a series of lakes on either
side of the main stream. There are dangerous overflows here, and twice
we narrowly escaped a ducking, or perhaps a worse fate, although I fancy
the river at this point is very shallow. Nevertheless I heard afterwards
at Verkhoyansk that whole caravans, travellers, drivers and deer have
occasionally been fatally submerged here, or frozen to death after their
immersion. Our deer, as usual, fell about on the ice in all directions,
and one, breaking its leg, had to be destroyed. The stage was a hard
one, so much so that we halted at a _povarnia_ (Mollahoi) for the night.
Towards morning I was awakened by the stifling heat and a disgusting
odour due to the fact that our drivers had discovered a dead horse in
the neighbourhood and were cooking and discussing its remains. Stepan
opined that the animal had expired some weeks previously, and I could
well believe it. A couple of hours before reaching Mollahoi, Harding
caught sight of some ptarmigan within a few yards of the track. I
mention the fact as this was the only game we came across throughout the
whole of the journey of nearly three months from Yakutsk to the Arctic
Ocean.

When the _stancia_ of Siremskaya was reached on February 27, I realised
with intense satisfaction that the journey, at any rate as far as
Verkhoyansk, was practically over. For if this portion of the voyage had
been successfully overcome in so short a time why should not the
remainder as far as Sredni-Kolymsk be accomplished with equal facility?

And so we travelled on from Siremskaya with renewed hopes and in the
best of spirits, although nearing Verkhoyansk the cold became
intense--strong gales and heavy snowstorms prevailed--and we all
suffered severely. Indeed once Clinchamp was carried out of his sled and
into the _povarnia_, a journey of twenty consecutive hours having
temporarily deprived him of the use of his limbs. The thermometer had
marked 40 deg. below zero even inside my closely covered sled, and one
of my feet was also badly frozen, owing, however, to my carelessness in
neglecting to change my foot-gear the previous night, for if this is not
done the perspiration formed during the day congeals, during sleep, into
solid ice. Harding escaped any ill effects, but in truth, although I
have said little about physical sufferings, most of that journey was
terrible work. I got into a way at last of classifying the various
stages of frigidity on departure from a _stan