Through this wild, sparsely populated region, we purposed to travel by hiring the natives along our route to carry us with their horses from one settlement to another until we should reach the territory of the Wandering Koraks. North of that point we could not depend upon any regular means of transportation, but would be obliged to trust to luck and the tender mercies of the arctic nomads.



CHAPTER VII

STARTING NORTHWARD—KAMCHATKAN SCENERY, VILLAGES, AND PEOPLE

I cannot remember any journey in my whole life which gave me more enjoyment at the time, or which is more pleasant in recollection, than our first horseback ride of 275 versts over the flowery hills and through the green valleys of southern Kamchatka. Surrounded as we continually were by the wildest and most beautiful scenery in all northern Asia, experiencing for the first time the novelty and adventurous excitement of camp life, and rejoicing in a newly found sense of freedom and perfect independence, we turned our backs gaily on civilisation, and rode away with light hearts into the wilderness, making the hills ring to the music of our songs and halloos.

Our party, aside from drivers and guides, consisted of four men—Major Abaza, chief of Asiatic exploration, Dodd the young American, whom we had engaged in Petropavlovsk, Viushin (view'-shin) a Cossack orderly, and myself. The biting sarcasm directed by Mithridates at the army of Lucullus—that if they came as ambassadors they were too many, if as soldiers too few—would have applied with equal force to our small party made up as it was of only four men; but strength is not always to be measured by numbers, and we had no fears that we should not be able to cope with any obstacles which might lie in our way. We could certainly find subsistence where a larger party might starve.

On Sunday, September 3d, our horses were loaded and despatched in advance to a small village on the opposite side of the bay, where we intended to meet them with a whale-boat. On Monday the 4th, we made our farewell calls upon the Russian authorities, drank an inordinate quantity of champagne to our own health and success, and set out in two whale-boats for Avacha, accompanied by the whole American population of Petropavlovsk. Crossing the bay under spritsail and jib, with a slashing breeze from the south-west, we ran swiftly into the mouth of the Avacha River, and landed at the village to refresh ourselves for the fifteenth time with "fifteen drops," and take leave of our American friends, Pierce, Hunter, and Fronefield. Copious libations were poured out to the tutelary saint of Kamchatkan explorers, and giving and receiving three hearty cheers we pushed off and began to make our way slowly up the river with poles and paddles toward the Kamchadal settlement of Okuta (o-koo'-tah).

Our native crew, sharing in the universal dissipation which had attended our departure, and wholly unaccustomed to such reckless drinking, were reduced by this time to a comical state of happy imbecility, in which they sang Kamchadal songs, blessed the Americans, and fell overboard alternately, without contributing in any marked degree to the successful navigation of our heavy whale-boat. Viushin, however, with characteristic energy, hauled the drowning wretches in by their hair, rapped them over the head with a paddle to restore consciousness, pushed the boat off sand-bars, kept its head up stream, poled, rowed, jumped into the water, shouted, swore, and proved himself fully equal to any emergency.

It was considerably after noon when we left Petropavlovsk, and owing to the incompetency of our Kamchadal crew, and the frequency of sand-bars, night overtook us on the river some distance below Okuta. Selecting a place where the bank was dry and accessible, we beached our whale-boat and prepared for our first bivouac in the open air. Beating down the high wet grass, Viushin pitched our little cotton tent, carpeted it with warm, dry bearskins, improvised a table and a cloth out of an empty candle-box and a clean towel, built a fire, boiled tea, and in twenty minutes set before us a hot supper which would not have done discredit to the culinary skill of Soyer himself. After supper we sat by the fire smoking and talking until the long twilight died away in the west, and then, rolling ourselves up in heavy blankets, we lay down on our bearskins and listened to the low quacking of a half-awakened duck in the sedges, and the lonely cries of night birds on the river until at last we fell asleep.

Day was just breaking in the east when I awoke. The mist, which for a week had hung in grey clouds around the mountains, had now vanished, and the first object which met my eyes through the open door of the tent was the great white cone of Villuchinski gleaming spectrally through the greyness of the dawn. As the red flush in the east deepened, all nature seemed to awake. Ducks and geese quacked from every bunch of reeds along the shore; the strange wailing cries of sea-gulls could be heard from the neighbouring coast; and from the clear, blue sky came down the melodious trumpeting of wild swans, as they flew inland to their feeding-places. I washed my face in the clear, cold water of the river, and waked Dodd to see the mountains. Directly behind our tent, in one unbroken sheet of snow, rose the colossal peak of Koratskoi (ko-rat'-skoi), ten thousand five hundred feet in height, its sharp white summit already crimsoning with the rays of the rising sun, while the morning star yet throbbed faintly over the cool purple of its eastern slope. A little to the right was the huge volcano of Avacha, with a long banner of golden smoke hung out from its broken summit, and the Raselskoi (rah'-sel-skoi) volcano puffing out dark vapour from three craters. Far down the coast, thirty miles away, stood the sharp peak of Villuchinski, with the watch-fires of morning already burning upon its summit, and beyond it the hazy blue outlines of the coast range. Shreds of fleecy mist here and there floated up the mountain sides, and vanished like the spirits of the night dews rising from earth to heaven in bright resurrection. Steadily the warm, rosy flush of sunrise crept down the snowy slopes of the mountains, until at last, with a quick sudden burst, it poured a flood of light into the valley, tinging our little white tent with a delicate pink, like that of a wild-rose petal, turning every pendent dewdrop into a twinkling brilliant, and lighting up the still water of the river, until it became a quivering, flashing mass of liquid silver.

"I'm not romantic, but, upon my word, There are some moments when one can't help feeling As if his heart's chords were so strongly stirred By things around him, that 'tis vain concealing A little music in his soul still lingers, Whene'er the keys are touched by Nature's fingers."

I was just delivering the above quotation in impassioned style, when Dodd, who never allowed his enthusiasm for the beauties of nature to interfere with a proper regard for the welfare of his stomach, emerged from the tent, and, with a mock solemn apology for interrupting my soliloquy, said that if I could bring my mind down to the contemplation of material things he would inform me that breakfast was ready, and begged to suggest that the little music in my soul be allowed to "linger," since it could do so with less detriment than the said breakfast. The force of this suggestion, seconded as it was by a savoury odour from the interior of the tent, could not be denied. I went, but still continued between the spoonfuls of hot soup to "rave," as Dodd expressed it, about the scenery. After breakfast the tent was struck, camp equipage packed up, and taking seats in the stern-sheets of our whale-boat we pushed off and resumed our slow ascent of the river.

The vegetation everywhere, untouched as yet by the autumn frosts, seemed to have an almost tropical luxuriance. High wild grass, mingled with varicoloured flowers, extended to the very river's brink; Alpine roses and cinquefoil grew in dense thickets along the bank, and dropped their pink and yellow petals like fairy boats upon the surface of the clear still water; yellow columbine drooped low over the river, to see its graceful image mirrored beside that of the majestic volcano; and strange black Kamchatkan lilies, with downcast looks, stood here and there in sad loneliness, mourning in funeral garb some unknown flowery bereavement.

Nor was animal life wanting to complete the picture. Wild ducks, with long outstretched necks, shot past us, continually in their swift level flight, uttering hoarse quacks of curiosity and apprehension; the honking of geese came to us, softened by distance, from the higher slopes of the mountains; and now and then a magnificent eagle, startled from his solitary watch on some jutting rock, expanded his broad-barred wings, launched himself into air, and soared upward in ever-widening circles until he became a mere moving speck against the white snowy crater of the Avachinski volcano. Never had I seen a picture of such wild primitive loneliness as that presented by this beautiful fertile valley, encircled by smoking volcanoes and snow-covered mountains, yet green as the Vale of Tempe, teeming with animal and vegetable life, yet solitary, uninhabited by man, and apparently unknown. About noon the barking of dogs announced our approach to a settlement, and turning an abrupt bend in the river we came in sight of the Kamchadal village of Okuta (o-koo'-tah).

