I should the lively sallies, comical
stories and good-humoured pleasantry which had hitherto brightened
the long hours of camp life. If Dodd could have read my thoughts that
evening, as I sat in solitary majesty by the fireside, he would have
been satisfied that his society was not unappreciated, nor his absence
unfelt. Viushin took especial pains with the preparation of my supper,
and did the best he could, poor fellow, to enliven the solitary meal
with stories and funny reminiscences of Kamchatkan travel; but the
venison cutlets had lost somehow their usual savour, and the Russian
jokes and stories I could not understand. After supper I lay down upon
my bearskins in the tent, and fell asleep watching the round moon rise
over a ragged volcanic peak east of the valley.

On the second day we travelled through a narrow tortuous valley among
the mountains, over spongy swamps of moss, and across deep narrow
creeks, until we reached a ruined subterranean hut nearly half way
from Lesnoi to the Samanka River. Here we ate a lunch of dried fish
and hardbread, and started again up the valley in a heavy rain-storm,
surrounded on all sides by rocks, snow-capped mountains, and extinct
volcanic peaks. The road momentarily grew worse. The valley narrowed
gradually to a wild rocky canon, a hundred and fifty feet in depth,
at the bottom of which ran a swollen mountain torrent, foaming around
sharp black rocks, and falling over ledges of lava in magnificent
cascades. Along the black precipitous sides of this "Devil's Pass"
there did not seem to be footing for a chamois; but our guide said
that he had been through it many times before, and dismounting from
his horse he cautiously led the way along a narrow rocky ledge in
the face of the cliff which I had not before noticed. Over this we
carefully made our way, now descending nearly to the water's edge, and
then rising again until the roaring stream was fifty feet below, and
we could drop stones from our outstretched arms directly into the
boiling, foaming waters. Presuming too much upon the sagacity of a
sure-footed horse, I carelessly attempted the passage of the ravine
without dismounting, and came near paying the penalty of my rashness
by a violent death. About half way through, where the trail was only
eight or ten feet above the bed of the torrent, the ledge, or a
portion of it, gave way under my horse's feet, and we went down
together in a struggling mass upon the rocks in the chan