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 dish had the appearance of a salad, with the accompaniment of black bread. On carefully tasting, I discovered the ingredients to be raw salt fish chopped fine, cucumbers, and--beer. The taste of the first spoonful was peculiar, of the second tolerable, of the third decidedly palatable. Beyond this I did not go, for we had fresh fish, boiled in enough water to make a soup. Then the same, fried in its own fat, and, as salt and pepper were allowed, we did not scorn our supper. P. and R. afterwards walked over to the Skit, a small church and branch of the monastery, more than a mile distant; while I tried, but all in vain, to reproduce the Holy Island in verses. The impression was too recent. The next day was the festival of Peter and Paul, and Alexis had advised us to make an excursion to a place called Jelesniki. In the morning, however, we learned that the monastery and its grounds were to be consecrated in solemn procession. The chimes pealed out quick and joyously, and soon a burst of banners and a cloud of incense issued from the great gate. All the pilgrims--nearly two thousand in number--thronged around the double line of chanting monks, and it was found necessary to inclose the latter in a hollow square, formed by a linked chain of hands. As the morning sun shone on the bare-headed multitude, the beauty of their unshorn hair struck me like a new revelation. Some of the heads, of lustrous, flossy gold, actually shone by their own light. It was marvellous that skin so hard and coarse in texture should produce such beautiful hair. The beards of the men, also, were strikingly soft and rich. They never shave, and thus avoid bristles, the down of adolescence thickening into a natural beard.