A Kamchadal village differs in some respects so widely from an American frontier settlement, that it is worthy, perhaps, of a brief description. It is situated generally on a little elevation near the bank of some river or stream, surrounded by scattered clumps of poplar and yellow birch, and protected by high hills from the cold northern winds. Its houses, which are clustered irregularly together near the beach, are very low, and are made of logs squared and notched at the ends, and chinked with masses of dry moss. The roofs are covered with a rough thatch of long coarse grass or with overlapping strips of tamarack bark, and project at the ends and sides into wide overhanging eaves. The window-frames, although occasionally glazed, are more frequently covered with an irregular patchwork of translucent fish bladders, sewn together with thread made of the dried and pounded sinews of the reindeer. The doors are almost square, and the chimneys are nothing but long straight poles, arranged in a circle and plastered over thickly with clay. Here and there between the houses stand half a dozen curious architectural quadrupeds called "balagans" (bah-lah-gans'), or fish storehouses. They are simply conical log tents, elevated from the ground on four posts to secure their contents from the dogs, and resemble as much as anything small haystacks trying to walk away on four legs. High square frames of horizontal poles stand beside every house, filled with thousands of drying salmon; and "an ancient and fish-like smell," which pervades the whole atmosphere, betrays the nature of the Kamchadals' occupation and of the food upon which they live. Half a dozen dugout canoes lie bottom upward on the sandy shelving beach, covered with large neatly tied seines; two or three long, narrow dog-sledges stand up on their ends against every house, and a hundred or more sharp-eared wolfish dogs, tied at intervals to long heavy poles, lie panting in the sun, snapping viciously at the flies and mosquitoes which disturb their rest. In the centre of the village, facing the west, stands, in all the glory of Kamchatko-Byzantine architecture, red paint, and glittering domes, the omnipresent Greek church, contrasting strangely with the rude log houses and conical balagans over which it extends the spiritual protection of its resplendent golden cross. It is built generally of carefully hewn logs, painted a deep brick-red, covered with a green sheet-iron roof, and surmounted by two onion-shaped domes of tin which are sometimes coloured sky-blue and spangled with golden stars. Standing with all its glaring contrasts of colour among a few unpainted log houses in a primitive wilderness, it has a strange picturesque appearance not easily described. If you can imagine a rough American backwoods settlement of low log houses clustered round a gaily coloured Turkish mosque, half a dozen small haystacks mounted on high vertical posts, fifteen or twenty Titanic wooden gridirons similarly elevated and hung full of drying fish, a few dog-sledges and canoes lying carelessly around, and a hundred or more grey wolves tied here and there between the houses to long heavy poles, you will have a general but tolerably accurate idea of a Kamchadal settlement of the better class. They differ somewhat in respect to their size and their churches; but the grey log houses, conical balagans drying fish, wolfish dogs, canoes, sledges, and fishy odours are all invariable features.

The inhabitants of these native settlements in southern Kamchatka are a dark swarthy race, considerably below the average stature of Siberian natives, and are very different in all their characteristics from the wandering tribes of Koraks and Chukchis who live farther north. The men average perhaps five feet three or four inches in height, have broad flat faces, prominent cheek bones, small and rather sunken eyes, no beards, long, lank, black hair, small hands and feet, very slender limbs, and a tendency to enlargement and protrusion of the abdomen. They are probably of central Asiatic origin, but they certainly have had no very recent connection with any other Siberian tribe with which I am acquainted, and are not at all like the Chukchis, Koraks, Yakuts (yah-koots'), or Tunguses (toon-goo'-ses). From the fact of their living a settled instead of a wandering life they were brought under Russian subjection much more easily than their nomadic neighbours, and have since experienced in a greater degree the civilising influences of Russian intercourse. They have adopted almost universally the religion, customs, and habits of their conquerors, and their own language, which is a very curious one, is already falling into disuse. It would be easy to describe their character by negatives. They are not independent, self-reliant, or of a combative disposition like the northern Chukchis and Koraks; they are not avaricious or dishonest, except where those traits are the results of Russian education; they are not suspicious or distrustful, but rather the contrary; and for generosity, hospitality, simple good faith, and easy, equable good-nature under all circumstances, I have never met their equals. As a race they are undoubtedly becoming extinct. Since 1780, they have diminished in numbers more than one half, and frequently recurring epidemics and famines will soon reduce them to a comparatively weak and unimportant tribe, which will finally be absorbed in the growing Russian population of the peninsula. They have already lost most of their distinctive customs and superstitions, and only an occasional sacrifice of a dog to some malignant spirit of storm or disease enables the modern traveller to catch a glimpse of their original paganism. They depend mainly for subsistence upon the salmon, which every summer run into these northern rivers in immense numbers to spawn, and are speared, caught in seines, and trapped in weirs by thousands. These fish, dried without salt in the open air, are the food of the Kamchadals and of their dogs throughout the long, cold northern winter. During the summer, however, their bill of fare is more varied. The climate and soil of the river bottoms in southern Kamchatka admit of the cultivation of rye, potatoes, and turnips, and the whole peninsula abounds in animal life. Reindeer and black and brown bears roam everywhere over the mossy plains and through the grassy valleys; wild sheep and a species of ibex are not unfrequently found in the mountains; and millions upon millions of ducks, geese, and swans, in almost endless variety, swarm about every river and little marshy lake throughout the country. These aquatic fowls are captured in great multitudes while moulting by organised "drives" of fifty or seventy-five men in canoes, who chase the birds in one great flock up some narrow stream, at the end of which a huge net is arranged for their reception. They are then killed with clubs, cleaned, and salted for winter use. Tea and sugar have been introduced by the Russians, and have been received with great favour, the annual consumption now being more than 20,000 pounds of each in the Kamchatkan peninsula alone. Bread is now made of rye, which the Kamchadals raise and grind for themselves; but previous to the settlement of the country by the Russians, the only native substitute for bread was a sort of baked paste, consisting chiefly of the grated tubers of the purple Kamchatkan lily. [Footnote: A species of fritillaria.] The only fruits in the country are berries and a species of wild cherry. Of the berries, however, there are fifteen or twenty different kinds, of which the most important are blueberries, "maroshkas" (mah-ro'-shkas), or yellow cloud-berries, and dwarf cranberries. These the natives pick late in the fall, and freeze for winter consumption. Cows are kept in nearly all the Kamchadal settlements, and milk is always plenty. A curious native dish of sour milk, baked curds, and sweet cream, covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon, is worthy of being placed upon a civilised table.

It will thus be seen that life in a Kamchatkan settlement, gastronomically considered, is not altogether so disagreeable as we have been led to believe. I have seen natives in the valley of the Kamchatka as pleasantly situated, and enjoying as much comfort and almost as many luxuries, as nine tenths of the settlers upon the frontiers of our western States and Territories.



CHAPTER VIII

BRIDLE PATHS OP SOUTHERN KAMCHATKA—HOUSES AND FOOD OF THE PEOPLE—REINDEER TONGUES AND WILD-ROSE PETALS—A KAMCHATKAN DRIVER'S CANTICLE

At Okuta we found our horses and men awaiting our arrival; and after eating a hasty lunch of bread, milk, and blueberries in a little native house, we clambered awkwardly into our saddles, and filed away in a long irregular line through the woods, Dodd and I taking the advance, singing Bonnie Dundee.

We kept continually near the group of mountains which had presented so beautiful an appearance in the morning; but, owing to the forest of birch and mountain ash which clothed the foot-hills, we caught only occasional glimpses between the tree-tops of their white snowy summits.

Just before sunset, we rode into another little native village, whose ingeniously constructed name defied all my inexperienced attempts to pronounce it or write it down. Dodd was good-natured enough to repeat it to me five or six times; but as it sounded worse and more unintelligible every time, I finally called it Jerusalem, and let it go at that. For the sake of geographical accuracy I have so marked it down on my map; but let no future commentator point to it triumphantly as a proof that the lost tribes of Israel emigrated to Kamchatka; I don't believe that they did, and I know that this unfortunate settlement, before I took pity on it and called it Jerusalem, was distinguished by a name so utterly barbarous that neither the Hebrew alphabet nor any other known to ancient literature could have begun to do it justice.

Tired by the unusual exercise of horseback riding, I entered Jerusalem at a walk, and throwing my bridle to a Kamchadal in blue nankeen shirt and buckskin trousers, who saluted me with a reverential bow, I wearily dismounted and entered the house which Viushin indicated as the one we were to occupy.

The best room, which had been prepared for our reception, was a low bare apartment about twelve feet square, whose walls, ceiling, and floor of unpainted birch planks were scoured to a smooth snowy purity which would have been creditable even to the neat housewives of the Dutch paradise of Broek. An immense clay oven, neatly painted red, occupied one side of the room; a bench, three or four rude chairs, and a table, were arranged with severe propriety against the other. Two windows of glass, shaded by flowery calico curtains, admitted the warm sunshine; a few coarse American lithographs hung here and there against the wall; and the air of perfect neatness, which prevailed everywhere, made us suddenly and painfully conscious of our own muddy boots and rough attire. No tools except axes and knives had been used in the construction of the house or of its furniture; but the unplaned, unpainted boards had been diligently scrubbed with water and sand to a delicate creamy whiteness, which made amends for all rudeness of workmanship. There was not a plank in the floor from which the most fastidious need have hesitated to eat. The most noticeable peculiarity of this, as of all the other Kamchadal houses which we saw in southern Kamchatka, was the lowness of its doors. They seemed to have been designed for a race of beings whose only means of locomotion were hands and knees, and to enter them without making use of those means required a flexibility of spinal vertebrae only to be acquired by long and persevering practice. Viushin and Dodd, who had travelled in Kamchatka before, experienced no difficulty in accommodating themselves to this peculiarity of native architecture; but the Major and I, during the first two weeks of our journey, bore upon the fore parts of our heads, bumps whose extraordinary size and irregularity of development would have puzzled even Spurzheim and Gall. If the abnormal enlargement of the bumps had only been accompanied by a corresponding enlargement of the respective faculties, there would have been some compensation for this disfiguration of our heads; but unfortunately "perception" might be suddenly developed by the lintel of a door until it looked like a goose-egg, without enabling us to perceive the very next beam which came in our way until after we had struck our heads against it.

