I continued my journey, walking for several days in a marshy country, or through woods of stunted fir trees, where I was often obliged to spend the night. I became more and more aware of the polar nature of the climate. The sun hardly ever left us; and even during the short interval between his setting and his rising again, his level rays threw over the landscape a clearness of light which would have allowed one to execute the finest needlework. Night was only to be distinguished from day by the greater stillness which reigned over the face of nature. It is true, that the geographical ideas which had been acquired by me when I sat on a form in school had prepared me years before for this phenomenon, yet I felt as if in a dream on thus finding myself in regions where the sun never sets. The country, I found, became always poorer and more desolate, until, at last, I reached the coast; and after that, I continued to walk along the cliffs, where, for several days, the weather was extremely fine, and the sun so warm that I was obliged to take off my pelisse. But, before long, a heavy gale of wind rose; and the ocean, rolling in mountainous waves, and covered with snowy foam, seemed eager to justify its name of White Sea, and presented a spectacle at once mournful and admirably grand. The tempest lasted for several days. I hardly ever met a human being; but the sight of a serpent, which had been newly killed, showed me that in this country and in this latitude reptiles were not wanting. On reaching a small village on the sea-shore, I found in a _possada_--that is to say, in a colony--a multitude of _bohomolets_, and, among others, my former companions from Véliki-Oustiong, who had set out, long before me, from Archangel, in _karbasses_ bound for the Holy Island, but who had been driven by the storm to land and seek for shelter at this spot. One of the _karbasses_ had been swamped, and every soul on board lost in the waves; and now these poor people awaited the laying of the tempest; but I left them, assuring them that I should reach the monastery much sooner and safer on foot than they would in their wretched little boats. Towards evening, the sea went down, and I had soon reached the promontory which faces the island of Solovetsk. Leaning on my staff, I stood for some moments contemplating the shores, and thinking of our old Lissoviens, who may, perhaps, have encamped on this very spot, while pushing their adventurous course to the extreme north. Then, turning to the left, and without waiting for a passage to the monastery, I struck into the road which would take me to Onega.