detained several days by contrary winds, upon which a sailor said, "This rock which you see is called Semes, and unless we appease it with a gift we shall not easily pass it." Istoma, however, reproached him with his vain superstition. The sailor, upon this rebuke, held his peace; and, after being detained there four days by the tempest, the wind abated, and they weighed anchor. When a favourable wind arose for carrying them on, the pilot said, "You laughed at my warning about appeasing the rock Semes, as though it were an empty superstition; but if I had not secretly climbed the rock in the night, and propitiated Semes, you would on no account have had a passage granted to you." Upon being questioned as to the offering which he had made to Semes, he said that he had poured out upon the projecting rock which we had seen some oatmeal mixed with butter.
He further stated that, in sailing onwards, they came to another huge promontory, forming a peninsula, named Motka, at the point of which was the fortress of Barthus, which signifies a garrison house, for the kings of Norway maintain a military garrison there for the defence of their borders. He stated that this promontory jutted so far into the sea that it would take nearly eight days to sail round it, so that to prevent the delay which this would occasion, at the expense of great exertion they carried over their boats and baggage on their shoulders, a distance of half a mile across the isthmus. They afterwards sailed up to the country of the Ditciloppi, who are wild Laplanders, to a place named Dront [Drontheim], two hundred miles north of the Dwina; and they say that the Prince of Muscovy exacts tribute even as far as this place. They then left their boats and performed the rest of their journey by land, in sledges. He further related that there are herds of deer there, as plentiful as oxen are with us, which are called in the Norwegian language, "rhen". They are somewhat larger than our stags, and are used by the Laplanders instead of oxen, and in the following manner: they yoke the deer to
