east of
Archangel--into the Mezen and Pechura districts. There will be found
fur-clad and half-starved tribes cut off from their usual avenues of
trade and hoarding their catches of three seasons while they wonder how
long it will be until someone opens the way for the alleviation of their
misery. Information travels with amazing speed among these simple
people, and they will run knowingly no risk of having their only wealth
seized without recompense while en route to the distant markets. The
Bolshevik forces have been holding a section of the usual road to Pinega
and Archangel, and these fur-gathering tribes are wise and stubborn even
while slowly dying. They absolutely lack medicine and surgical
assistance, and certain food ingredients and small conveniences to which
they had become accustomed through their contact with more settled
peoples during the last half-century.

For those Americans in whose minds Russia is represented largely by a
red blank it would mean an education of a sort to see the passage of the
four seasons, the customs and life of the people, and the scenery and
buildings in any considerable section of Russia.

In the north, the division of the year into seasons is rather uncertain
from year to year. Roughly, the summertime may be considered to last
from May 25th to September 1st, the rainy season until the freeze-up in
late November, the steady winter from early December until early April,
and the thaw-season or spring to fill out the cycle until late May. The
summer may break into the rainy season in August, and the big freeze may
come very early or very late. The winter may be extreme, variable or
steady, the latter mood being most comfortable; and the thaw season may
be short and decisive or a lingering discouraging clasp on the garments
of winter. Summers have been known to be very hot and free from rain,
and they have been known to be very cloudy and chilly. Indeed, twelve
hours of cloud in that northern latitude will reduce the temperature
very uncomfortably. The woodsmen and peasants can foretell quite
accurately some weeks ahead when the main changes are due, which is of
great help to the stranger as well as to themselves.

A little inquiry by American officers and soldiers brought out the
information that the great area lying east, south and west of Archangel
city has been gradually settled during four hundred years by several
types of people, most of them Russians in the sense in which A