The Cossack who had been sent through the peninsula as an avant-courier to notify the natives of our coming, had carried the most exaggerated reports of our power and importance, and elaborate preparations had been made by the Jerusalemites for our reception. The house that was to be honoured by our presence had been carefully scrubbed, swept, and garnished; the women had put on their most flowery calico dresses, and tied their hair up in their brightest silk handkerchiefs; most of the children's faces had been painfully washed and polished with soap, water, and wads of fibrous hemp; the whole village had been laid under contribution to obtain the requisite number of plates, cups, and spoons, for our supper-table, while offerings of ducks, reindeer-tongues, blueberries, and clotted cream poured in upon us with a profusion which testified to the good-will and hospitality of the inhabitants, as well as to their ready appreciation of tired travellers' wants. In an hour we sat down, with appetites sharpened by the pure mountain air, to an excellent supper of cold roast duck, broiled reindeer-tongues, black-bread and fresh butter, blueberries and cream, and wild-rose petals crushed with white sugar into a rich delicious jam. We had come to Kamchatka with minds and mouths heroically made up for an unvarying diet of blubber, tallow candles, and train-oil; but imagine our surprise and delight at being treated instead to such Sybaritic luxuries as purple blueberries, cream, and preserved rose-leaves! Did Lucullus ever feast upon preserved rose-petals in his, vaunted pleasure-gardens of Tusculum? Never! The original recipe for the preparation of celestial ambrosia had been lost before ever "Lucullus supped with Lucullus"; but it was rediscovered by the despised inhabitants of Kamchatka, and is now offered, to the world as the first contribution of the Hyperboreans to gastronomical science. Take equal quantities of white loaf sugar and the petals of the Alpine rose, add a little juice of crushed blueberries, macerate together to a rich crimson paste, serve in the painted cups of trumpet honeysuckles, and imagine yourself feasting with the gods upon the summit of high Olympus!

As soon as possible after supper, I stretched myself out upon the floor under a convenient table, which answered practically and aesthetically all the purposes of a four-post bedstead, inflated my little rubber pillow, rolled myself up, a la mummy, in a blanket, and slept.

The Major, always an early riser, was awake on the following morning at daylight. Dodd and I, with a coincidence of opinion as rare as it was gratifying, regarded early rising as a relic of barbarism which no American, with a proper regard for the civilisation of the nineteenth century, would demean himself by encouraging. We had therefore entered into a mutual agreement upon this occasion to sleep peacefully until the "caravan," as Dodd irreverently styled it, should be ready to start, or at least until we should receive a summons for breakfast. Soon after daybreak, however, a terrific row began about something, and with a vague impression that I was attending a particularly animated primary meeting in the Ninth Ward, I sprang up, knocked my head violently against a table-leg, opened my eyes in amazement, and stared wildly at the situation. The Major, in a scanty deshabille, was storming furiously about the room, cursing our frightened drivers in classical Russian, because the horses had all stampeded during the night and gone, as he said with expressive simplicity, "Chort tolko znal kooda"—"the devil only knew where." This was rather an unfortunate beginning of our campaign; but in the course of two hours most of the wandering beasts were found, packs were adjusted, and after an unnecessary amount of profanity from the drivers, we turned our backs on Jerusalem and rode slowly away over the rolling grassy foot-hills of the Avachinski volcano.

It was a warm, beautiful Indian summer day, and a peculiar stillness and Sabbath-like quiet seemed to pervade all nature. The leaves of the scattering birches and alders along the trail hung motionless in the warm sunshine, the drowsy cawing of a crow upon a distant larch came to our ears with strange distinctness, and we even imagined that we could hear the regular throbbing of the surf upon the far-away coast. A faint murmurous hum of bees was in the air, and a rich fruity fragrance came up from the purple clusters of blueberries which our horses crushed under foot at every step. All things seemed to unite in tempting the tired traveller to stretch himself out on the warm fragrant grass, and spend the day in luxurious idleness, listening to the buzzing of the sleepy bees, inhaling the sweet smell of crushed blueberries, and watching the wreaths of curling smoke which rose lazily from the lofty crater of the great white volcano. I laughingly said to Dodd that instead of being in Siberia—the frozen land of Russian exiles—we had apparently been transported by some magical Arabian Night's contrivance to the clime of the "Lotus Eaters," which would account for the dreamy, drowsy influence of the atmosphere. "Clime of the Lotus Eaters be hanged!" he broke out impetuously, making a furious slap at his face; "the poet doesn't say that the Lotus Eaters were eaten up themselves by such cursed mosquitoes as these, and they're sufficient evidence that we're in Kamchatka—they don't grow as big as bumblebees in any other country!" I reminded him mildly that according to Walton—old Isaac—every misery we missed was a new mercy, and that, consequently, he ought to be thankful for every mosquito that didn't bite him. His only reply was that he "wished he had old Isaac there." What summary reprisals were to be made upon old Isaac I did not know, but it was evident that Dodd did not approve of his philosophy, or of my attempt at consolation, so I desisted.

Maximof (max-im'-off), the chief of our drivers, labouring under a vague impression that, because everything was so still and quiet, it must be Sunday, rode slowly through the scattered clumps of silver birch which shaded the trail, chanting in a loud, sonorous voice a part of the service of the Greek Church, suspending this devotional exercise, occasionally, to curse his vagrant horses in a style which would have excited the envy and admiration of the most profane trooper of the army in Flanders.

"Oh! let my pray-er be-e-e (Here! you pig! Keep in the road!) set forth as the in-cense; and let the lifting up of my han-n-n-ds be—(Get up! you korova! You old, blind, broken-legged son of the Evil Spirit! Where you going to!)—an eve-n-ing sacrifice: let not my heart be inclined to—(Lie down again, will you! Thwack? Take that, you old sleepy-headed svinya proclatye!)—any e-vil thing; let me not be occupied with any evil works (Akh! What a horse! Bokh s'nim!). Set a watch before my mouth, and keep the do-o-o-r of my lips—(Whoa! You merzavitz! What did you run into that tree for? Ecca voron! Podletz! Slepoi takoi! Chart tibi vasmee!)"—and Maximof lapsed into a strain of such ingenious and metaphorical profanity that my imagination was left to supply the deficiencies of my imperfect comprehension. He did not seem to be conscious of any inconsistency between the chanted psalm and the profane interjections by which it was accompanied; but, even if he had been fully aware of it, he probably would have regarded the chanting as a fair offset to the profanity, and would have gone on his way with serene indifference, fully assured that if he sang a sacred verse every time he swore, his celestial account must necessarily balance!

The road, or rather trail, from Jerusalem turned away to the westward, and wound around the bases of a range of low bare mountains, through a dense forest of poplar and birch. Now and then we would come out into little grassy openings, where the ground was covered with blueberries, and every eye would be on the lookout for bears; but all was still and motionless—even the grasshoppers chirping sleepily and lazily, as if they too were about to yield to the somnolence which seemed to overpower all nature.

To escape the mosquitoes, whose relentless persecution became almost unendurable, we rode on more briskly through a broad, level valley, filled with a dense growth of tall umbelliferous plants, trotted swiftly up a little hill, and rode at a thundering gallop into the village of Korak, amid the howling and barking of a hundred and fifty half-wild dogs, the neighing of horses, running to and fro of men, and a scene of general confusion.

At Korak we changed most of our horses and men, ate an al fresco lunch under the projecting eaves of a mossy Kamchadal house, and started at two o'clock for Malqua, another village, fifty or sixty miles distant, across the watershed of the Kamchatka River. About sunset, after a brisk ride of fifteen or eighteen miles, we suddenly emerged from the dense forest of poplar, birch, and mountain ash which had shut in the trail, and came out into a little grassy opening, about an acre in extent, which seemed to have been made expressly with a view to camping out. It was surrounded on three sides by woods, and opened on the fourth into a wild mountain gorge, choked up with rocks, logs, and a dense growth of underbrush and weeds. A clear cold stream tumbled in a succession of tinkling cascades down the dark ravine, and ran in a sandy flower-bordered channel through the grassy glade, until it disappeared in the encircling forest. It was useless to look for a better place than this to spend the night, and we decided to stop while we still had daylight. To picket our horses, collect wood for a fire, hang over our teakettles, and pitch our little cotton tent, was the work of only a few moments, and we were soon lying at full length upon our warm bearskins, around our towel-covered candle-box, drinking hot tea, discussing Kamchatka, and watching the rosy flush of sunset as it slowly faded over the western mountains.

As I was lulled to sleep that night by the murmuring plash of falling water, and the tinkling of our horses' bells from the forest behind our tent, I thought that nothing could be more delightful than camp life in Kamchatka.

