In no respect does the improvement of the inhabitants appear to have been the object of the labours of the brotherhood. Certainly they christened or baptized the Lapps, so that they could no longer be called heathens, but that was all. Not a word is said as to any schemes for their education and civilizing. The priests of the Greek Church, even at the present day, take no trouble to teach the people. The Russian Lapps, therefore, as a rule, cannot even now either read or write, while among the Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish Lapps there are but few who cannot do both. CHAPTER IV. THE MONK AMBROSE AND THE PIRATE ANIKA. The Chief Monk or Abbot of the Monastery of Petschenga in the most prosperous period of its existence, about the close of the sixteenth century, was named Gurij. He must have been an old man of about eighty years of age when he was elected Primicier, or President, in 1540, not very long after the founding of the monastery. There were fifty monks under him. The most prominent man among these monks was known as Ambrose. He was either dumb, or so abnormally silent that sometimes during an entire month he neither spoke to anyone, nor replied if anyone spoke to him. According to their rule the monks were required to be silent, even during meals. When they assembled, one of them was employed in reading aloud from a book, in order to help the company to keep their rule of silence. Nobody knew why Ambrose had imposed this unusual silence on himself, but it was supposed that something had happened in his earlier life which had left a deep wound in his heart, and that this had made him so reserved. He arrived at the monastery all alone one day, having travelled on foot over the mountains from Kola. He brought with him letters of commendation from a monastery in Russia, and also from Solowetski. From these letters, it appeared that he belonged to an ancient Russian boyar family. He was received as a novice, and, after a year’s probation, obtained his own cell in the monastery, but silent he was from the first, and silent he remained unto the end. He was a tall and unusually handsome man, with delicate, pale features, and with a scar on the right temple, as if from a sword-cut. When he exerted himself unduly, or became unusually excited, the scar assumed the appearance of a red gash, and the monks learned by degrees that he was not a man to be trifled with, though, as a rule, his disposition was amiable and gentle. It was easy to see from his broad shoulders and his general build that he was a man of great physical strength. This was fully shown when he began to take part in the different kinds of daily manual labour. Both among the Brothers of the monastery and among the work-people, he came to be known as Ambrose the Strong. There was also something in his bearing which suggested that he must at one time have been a soldier. He took a great deal of physical exercise, and he was often present to supervise the