Joy Weaver wrote:
"On some ships manifests >from the early 1920s, a
country designation of "Hycz" appears. The related
town is either Kolryn or Kobryn."

Joy,
It occurs to me that this could be a garbled 'manifest
version' of "Uyezd", as in "Kobryn Uyezd" (a district
in Polesie, one of the Kresy provinces in the II
Polish republic, which existed >from +/- 1920 to 1939).
All the best,
Aida Rauch [Belgium]