We reached Malqua on the following day, in a generally exhausted and used-up condition. The road had been terribly rough and broken, running through narrow ravines blocked up with rocks and fallen trees, across wet mossy swamps, and over rugged precipitous hills, where we dared not attempt to ride our horses. We were thrown repeatedly from our saddles; our provision-boxes were smashed against trees, and wet through by sinking in swamps; girths gave way, drivers swore, horses fell down, and we all came to grief, individually and collectively. The Major, unaccustomed as he was to these vicissitudes of Kamchatkan travel, held out like a Spartan; but I noticed that for the last ten miles he rode upon a pillow, and shouted at short intervals to Dodd, who, with stoical imperturbability, was riding quietly in advance: "Dodd! oh, Dodd! haven't we got most to that con-found-ed Malqua yet?" Dodd would strike his horse a sharp blow with a willow switch, turn half round in his saddle, and reply, with a quizzical smile, that we were "not most there yet, but would be soon!"—an equivocal sort of consolation which did not inspire us with much enthusiasm. At last, when it had already begun to grow dark, we saw a high column of white steam in the distance, which rose, Dodd and Viushin said, from the hot springs of Malqua; and in fifteen minutes we rode, tired, wet, and hungry, into the settlement. Supper was a secondary consideration with me that night. All I wanted was to crawl under a table where no one would step on me, and be let alone. I had never before felt such a vivid consciousness of my muscular and osseous system. Every separate bone and tendon in my body asserted its individual existence by a distinct and independent ache, and my back in twenty minutes was as inflexible as an iron ramrod. I felt a melancholy conviction that I never should measure five feet ten inches again, unless I could lie on some Procrustean bed and have my back stretched out to its original longitude. Repeated perpendicular concussions had, I confidently believed, telescoped my spinal vertebrae into each other, so that nothing short of a surgical operation would ever restore them to their original positions. Revolving in my mind such mournful considerations, I fell asleep under a table, without even pulling off my boots.



CHAPTER IX

THE BEAUTIFUL VALLEY OF GENAL—WALLS OF LITERATURE—SCARING UP A BEAR—END OF HORSEBACK RIDE

It was hard work on the following morning to climb again into the saddle, but the Major was insensible to all appeals for delay. Stern and inflexible as Rhadamanthus, he mounted stiffly upon his feather pillow and gave the signal for a start. With the aid of two sympathetic Kamchadals, who had perhaps experienced the misery of a stiff back, I succeeded in getting astride a fresh horse, and we rode away into the Genal (gen-ahl') valley—the garden of southern Kamchatka.

The village of Malqua lies on the northern slope of the Kamchatka River watershed, surrounded by low barren granite hills, and reminded me a little in its situation of Virginia City, Nevada. It is noted chiefly for its hot mineral springs, but as we did not have time to visit these springs ourselves, we were compelled to take the natives' word for their temperature and their medicinal properties, and content ourselves with a distant view of the pillar of steam which marked their location.

North of the village opens the long narrow valley of Genal—the most beautiful as well as the most fertile spot in all the Kamchatkan peninsula. It is about thirty miles in length, and averages three in breadth, and is bounded on both sides by chains of high snow-covered mountains, which stretch away from Malqua in a long vista of white ragged peaks and sharp cliffs, almost to the head-waters of the Kamchatka River. A small stream runs in a tortuous course through the valley, fringed with long wild grass four or five feet in height, and shaded here and there by clumps of birches, willows, and alders. The foliage was beginning already to assume the brilliant colours of early autumn, and broad stripes of crimson, yellow, and green ran horizontally along the mountain sides, marking on a splendid chromatic scale the successive zones of vegetation as they rose in regular gradation from the level of the valley to the pure glittering snows of the higher peaks.

As we approached the middle of the valley just before noon, the scenery assumed a vividness of colour and grandeur of outline which drew forth the most enthusiastic exclamations of delight from our little party. For twenty-five miles in each direction lay the sunny valley, through which the Genal River was stretched like a tangled chain of silver, linking together the scattered clumps of birch and thickets of alder, which at intervals diversified its banks. Like the Happy Valley of Rasselas, it seemed to be shut out from the rest of the world by impassable mountains, whose snowy peaks and pinnacles rivalled in picturesque beauty, in variety and singularity of form, the wildest dream of eastern architect. Half down their sides was a broad horizontal belt of dark-green pines, thrown into strong and beautiful contrast with the pure white snow of the higher summits and the rich crimson of the mountain ash which flamed below. Here and there the mountains had been cleft asunder by some Titanic power, leaving deep narrow gorges and wild ravines where the sunlight could hardly penetrate, and the eye was lost in soft purple haze. Imagine with all this, a warm fragrant atmosphere and a deep blue sky in which floated a few clouds, too ethereal even to cast shadows, and you will perhaps have a faint idea of one of the most beautiful landscapes in all Kamchatka. The Sierra Nevadas may afford views of more savage wildness, but nowhere in California or Nevada have I ever seen the distinctive features of both winter and summer—snow and roses, bare granite and brilliantly coloured foliage—blended into so harmonious a picture as that presented by the Genal valley on a sunshiny day in early autumn.

Dodd and I devoted most of our leisure time during the afternoon to picking and eating berries. Galloping furiously ahead until we had left the caravan several miles behind, we would lie down in a particularly luxuriant thicket by the river bank, tie our horses to our feet, and bask in the sunshine and feast upon yellow honeyed "moroshkas" (mo-ro'-shkas) and the dark purple globes of delicious blueberries, until our clothes were stained with crimson spots, and our faces and hands resembled those of a couple of Comanches painted for the war-path.

The sun was yet an hour high when we approached the native village of Genal. We passed a field where men and women were engaged in cutting hay with rude sickles, returned their stare of amazement with unruffled serenity, and rode on until the trail suddenly broke off into a river beyond which stood the village.

Kneeling upon our saddles we succeeded in fording the shallow stream without getting wet, but in a moment we came to another of about the same size. We forded that, and were confronted by a third. This we also passed, but at the appearance of the fourth river the Major shouted despairingly to Dodd, "Ay! Dodd! How many paganni rivers do we have to wade through in getting to this beastly village?" "Only one," replied Dodd composedly. "One! Then how many times does this one river run past this one settlement?" "Five times," was the calm response. "You see," he explained soberly, "these poor Kamchadals haven't got but one river to fish in, and that isn't a very big one, so they have made it run past their settlement five times, and by this ingenious contrivance they catch five times as many salmon as they would if it only passed once!" The Major was surprised into silence, and seemed to be considering some abstruse problem. Finally he raised his eyes from the pommel of his saddle, transfixed the guilty Dodd with a glance of severe rebuke, and demanded solemnly, "How many times must a given fish swim past a given settlement, in order to supply the population with food, provided the fish is caught every time he goes past?" This reductio ad absurdum was too much for Dodd's gravity; he burst into a laugh, and digging his heels into his horse's ribs, dashed with a great splatter into the fourth arm or bend of the river, and rode up on the other side into the village of Genal.

We took up our quarters at the house of the "starosta" (stah'-ro-stah) or head man of the village, and spread our bearskins out on the clean white floor of a low room, papered in a funny way with old copies of the Illustrated London News. A coloured American lithograph, representing the kiss of reconciliation between two offended lovers, hung against the wall on one side, and was evidently regarded with a good deal of pride by the proprietor, as affording incontestable evidence of culture and refined taste, and proving his familiar acquaintance with American art, and the manners and customs of American society.

Dodd and I, notwithstanding our fatigue, devoted the evening entirely to literary pursuits; searching diligently with tallow candles over the wall and ceiling for consecutive numbers of the Illustrated London News, reading court gossip from a birch plank in the corner, and obituaries of distinguished Englishmen from the back of a door. By dint of industry and perseverance we finished one whole side of the house before bedtime, and having gained a vast amount of valuable information with regard to the war in New Zealand, we were encouraged to pursue our investigations in the morning upon the three remaining sides and the ceiling. To our great regret, however, we were obliged to start on our pilgrimage without having time to find out how that war terminated, and we have never been able to ascertain to this day! Long before six o'clock we were off with fresh horses for a long ride of ninety versts to Pushchin (poosh'-chin).

The costumes of our little party had now assumed a very motley and brigandish appearance, every individual having discarded from time to time, such articles of his civilised dress as proved to be inconvenient or uncomfortable, and adopted various picturesque substitutes, which filled more nearly the requirements of a barbarous life. Dodd had thrown away his cap, and tied a scarlet and yellow handkerchief around his head. Viushin had ornamented his hat with a long streamer of crimson ribbon, which floated gayly in the wind like a whip-pennant. A blue hunting-shirt and a red Turkish fez had superseded my uniform coat and cap. We all carried rifles slung across our backs, and revolvers belted around our waists, and were transformed generally into as fantastic brigands as ever sallied forth from the passes of the Apennines to levy blackmail upon unwary travellers. A timid tourist, meeting us as we galloped furiously across the plain toward Pushchin would have fallen on his knees and pulled out his purse without asking any unnecessary questions.

Being well mounted on fresh, spirited horses, the Major, Dodd, Viushin, and I rode far in advance of the rest of the party throughout the day. Late in the afternoon, as we were going at a slashing rate across the level plain known as the Kamchatkan tundra, [Footnote: A treeless expanse carpeted with moss and low berry-bushes.] the Major suddenly drew his horse violently back on his haunches, wheeled half round, and shouted, "Medveid! medveid!" and a large black bear rose silently out of the long grass at his very feet.

