bronze bowl and wooden stem, which half a dozen
whiffs suffice to finish. The stem is made to open so that the nicotine
may be collected, mixed with wood shavings, and smoked again.

We left Bete-Kul at four in the morning, intending, if possible, to
cross the mountains during the day, but the pass had lately been blocked
with snow and the natives reported it in a terrible condition. But time
would admit of no delay and I resolved to make the attempt at all
hazards. Anna-sook, a miserable little _povarnia_ near the foot of the
mountain, was reached after a journey of five hours. The hut was, as
usual, full of drifted snow, which we had to remove before breakfasting
in an atmosphere of 12 deg. below zero, upon which a roaring fire made
no appreciable impression. Oddly enough, in this deserted shanty we came
upon the sole sign of life which we had encountered (outside of the
_stancias_) all the way from Yakutsk. This was a tiny field-mouse, which
had survived the Arctic winter, curled up in a little mound of earth in
a corner of this cold, dark shanty. The poor little half-frozen thing
could scarcely move, but we gathered some fir-boughs and made it a nest,
and left with it a goodly supply of biscuit-crumbs, which it devoured
with avidity and a grateful look in its beady black eyes.

Starting at midday we commenced the ascent of the mountain, which is
crossed by probably the most remarkable pass in the world. From a
distance it looked as though a perpendicular wall of ice, some hundreds
of feet in height, must be scaled in order to gain the summit. Before
ascending, the iron horse shoes brought from Yakutsk were fastened to
our moccasins, ostensibly to afford secure foothold, but I discarded
these awkward appendages after they had given me five or six bad falls,
and my companions did likewise. About two hours of severe work,
increased by deep snow and the rarefied atmosphere, brought us to the
summit, the reindeer and sleds ascending by a longer but much less
precipitous route. During the ascent there were places where a slip must
have meant a dangerous, if not fatal, fall, for midway up a precipice of
over a thousand feet was crossed by a slippery ledge of ice about three
feet in width. Looking down on the northward side, a frozen snow-slope,
about a mile in length, was so steep, that it seemed impossible to
descend it without personal injury. We awaited the sleds for nearly
three hours on the summit, almost perished wi