st. In less than an hour we sighted the high isolated
rocks known as the "Three Brothers," passed a rocky precipitous
island, surrounded by clouds of shrieking gulls and parrot-billed
ducks, and by two o'clock were off "the heads" of Avacha Bay, on which
is situated the village of Petropavlovsk. The scenery at the entrance
more than equalled our highest anticipations. Green grassy valleys
stretched away from openings in the rocky coast until they were lost
in the distant mountains; the rounded bluffs were covered with clumps
of yellow birch and thickets of dark-green chaparral; patches of
flowers could be seen on the warm sheltered slopes of the hills; and
as we passed close under the lighthouse bluff, Bush shouted
joyously, "Hurrah, there's clover!" "Clover!" exclaimed the captain
contemptuously, "there ain't any clover in the Ar'tic Regions!" "How
do you know, you've never been there," retorted Bush caustically; "it
_looks_ like clover, and"--looking through a glass--"it _is_ clover";
and his face lighted up as if the discovery of clover had relieved his
mind of a great deal of anxiety as to the severity of the Kamchatkan
climate. It was a sort of vegetable exponent of temperature, and out
of a little patch of clover, Bush's imagination developed, in a style
undreamt of by Darwin, the whole luxuriant flora of the temperate
zone.

The very name of Kamchatka had always been associated in our minds
with everything barren and inhospitable, and we did not entertain
for a moment the thought that such a country could afford beautiful
scenery and luxuriant vegetation. In fact, with us all it was a mooted
question whether anything more than mosses, lichens, and perhaps a
little grass maintained the unequal struggle for existence in that
frozen clime. It may be imagined with what delight and surprise we
looked upon green hills covered with trees and verdant thickets;
upon valleys white with clover and diversified with little groves of
silver-barked birch, and even the rocks nodding with wild roses and
columbine, which had taken root in their clefts as if nature strove to
hide with a garment of flowers the evidences of past convulsions.

Just before three o'clock we came in sight of the village of
Petropavlovsk--a little cluster of red-roofed and bark-thatched log
houses; a Greek church of curious architecture, with a green dome;
a strip of beach, a half-ruined wharf, two whale-boats, and the
dismantled wreck of a half-sunken