The excitement, I can conscientiously affirm, was terrific. Viushin unslung his double-barrelled fowling-piece, and proceeded to pepper him with duck-shot; Dodd tugged at his revolver with frantic energy while his horse ran away with him over the plain; the Major dropped his bridle, and implored me by all I held sacred not to shoot him, while the horses plunged, kicked, and snorted in the most animated manner. The only calm and self-possessed individual in the whole party was the bear! He surveyed the situation coolly for a few seconds, and then started at an awkward gallop for the woods. In an instant our party recovered its conjoint presence of mind, and charged with the most reckless heroism upon his flying footsteps, shouting frantically to "stop him!" popping away in the most determined and unterrified manner with four revolvers and a shotgun, and performing prodigies of valour in the endeavour to capture the ferocious beast, without getting in his way or coming nearer to him than a hundred yards. All was in vain. The bear vanished in the forest like a flying shadow; and, presuming from his known ferocity and vindictiveness that he had prepared an ambuscade for us in the woods, we deemed it the better part of valour to abandon the pursuit. Upon comparing notes, we found that we had all been similarly impressed with his enormous size, his shagginess, and his generally savage appearance, and had all been inspired at the same moment with an irresistible inclination to take him by the throat and rip him open with a bowie-knife, in a manner so beautifully illustrated by the old geographies. Nothing but the fractiousness of our horses and the rapidity of his flight had prevented this desirable consummation. The Major even declared positively that he had seen the bear a long time before, and only rode over him "to scare him up," and said almost in the words of the redoubtable Falstaff, "that if we would do him honour for it, so; if not, we might scare up the next bear ourselves." Looking at the matter calmly and dispassionately afterward, I thought it extremely probable that if another bear did not scare the Major up, he never would go out of his way to scare up another bear. We felt it to be our duty, however, to caution him against imperilling the success of our expedition by such reckless exploits in the way of scaring up wild beasts.

Long before we reached Pushchin it grew dark; but our tired horses freshened up after sunset, with the cool evening air, and about eight o'clock we heard the distant howling of dogs, which we had already come to associate with hot tea, rest, and sleep. In twenty minutes we were lying comfortably on our bearskins in a Kamchadal house.

We had made sixty miles since daybreak; but the road had been good. We were becoming more accustomed to horseback riding, and were by no means so tired as we had been at Malqua. Only thirty versts now intervened between us and the head-waters of the Kamchatka River, where we were to abandon our horses and float down two hundred and fifty miles on rafts or in native canoes.

A sharp trot of four hours over a level plain brought us on the following morning to Sherom (sheh-rome'), where rafts had already been prepared for our use.

It was with no little regret that I ended for the present my horseback travel. The life suited me in every respect, and I could not recall any previous journey which had ever afforded me more pure, healthful enjoyment, or seemed more like a delightful pleasure excursion than this. All Siberia, however, lay before us; and our regret at leaving scenes which we should never again revisit was relieved by anticipations of future adventures equally novel, and prospective scenery grander even than anything which we had yet witnessed.



CHAPTER X

THE KAMCHATKA RIVER—LIFE ON A CANOE RAFT—RECEPTION AT MILKOVA—MISTAKEN FOR THE TSAR

To a person of an indolent disposition there is something particularly pleasant in floating in a boat down a river. One has all the advantages of variety, and change of incident and scenery, without any exertion; all the lazy pleasures—for such they must be called—of boat life, without any of the monotony which makes a long sea voyage so unendurable. I think it was Gray who said that his idea of paradise was "To lie on a sofa and read eternally new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon." Could the author of the "Elegy" have stretched himself out on the open deck of a Kamchadal boat, covered to a depth of six inches with fragrant flowers and freshly cut hay; could he have floated slowly down a broad, tranquil river through ranges of snow-clad mountains, past forests glowing with yellow and crimson, and vast steppes waving with tall, wild grass; could he have watched the full moon rise over the lonely, snowy peak of the Kluchefskoi (kloo'-chef-skoi') volcano, bridging the river with a narrow trail of quivering light, and have listened to the plash of the boatman's paddles, and the low melancholy song to which they kept time—he would have thrown Marivaux and Crebillon overboard, and have given a better example of the pleasures of paradise.

I know that I am laying myself open to the charge of exaggeration by thus praising Kamchatkan scenery, and that my enthusiasm will perhaps elicit a smile of amusement from the more experienced traveller who has seen Italy and the Alps; still, I am describing things as they appeared to me, and do not assert that the impressions they made were those that should or would have been made upon a man of more extensive experience and wider observation. To use the words of a Spanish writer, which I have somewhere read, "The man who has never seen the glory of the sun cannot be blamed for thinking that there is no glory like that of the moon; nor he who has never seen the moon, for talking of the unrivalled brightness of the morning star." Had I ever sailed down the Rhine, climbed the Matterhorn, or seen the moon rise over the Bay of Naples, I should have taken perhaps a juster and less enthusiastic view of Kamchatka; but, compared with anything that I had previously seen or imagined, the mountain landscapes of southern and central Kamchatka were superb.

At Sherom, thanks to the courier who had preceded us, we found a boat, or Kamchatkan raft, ready for our reception. It was composed of three large dugout canoes placed parallel to one another at distances of about three feet, and lashed with sealskin thongs to stout transverse poles. Over these was laid a floor or platform about ten feet by twelve, leaving room at the bow and stern of each canoe for men with paddles who were to guide and propel the unwieldy craft in some unknown, but, doubtless, satisfactory manner. On the platform, which was covered to a depth of six inches with freshly cut grass, we pitched our little cotton tent, and transformed it with bearskins, blankets, and pillows into a very cosy substitute for a stateroom. Rifles and revolvers were unstrapped from our tired bodies, and hung up against the tent poles; heavy riding boots were unceremoniously kicked off, and replaced by soft buckskin torbasses [Footnote: Moccasin boots.]; saddles were stored away in convenient nooks for future use; and all our things disposed with a view to the enjoyment of as much luxury as was compatible with our situation.

After a couple of hours' rest, during which our heavy baggage was transferred to another similar raft, we walked down to the sandy beach, bade good-bye to the crowd which had assembled to see us off, and swung slowly out into the current, the Kamchadals on the shore waving hats and handkerchiefs until a bend in the river hid them from sight. The scenery of the upper Kamchatka for the first twenty miles was comparatively tame and uninteresting, as the mountains were entirely concealed by a dense forest of pine, birch, and larch, which extended down to the water's edge. It was sufficient pleasure, however, at first, to lie back in the tent upon our soft bearskins, watching the brilliantly coloured and ever varying foliage of the banks, to sweep swiftly but silently around abrupt bends into long vistas of still water, startling the great Kamchatkan eagle from his lonely perch on some jutting rock, and frightening up clouds of clamorous waterfowl, which flew in long lines down the river until out of sight. The navigation of the upper Kamchatka is somewhat intricate and dangerous at night, on account of the rapidity of the current and the frequency of snags; and as soon as it grew dark our native boatmen considered it unsafe to go on. We accordingly beached our rafts and went ashore to wait for moonrise.

A little semicircle was cut in the thick underbrush at the edge of the beach, fires were built, kettles of potatoes and fish hung over to boil, and we all gathered around the cheerful blaze to smoke, talk, and sing American songs until supper time. The scene to civilised eyes was strangely wild and picturesque. The dark, lonely river gurgling mournfully around sunken trees in its channel; the dense primeval forest whispering softly to the passing wind its amazement at this invasion of its solitude; the huge flaming camp-fire throwing a red lurid glare over the still water, and lighting up weirdly the encircling woods; and the groups of strangely dressed men lounging carelessly about the blaze upon shaggy bearskins—all made up a picture worthy of the pencil of Rembrandt.

After supper we amused ourselves by building an immense bonfire of driftwood on the beach, and hurling blazing firebrands at the leaping salmon as they passed up the river, and the frightened ducks which had been roused from sleep by the unusual noise and light. When nothing remained of our bonfire but a heap of glowing embers, we spread our bearskins upon the soft, yielding sand by the water's edge, and lay staring up at the twinkling stars until consciousness faded away into dreams, and dreams into utter oblivion.

I was waked about midnight by the splashing of rain in my face and the sobbing of the rising wind in the tree-tops, and upon crawling out of my water-soaked blankets found that Dodd and the Major had brought the tent ashore, pitched it among the trees, and availed themselves of its shelter, but had treacherously left me exposed to a pelting rain-storm, as if it were a matter of no consequence whatever whether I slept in a tent or a mud-puddle! After mentally debating the question whether I had better go inside or revenge myself by pulling the tent down over their heads, I finally decided to escape from the rain first and seek revenge at some more propitious time. Hardly had I fallen asleep again when "spat" came the wet canvas across my face, accompanied by a shout of "Get up! it is time to start"; and crawling out from under the fallen tent I walked sullenly down to the raft, revolving in my mind various ingenious schemes for getting even with the Major and Dodd, who had first left me out in the rain, and then waked me up in the middle of the night by pulling a wet tent down over my head. It was one o'clock in the morning—dark, rainy, and dismal—but the moon was supposed to have risen, and our Kamchadal boatmen said that it was light enough to start. I didn't believe that it was, but my sleepily expressed opinions had no weight with the Major, and my protests were utterly ignored. Hoping in the bitterness of my heart that we should run against a snag, I lay down sullenly in the rain on the wet soaking grass of our raft, and tried to forget my misery in sleep. On account of the contrary wind we could not put up our tent, and were obliged to cover ourselves as best we could with oilcloth blankets and shiver away the remainder of the night.

