ed land that he saw in his happier dreams, these questionable
phrases would be his passports to the first society.

While we had been talking with Andrei, Viushin had built a fire and
prepared breakfast, and just as the sun peered into the valley we sat
down on bearskins around our little candle-box and ate some "selanka,"
or sour soup, upon which Viushin particularly prided himself, and
drank tumbler after tumbler of steaming tea. _Selanka_, hardtack, and
tea, with an occasional duck roasted before the fire on a sharp stick,
made up our bill of fare while camping out. Only in the settlements
did we enjoy such luxuries as milk, butter, fresh bread, preserved
rose-petals, and fish pies.

Taking our places again in the canoes after breakfast, we poled on
up the river, shooting occasionally at flying ducks and swans, and
picking as we passed long branches full of wild cherries which drooped
low over the water. About noon we left the canoes to go around a
long bend in the river, and started on foot with a native guide for
Yolofka. The grass in the river bottom and on the plains was much
higher than our waists, and walking through it was very fatiguing
exercise; but we succeeded in reaching the village about one o'clock,
long before our canoes came in sight.

Yolofka, a small Kamchadal settlement of half a dozen houses, is
situated among the foot-hills of the great central Kamchatkan range,
immediately below the pass which bears its name, and on the direct
route to Tigil and the west coast. It is the head of canoe navigation
on the Yolofka River, and the starting-point for parties intending to
cross the mountains. Anticipating difficulty in getting horses enough
for our use at this small village, the Major had sent eight or ten
overland from Kluchei, and we found them there awaiting our arrival.

Nearly the whole afternoon was spent in packing the horses and getting
ready for a start, and we camped for the night beside a cold mountain
spring only a few versts away from the Village. The weather, hitherto,
had been clear and warm, but it clouded up during the night, and we
began the ascent of the mountains Tuesday morning the 19th, in a
cold, driving rain-storm from the north-west. The road, if a wretched
foot-path ten inches wide can be said in any metaphorical sense to
_be_ a road, was simply execrable. It followed the track of a swollen
mountain torrent, which had its rise in the melting snows of the
summit, and tumbled