That cloister of St. Nicolas was the point first made by Challoner when he entered the Dvina from the Frozen Sea. "You are going over to Solovetsk?" says the Vladika, coming back to his sofa. "We have no authority in the isles, although they lie within our See. It pleased the Emperor Peter, on his return from a stormy voyage, to raise the Convent of Savatie to independent rank, to give it the title of Lavra--making it the equal, in our ecclesiastical system, with Troitsa, Pechersk, and St. George. From that day Solovetsk became a separate province of the Church, dependent on the Holy Governing Synod and the Tsar. Still I can give you a line to Feofan, the Archimandrite." Slipping into an inner room for five minutes, he composes a mandate in my favor, in the highest Oriental style. CHAPTER IX. A PILGRIM-BOAT. A lady, who knows the country, puts up in a crate such things as a pilgrim may chance to need in a monastic cell--good tea, calf's tongue, fresh butter, cheese, roast beef, and indispensable white bread. These dainties being piled on a drojki, propped on pillows and covered with quilts--my bedding in the convent and the boat--we rattle away to the Pilgrim's Wharf. Yes, there it is, an actual wharf--the only wharf in Archangel along which boats can lie, and land their passengers by a common sea-side plank! Moored to the capstan by a rope, lies the pretty craft; a gilt cross on her foremast, a saintly pennant on her main. Four large gold letters tell her name: В Ѣ Р А (pronounced Verra), and meaning Faith. Father John is standing on his bridge, giving orders in a low voice to his officers and crew, many of whom are monks--mate, steward, cook, and engineer--each and all arrayed in the cowl and frock. On the Pilgrim's Wharf, which lies in a yard cut off by gates from the street, and paved with chips and shavings to form a dry approach, stands a new pile of monastic buildings; chapels, cells, store-rooms, offices, stalls, dormitories; in fact, a new Pilgrim's Court. A steamer can not reach the port in the upper town, where the original Pilgrim's Court was built; and the fathers, keeping pace with the times, have let their ancient lodgings in the town, and built a new house lower down the stream.