About an hour after daylight we approached the Kamchadal settlement of Milkova (mil'-ko-vah), the largest native village in the peninsula. The rain had ceased, and the clouds were beginning to break away, but the air was still cold and raw. A courier, who had been sent down in a canoe from Sherom on the previous day, had notified the inhabitants of our near approach, and the signal gun which we fired as we came round the last bend of the river brought nearly the whole population running helter-skelter to the beach. Our reception was "a perfect ovation." The "city fathers," as Dodd styled them, to the number of twenty, gathered in a body at the landing and began bowing, taking off their hats, and shouting "Zdrastvuitie?" [Footnote: How do you do?] while we were yet fifty yards from the shore; a salute was fired from a dozen rusty flint-lock muskets, to the imminent hazard of our lives; and a dozen natives waded into the water to assist us in getting safely landed. The village stood a short distance back from the river's bank, and the natives had provided for our transportation thither four of the worst-looking horses that I had seen in Kamchatka. Their equipments consisted of wooden saddles, modelled after the gables of an angular house; stirrups about twelve inches in length, patched up from discarded remnants of sealskin thongs; cruppers of bearskin, and halters of walrus hide twisted around the animals' noses. The excitement which prevailed when we proceeded to mount was unparalleled I believe in the annals of that quiet settlement. I don't know how the Major succeeded in getting upon his horse, but I do know that a dozen long-haired Kamchadals seized Dodd and me, regardless of our remonstrances, hauled us this way and that until the struggle to get hold of some part of our unfortunate persons resembled the fight over the dead body of Patroclus, and finally hoisted us triumphantly into our saddles in a breathless and exhausted condition. One more such hospitable reception would forever have incapacitated us for the service of the Russian American Telegraph Company! I had only time to cast a hurried glance back at the Major. He looked like a frightened landsman straddling the end of a studdingsail-boom run out to leeward on a fast clipper, and his face was screwed up into an expression of mingled pain, amusement, and astonishment, which evidently did not begin to do justice to his conflicting emotions. I had no opportunity of expressing my sympathetic participation in his sufferings; for an excited native seized the halter of my horse, three more with reverently bared heads fell in on each side, and I was led away in triumph to some unknown destination! The inexpressible absurdity of our appearance did not strike me with its full force until I looked behind me just before we reached the village. There were the Major, Viushin, and Dodd, perched upon gaunt Kamchadal horses, with their knees and chins on nearly the same level, half a dozen natives in eccentric costumes straggling along by their sides at a dog-trot, and a large procession of bareheaded men and boys solemnly bringing up the rear, punching the horses with sharp sticks into a temporary manifestation of life and spirit. It reminded me faintly of a Roman triumph—the Major, Dodd, and I being the victorious heroes, and the Kamchadals the captives, whom we had compelled to go sub jugum, and who now graced our triumphal entry into the Seven-hilled City. I mentioned this fancy of mine to Dodd, but he declared that one would have had to do violence to his imagination to make "victorious heroes" out of us on that occasion, and suggested "heroic victims" as equally poetical and more in accordance with the facts. His severely practical mind objected to any such fanciful idealisation of our misery. The excitement increased rather than diminished as we entered the village. Our motley escort gesticulated, ran to and fro, and shouted unintelligible orders in the most frantic manner; heads appeared and disappeared with startling kaleidoscopic abruptness at the windows of the houses; and three hundred dogs contributed to the general confusion by breaking out into an infernal canine peace jubilee which fairly made the air quiver with sound. At last we stopped in front of a large one-story log house, and were assisted by twelve or fifteen natives to dismount and enter. As soon as Dodd could collect his confused faculties he demanded: "What in the name of all the Russian saints is the matter with this settlement; is everybody insane?" Viushin was ordered to send for the starosta, or head man of the village, and in a few moments he made his appearance, bowing with the impressive persistency of a Chinese mandarin.

A prolonged colloquy then took place in Russian between the Major and the starosta, broken by explanatory commentaries in the Kamchadal language, which did not tend materially to elucidate the subject. An evident and increasing disposition to smile gradually softened the stern lines of the Major's face, until at last he burst into a laugh of such infectious hilarity that, notwithstanding my ignorance of the nature of the fun, I joined in with hearty sympathy. As soon as he partially recovered his composure he gasped out, "The natives took you for the Emperor!"—and then he went off in another spasm of merriment which threatened to terminate either in suffocation or apoplexy. Lost in bewilderment I could only smile feebly until he recovered sufficiently to give me a more intelligible explanation of his mirth. It appeared that the courier who had been sent from Petropavlovsk to apprise the natives throughout the peninsula of our coming, had carried a letter from the Russian governor giving the names and occupations of the members of our party, and that mine had been put down as "Yagor Kennan, Telegraphist and Operator." It so happened that the starosta of Milkova possessed the rare accomplishment of knowing how to read Russian writing, and the letter had been handed over to him to be communicated to the inhabitants of the village. He had puzzled over the unknown word "telegraphist" until his mind was in a hopeless state of bewilderment, but had not been able to give even the wildest conjecture as to its probable meaning. "Operator," however, had a more familiar sound; it was not spelled exactly in the way to which he had been accustomed, but it was evidently intended for "Imperator," the Emperor!—and with his heart throbbing with the excitement of this startling discovery and his hair standing on end from the arduous nature of his exegetical labours, he rushed furiously out to spread the news that the Tsar of all the Russias was on a visit to Kamchatka and would pass through Milkova in the course of three days! The excitement which this alarming announcement created can better be imagined than described. The all-absorbing topic of conversation was, how could Milkova best show its loyalty and admiration for the Head of the Imperial Family, the Right Arm of the Holy Orthodox Church, and the Mighty Monarch of seventy millions of devoted souls? Kamchadal ingenuity gave it up in despair! What could a poor Kamchatkan village do for the entertainment of its august master? When the first excitement passed away, the starosta was questioned closely as to the nature of the letter which had brought this news, and was finally compelled to admit that it did not say distinctly, "Alexander Nikolaivitch, Imperator," but "Yagor" something "Operator," which he contended was substantially the same thing, because if it didn't mean the Emperor himself it meant one of his most intimate relations, who was entitled to equal honour and must be treated with equal reverence. The courier had already gone, and had said nothing about the rank of the travellers whom he heralded, except that they had arrived at Petropavlovsk in a ship, wore gorgeous uniforms of blue and gold, and were being entertained by the governor and the captain of the port. Public opinion finally settled down into the conviction that "Op-erator", etymologically considered, was first cousin to "Im-perator," and that it must mean some dignitary of high rank connected with the imperial family. With this impression they had received us when we arrived, and had, poor fellows, done their very best to show us proper honour and respect. It had been a severe ordeal to us, but it had proved in the most unmistakable manner the loyalty of the Kamchadal inhabitants of Milkova to the reigning family of Russia.

The Major explained to the starosta our real rank and occupation, but it did not seem to make any difference whatever in the cordial hospitality of our reception. We were treated to the very best that the village afforded, and were stared at with a curiosity which showed that travellers through Milkova had hitherto been few and far between. After eating bread and reindeer meat and tasting experimentally various curiously compounded native dishes, we returned in state to the landing-place, accompanied by another procession, received a salute of fifteen guns, and resumed our voyage down the river.



CHAPTER XI

ARRIVAL AT KLUCHEI—THE KLUCHEFSKOI VOLCANO—A QUESTION OF ROUTE—A RUSSIAN "BLACK BATH"

The valley of this river is unquestionably the most fertile part of the whole Kamchatkan peninsula. Nearly all of the villages that we passed were surrounded by fields of rye and neatly fenced gardens; the banks everywhere were either covered with timber or waving with wild grass five feet in height; and the luxuriant growth in many places of flowers and weeds testified to the richness of the soil and the warm humidity of the climate. Primroses, cowslips, marsh violets, buttercups, wild-roses, cinquefoil, iris, and azure larkspur grow everywhere throughout the valley in the greatest abundance; and a peculiar species of umbelliferae, with hollow-jointed stems, attains in many places a height of six feet, and grows so densely that its huge serrated leaves hide a man from sight at a distance of a few yards. All this is the growth of a single summer.

There are twelve native settlements between the head-waters of the river and the Kluchefskoi volcano, and nearly all are situated in picturesque locations, and surrounded by gardens and fields of rye. Nowhere does the traveller see any evidences of the barrenness, sterility, and frigid desolation which have always been associated with the name of Kamchatka.

