wever, it is the most
important settlement in the peninsula, and is the trading centre of
the whole western coast. A Russian supply steamer and an American
trading vessel touch at the mouth of the Tigil River every summer,
and leave large quantities of rye flour, tea, sugar, cloth, copper
kettles, tobacco, and strong Russian vodka, for distribution through
the peninsula. The Bragans, Vorrebeoffs (vor-re-be-offs'), and two or
three other trading firms make it headquarters, and it is the winter
rendezvous of many of the northern tribes of Chukchis and Koraks. As
we should pass no other trading post until we reached the settlement
of Gizhiga (gee'-zhee-gah'), at the head of the Okhotsk Sea, we
determined to remain a few days at Tigil to rest and refit.

We were now about to enter upon what we feared would prove the most
difficult part of our journey--both on account of the nature of the
country and the lateness of the season. Only seven more Kamchadal
towns lay between us and the steppes of the Wandering Koraks, and
we had not yet been able to think of any plan of crossing these
inhospitable wastes before the winter's snows should make them
passable on reindeer-sledges. It is difficult for one who has had no
experience of northern life to get from a mere verbal description
a clear idea of a Siberian moss steppe, or to appreciate fully the
nature and extent of the obstacles which it presents to summer travel.
It is by no means easy to cross, even in winter, when it is frozen and
covered with snow; but in summer it becomes practically impassable.
For three or four hundred square miles the eternally frozen ground is
covered to a depth of two feet with a dense luxuriant growth of soft,
spongy arctic moss, saturated with water, and sprinkled here and there
with little hillocks of stunted blueberry bushes and clusters of
labrador tea. It never dries up, never becomes hard enough to afford
stable footing. Prom June to September it is a great, soft, quaking
cushion of wet moss. The foot may sink in it to the knee, but as soon
as the pressure is removed it rises again with spongy elasticity,
and no trace is left of the step. Walking over it is precisely like
walking over an enormous wet sponge. The causes which produce this
extraordinary, and apparently abnormal, growth of moss are those
which exercise the most powerful influence over the development of
vegetation everywhere,--viz., heat, light, and moisture,--and these
agencies,