that horrible night, and this was a fortunate thing, for there was little enough provender available. We could not buy so much as a crumb of bread or a shred of fish. The wretched people had none to sell. Johann showed a pleasant piece of thoughtfulness. He came into the dairy with a blazing bundle of green twigs in his hand, and filled the room with clean, fresh wood-smoke, so that we might have the early morning in peace. Even the sour-mil

We roused after an uneasy sleep and stepped outside the rest-hut, and looked at the hot, round sun which hung behind a hilltop close at hand. Hayter guessed the hour as 6 A.M. I considered it to be six in the evening. We had no watch, and did not in the least know which was right, nor did we remarkably care. We were in a land where the daylight endured for each hour of the twenty-four on end, and we were setting off to visit those to whom the very name of hours was an unknown thing. We were goin

That grimy little person, Marie, guided us back to our other men, and whether she did it out of sheer good-nature, or for the sake of the one of us she was pleased to admire, or for Johann’s sake, it was hard to discover. It seemed that the untutored child of the fjeld could be as arrant a flirt as any young woman with the advantage of half a dozen milliners and a London season’s education. But for all that, if there was a breeze blowing, and one did not come too close to her, she really was in

Here then was Ivalomati, the village we had looked for so long, a place made up of one small house of logs, one squalid barn with yawning sides, and an adult population of three souls—a woman and two men. The adult population was away fishing, or rather attempting to fish, for, as it turned out, the toil of twenty-four hours brought forth no catch. A swarm of children of every age, from the crawler upwards, was left in charge. It was the eldest girl, a shy, wild creature, almost pretty, who took

One of the ladies of the house, a tall person with a vague squint, aroused us next morning by coming into the sour-smelling dairy to deposit the morning produce of the cows. We woke with evil-tasting mouths and went outside. In the kitchen, across the narrow lobby, the man with one ear was making a bowl out of a knob of birch, and as he seemed the person of most consideration available, we demanded from him that three carriers should be ready for us in a couple of hours’ time to convoy us and ou

Huckleberry Finn announced our coming, and after we had taken toll of the ice-well, we went into the house. Inside the door was a huge room strewn with sleeping men and women. At one side was a stove with cooking-places; at the other stood a hand-loom with a piece of chequered blue-cotton fabric in the course of manufacture. Beside it there straddled a couple of spinning-wheels. The room we were given for ourselves, after what we were used to, seemed an actual palace. It had two windows, a table

The river Ounasjoki is navigable the larger part of the way from Kittila down to its outfall in the Gulf of Bothnia; but prices run high for the hire of canoes, as they have to be poled back tediously up against the current, not to mention suffering damage from the several spots where bad rapids compel lengthy portages. Transport down to the coast is done by wheeled vehicle, and for this purpose a road has been built. The local vehicle for human transport is the karre , which spells post-cart in

Demy 8vo, Cloth, 378 pages. Price 15s. Second Edition. THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS CONTAINING MAP AND 18 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS OUR ISLAND HOME (Section of one of the Illustrations in the book) By Mrs. ALEC TWEEDIE AUTHOR OF ‘A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY,’ ‘A GIRL’S RIDE IN ICELAND’ (The book of the week.) “From first to last there is not a dull page in the volume, which is admirably written, well illustrated, and full of humour. It is one of the best books of travel we have read for many a year.”— Il

A MIDDY’S RECOLLECTIONS 1853 TO 1860 By Rear-Admiral the Hon. V. A. MONTAGU Illustrated with two Photogravures and six Half-tone Blocks. Square Crown 8vo., Cloth. Price 6s. England was at war during practically the whole brief period covered by this narrative. The Middy had part in not a few of the engagements, which, helped by illustrations, he describes vividly. The work is of historical importance as showing the state of the English Navy in an epoch which is now closed. A PRISONER OF FRANCE T