After leaving our hospitable native friends and our imperial dignity at Milkova, on Monday morning, we floated slowly down the river for three days, catching distant glimpses of the snowy mountain ranges which bounded the valley, roaming through the woods in search of bears and wild cherries, camping at night on the river-bank among the trees, and living generally a wild, free, delightful life. We passed the native settlements of Kirganic (keer-gan'-ic), Marshura (mar'-shoo-rah), Shchapina (shchap'-in-ah), and Tolbachic, where we were received with boundless hospitality; and on Wednesday, September 13th, camped in the woods south of Kazerefski (kaz-er-ef'-ski), only a hundred and twenty versts distant from the village of Kluchei (kloo-chay'). It rained nearly all day Wednesday, and we camped at night among the dripping trees, with many apprehensions that the storm would hide the magnificent scenery of the lower Kamchatka, through which we were about to pass. It cleared away, however, before midnight; and I was awakened at an early hour in the morning by a shouted summons from Dodd to get up and look at the mountains. There was hardly a breath of air astir, and the atmosphere had that peculiar crystalline transparency which may sometimes be seen in California. A heavy hoar-frost lay white on the boats and grass, and a few withered leaves dropped wavering through the still cool air from the yellow birch trees which overhung our tent. There was not a sound to break harshly upon the silence of dawn; and only the tracks of wild reindeer and prowling wolves, on the smooth sandy beach showed that there was life in the quiet lonely wilderness around us. The sun had not yet risen, but the eastern heavens were aglare with yellow light, even up to the morning-star, which, although "paling its ineffectual fires," still maintained its position as a glittering outpost between the contending powers of night and day. Far away to the north-eastward, over the yellow forest, in soft purple relief against the red sunrise, stood the high sharp peaks of Kluchei, grouped around the central wedge-like cone of the magnificent Kluchefskoi volcano. Nearly a month before I had seen these noble mountains from the tossing deck of a little brig, seventy-five miles at sea; but I little thought then that I should see them again from a lonely camp in the woods of the Kamchatka River.

For nearly half an hour Dodd and I sat quietly on the beach, absent-mindedly throwing pebbles into the still water, watching the illumination of the distant mountains by the rising sun, and talking over the adventures which we had experienced since leaving Petropavlovsk. With what different impressions had I come to look at Siberian life since I first saw the precipitous coast of Kamchatka looming up out of the blue water of the Pacific!

Then it was an unknown, mysterious land of glaciers and snowy mountains, filled with possibilities of adventure, but lonely and forbidding in its uninhabited wildness. Now it was no longer lonely or desolate. Every mountain peak was associated with some hospitable village nestled at its feet; every little stream was connected with the great world of human interests by some pleasant recollection of camp life. The possibilities of adventure were still there, but the imaginary loneliness and desolation had vanished with one week's experience. I thought of the vague conceptions which I had formed in America of this beautiful country, and tried to compare them with the more recent impressions by which they had been crowded out, but the effort was vain. I could not surround myself again with the lost intellectual atmosphere of civilisation, nor reconcile those earlier anticipations with this strangely different experience. The absurd fancies, which had seemed so vivid and so true only three months before, had now faded away into the half-remembered imagery of a dream, and nothing was real but the tranquil river which flowed at my feet, the birch tree which dropped its yellow leaves upon my head, and the far-away purple mountains.

I was roused from my reverie by the furious beating of a tin mess-kettle, which was the summons to breakfast. In half an hour breakfast was despatched, the tent struck, camp equipage packed up, and we were again under way. We floated all day down the river toward Kluchei, getting ever-changing views of the mountains as they were thrown into new and picturesque combinations by our motion to the northward. We reached Kazerefski at dark, and, changing our crew, continued our voyage throughout the night. At daybreak on Friday we passed Kristi (kris-tee'), and at two o'clock in the afternoon arrived at Kluchei, having been just eleven days out from Petropavlovsk.

The village of Kluchei is situated in an open plain on the right bank of the Kamchatka River, at the very foot of the magnificent Kluchefskoi volcano, and has nothing to distinguish it from other Kamchadal towns, except the boldness and picturesque beauty of its situation. It lies exactly in the midst of the group of superb isolated peaks which guard the entrance to the river, and is shadowed over frequently by the dense, black smoke of two volcanoes. It was founded early in the eighteenth century by a few Russian peasants who were taken from their homes in central Russia, and sent with seeds and farming utensils to start a colony in far-away Kamchatka. After a long adventurous journey of six thousand miles across Asia by way of Tobolsk (to-bolsk'), Irkutsk (eer-kootsk'), Yakutsk (yah-kootsk'), and Kolyma (kol-e-mah'), the little band of involuntary emigrants finally reached the peninsula, and settled boldly on the Kamchatka River, under the shadow of the great volcano. Here they and their descendants have lived for more than a hundred years, until they have almost forgotten how they came there and by whom they were sent. Notwithstanding the activity and frequent eruption of the two volcanoes behind the village, its location never has been changed, and its inhabitants have come to regard with indifference the occasional mutterings of warning which come from the depths of the burning craters, and the showers of ashes which are frequently sifted over their houses and fields. Never having heard of Herculaneum or Pompeii, they do not associate any possible danger with the fleecy cloud of smoke which floats in pleasant weather from the broken summit of Kluchefskoi, or the low thunderings by which its smaller, but equally dangerous, neighbour asserts its wakefulness during the long winter nights. Another century may perhaps elapse without bringing any serious disaster upon the little village; but after hearing the Kluchefskoi volcano rumble at a distance of sixty miles, and seeing the dense volumes of black vapour which it occasionally emitted, I felt entirely satisfied to give its volcanic majesty a wide berth, and wondered at the boldness of the Kamchadals in selecting such a site for their settlement.

The Kluchefskoi is one of the highest as well as one of the most uninterruptedly active volcanoes in all the great volcanic chain of the North Pacific. Since the seventeenth century very few years have elapsed without an eruption of greater or less violence, and even now, at irregular intervals of a few months, it bursts into flame and scatters ashes over the whole width of the peninsula and on both seas. The snow in winter is frequently so covered with ashes for twenty-five miles around Kluchei that travel upon sledges becomes almost impossible. Many years ago, according to the accounts of the natives, there was an eruption of terrible magnificence. It began in the middle of a clear, dark winter's night, with loud thunderings and tremblings of the earth, which startled the inhabitants of Kluchei from their sleep and brought them in affright to their doors. Far up in the dark winter's sky, 16,000 feet above their heads, blazed a column of lurid flame from the crater, crowned by a great volume of fire-lighted vapour. Amid loud rumblings, and dull reverberations from the interior, the molten lava began to flow in broad fiery rivers down the snow-covered mountain side, until for half the distance to its base it was one glowing mass of fire which lighted, up the villages of Kristi, Kazerefski, and Kluchei like the sun, and illuminated the whole country within a radius of twenty-five miles. This eruption is said to have scattered ashes over the peninsula for three hundred versts to a depth of an inch and a half.

The lava has never yet descended much, if any, below the snow line; but I see no reason why it may not at some future time overwhelm the settlement of Kluchei and fill the channel of the Kamchatka River with a fiery flood.

The volcano, so far as I know, has never been ascended, and its reported height, 16,500 feet, is probably the approximative estimate of some Russian officer. It is certainly, however, the highest peak of the Kamchatkan peninsula, and is more likely to exceed 16,000 feet than fall below it. We felt a strong temptation to try to scale its smooth snowy sides and peer over into its smoking crater; but it would have been folly to make the attempt without two or three weeks' training, and we had not the time to spare. The mountain is nearly a perfect cone, and from the village of Kluchei it is so deceitfully foreshortened that the last 3,000 feet appear to be absolutely perpendicular. There is another volcano whose name, if it have any, I could not ascertain, standing a short distance south-east of the Kluchefskoi, and connected with it by an irregular broken ridge. It does not approach the latter in height, but it seems to draw its fiery supplies from the same source, and is constantly puffing out black vapour, which an east wind drives in great clouds across the white sides of Kluchefskoi until it is sometimes almost hidden from sight.

We were entertained at Kluchei in the large comfortable house of the starosta, or local magistrate of the village. The walls of our room were gayly hung with figured calico, the ceiling was covered with white cotton drill, and the rude pine furniture was scoured with soap and sand to the last attainable degree of cleanliness. A coarsely executed picture, which I took to be Moses, hung in a gilt frame in the corner; but the sensible prophet had apparently shut his eyes to avoid the smoke of the innumerable candles which had been burned in his honour, and the expression of his face was somewhat marred in consequence. Table-cloths of American manufacture were spread on the tables, pots of flowers stood in the curtained windows, a little mirror hung against the wall opposite the door, and all the little fixtures and rude ornaments of the room were disposed with a taste and a view to general effect which the masculine mind may admire but never can imitate. American art, too, had lent a grace to this cottage in the wilderness, for the back of one of the doors was embellished with pictorial sketches of Virginian life and scenery from the skilful pencil of Porte Crayon. I thought of the well-known lines of Pope:

"The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the d—— they came there."

In such comfortable, not to say luxurious, quarters as these, we succeeded, of course, in passing away pleasantly the remainder of the day.

At Kluchei we were called upon to decide what route we would adopt in our journey to the northward. The shortest, and in many respects the best, was that usually taken by the Russian traders—crossing the central range of mountains to Tigil (tee-gill'), by the pass of the Yolofka (yo-loff'-ka), and then following up the west coast of the peninsula to the head of the Okhotsk Sea. The only objections to this were the lateness of the season and the probability of finding deep snow in the mountain passes. Our only alternative was to continue our journey from Kluchei up the eastern coast to a settlement called Dranka (dran'-kah), where the mountains sank into insignificant hills, and cross there to the Kamchadal village of Lesnoi (less-noi') on the Okhotsk Sea. This route was considerably longer than the one by the Yolofka pass, but its practicability was much more certain.

After a great many prolonged consultations with sundry natives, who were supposed to know something about the country, but who carefully avoided responsibility by telling as little as possible, the Major concluded to try the Yolofka pass, and ordered canoes to be ready on Saturday morning to carry us up the Yolofka River.

At the worst, we could only fail to get over the mountains, and there would be time enough then to return to Kluchei, and try the other route before the opening of winter.

As soon as we had decided the momentous question of our route, we gave ourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of the few pleasures which the small and sedate village of Kluchei afforded. There was no afternoon promenade where we could, as the Russians say, "show ourselves and see the people"; nor would an exhibition of our tattered and weather-stained garments on a public promenade have been quite the proper thing, had it been possible. We must try something else. The only places of amusement of which we could hear were the village bath-house and the church; and the Major and I started out, late in the afternoon, with the intention of "doing" these points of interest in the most approved style of modern tourists. For obvious reasons we took the bath-house first. Taking a steam-bath was a very mild sort of dissipation; and if it were true that "cleanliness was next to godliness," the bath-house certainly should precede the church. I had often heard Dodd speak of the "black baths" of the Kamchadals; and without knowing definitely what he meant, I had a sort of vague impression that these "black baths" were taken in some inky fluid of Kamchatkan manufacture, which possessed peculiar detersive properties. I could think of no other reason than this for calling a bath "black." Upon entering the "black bath," however, at Kluchei, I saw my mistake, and acknowledged at once the appropriateness of the adjective. Leaving our clothes in a little rude entry, which answered the purposes without affording any of the conveniences of a dressing-room, we stooped to a low fur-clad door and entered the bath-room proper, which was certainly dark enough and black enough to justify the gloomiest, murkiest adjective in the language. A tallow candle, which was burning feebly on the floor, gave just light enough to distinguish the outlines of a low, bare apartment, about ten feet square, built solidly of unhewn logs, without a single opening for the admission of air or light. Every square inch of the walls and ceiling was perfectly black with a sooty deposit from the clouds of smoke with which the room had been filled in the process of heating. A large pile of stones, with a hollow place underneath for a fire, stood in one end of the room, and a series of broad steps, which did not seem to lead anywhere, occupied the other. As soon as the fire had gone out, the chimney-hole had been closed and hermetically sealed, and the pile of hot stones was now radiating a fierce dry heat, which made respiration a painful duty, and perspiration an unpleasant necessity. The presiding spirit of this dark, infernal place of torture soon made his appearance in the shape of a long-haired, naked Kamchadal, and proceeded to throw water upon the pile of red-hot stones until they hissed like a locomotive, and the candle burned blue in the centre of a steamy halo. I thought it was hot before, but it was a Siberian winter compared with the temperature which this manoeuvre produced. My very bones seemed melting with fervent heat. After getting the air of the room as nearly as possible up to 212 deg., the native seized me by the arm, spread me out on the lowest of the flight of steps, poured boiling suds over my face and feet with reckless impartiality, and proceeded to knead me up, as if he fully intended to separate me into my original elements. I will not attempt to describe the number, the variety, and the diabolical ingenuity of the tortures to which I was subjected during the next twenty minutes. I was scrubbed, rolled, pounded, drenched with cold water and scalded with hot, beaten with bundles of birch twigs, rubbed down with wads of hemp which scraped like brickbats, and finally left to recover my breath upon the highest and hottest step of the whole stairway. A douse of cold water finally put an end to the ordeal and to my misery; and, groping my way out into the entry, I proceeded, with chattering teeth, to dress. In a moment I was joined by the Major, and we resumed our walk, feeling like disembodied spirits.

Owing to the lateness of the hour, we were compelled to postpone indefinitely our visit to the church; but we had been sufficiently amused for one day, and returned to the house satisfied, if not delighted, with our experience of Kamchatkan black baths.

The evening was spent in questioning the inhabitants of the village about the northern part of the peninsula, and the facilities for travel among the wandering Koraks; and before nine o'clock we went to bed, in order that we might make an early start on the following morning.



CHAPTER XII

CANOE TRAVEL ON THE YOLOFKA—VOLCANIC CONVERSATION—"O SUSANNA!"—TALKING "AMERICAN"—A DIFFICULT ASCENT

There was a great variety in the different methods of transportation which we were compelled to adopt in our journey through Kamchatka; and to this fact was attributable perhaps, in a great degree, the sense of novelty and freshness which during our three months' travel in the peninsula never entirely wore off. We experienced in turn the pleasures and discomforts of whale-boats, horses, rafts, canoes, dog-sledges, reindeer-sledges, and snow-shoes; and no sooner did we begin to tire of the pleasures and ascertain the discomforts of one, than we were introduced to another.

At Kluchei we abandoned our rafts, and took Kamchadal log canoes, which could be propelled more easily against the rapid current of the Yolofka River, which we had now to ascend. The most noticeable peculiarity of this species of craft, and a remarkable one it is, is a decided and chronic inclination to turn its bottom side upward and its upper side bottomward without the slightest apparent provocation. I was informed by a reliable authority that a boat capsized on the Kamchatka, just previous to our arrival, through the carelessness of a Kamchadal in allowing a jack-knife to remain in his right-hand pocket without putting something of a corresponding weight into the other; and that the Kamchadal fashion of parting the hair in the middle originated in attempts to preserve personal equilibrium while navigating these canoes. I should have been somewhat inclined to doubt these remarkable and not altogether new stories, were it not for the reliability and unimpeachable veracity of my informant, Mr. Dodd. The seriousness of the subject is a sufficient guarantee that he would not trifle with my feelings by making it the pretext for a joke.

We indulged ourselves on Saturday morning in a much later sleep than was consistent with our duty, and it was almost eight o'clock before we went down to the beach.

Upon first sight of the frail canoes, to which our destinies and the interests of the Russian-American Telegraph Company were to be intrusted, there was a very general expression of surprise and dissatisfaction. One of our party, with the rapid a priori reasoning for which he was distinguished, came at once to the conclusion that a watery death would be the inevitable termination of a voyage made in such vessels, and he evinced a very marked disinclination to embark. It is related of a great warrior, whose Commentaries were the detestation of my early life, that during a very stormy passage of the Ionian Sea he cheered up his sailors with the sublimely egotistical assurance that they carried "Caesar and his fortunes"; and that, consequently, nothing disastrous could possibly happen to them. The Kamchatkan Caesar, however, on this occasion seemed to distrust his own fortunes, and the attempts at consolation came from the opposite quarter. His boatman did not tell him, "Cheer up, Caesar, a Kamchadal and his fortunes are carrying you," but he did assure him that he had navigated the river for several years, and had "never been drowned once." What more could Caesar ask!—After some demur we all took seats upon bearskins in the bottoms of the canoes, and pushed off.

All other features of natural scenery in the vicinity of Kluchei sink into subordination to the grand central figure of the Kluchefskoi volcano, the monarch of Siberian mountains, whose sharp summit, with its motionless streamer of golden smoke, can be seen anywhere within a radius of a hundred miles. All other neighbouring beauties of scenery are merely tributary to this, and are valued only according to their capability of relieving and setting forth this magnificent peak, whose colossal dimensions rise in one unbroken sweep of snow from the grassy valleys of the Kamchatka and Yolofka, which terminate at its base. "Heir of the sunset and herald of morning," its lofty crater is suffused with a roseate blush long before the morning mists and darkness are out of the valleys, and long after the sun has set behind the purple mountains of Tigil. At all times, under all circumstances, and in all its ever-varying moods, it is the most beautiful mountain I have ever seen. Now it lies bathed in the warm sunshine of an Indian summer's day, with a few fleecy clouds resting at the snow-line and dappling its sides with purple shadows; then it envelops itself in dense volumes of black volcanic smoke, and thunders out a hoarse warning to the villages at its feet; and finally, toward evening, it gathers a mantle of grey mists around its summit, and rolls them in convulsed masses down its sides, until it stands in the clear atmosphere a colossal pillar of cloud, sixteen thousand feet in height, resting upon fifty square miles of shaggy pine forest.

You think nothing can be more beautiful than the delicate tender colour, like that of a wild-rose leaf, which tinges its snows as the sun sinks in a swirl of red vapours in the west; but "visit it by the pale moonlight," when its hood of mist is edged with silver, when black shadows gather in its deep ravines and white misty lights gleam from its snowy pinnacles, when the host of starry constellations seems to circle around its lofty peak, and the tangled silver chain of the Pleiades to hang upon one of its rocky spires—then say, if you can, that it is more beautiful by daylight.