"It's a capital song," Dodd replied reassuringly; "do you know any more American words?"
"Oh yes, your honour!" (proudly) "I know 'dam yerize,' 'by 'm bye tomorry,' 'no savey John,' and 'goaty hell,' but I don't know what they all mean."
It was evident that he didn't! His American education was of limited extent and doubtful utility; but not even Cardinal Mezzofanti himself could have been more proud of his forty languages than poor Andrei was of "dam yerize" and "goaty hell." If ever he reached America, the blessed land that he saw in his happier dreams, these questionable phrases would be his passports to the first society.
While we had been talking with Andrei, Viushin had built a fire and prepared breakfast, and just as the sun peered into the valley we sat down on bearskins around our little candle-box and ate some "selánka," or sour soup, upon which Viushin particularly prided himself, and drank tumbler after tumbler of steaming tea. Selánka, hardtack, and tea, with an occasional duck roasted before the fire on a sharp stick, made up our bill of fare while camping out. Only in the settlements did we enjoy such luxuries as milk, butter, fresh bread, preserved rose-petals, and fish pies.
Taking our places again in the canoes after breakfast, we poled on up the river, shooting occasionally at flying ducks and swans, and picking as we passed long branches full of wild cherries which drooped low over the water. About noon we left the canoes to go around a long bend in the river, and started on foot with a native guide for Yolofka. The grass in the river bottom and on the plains was much higher than our waists, and walking through it was very fatiguing exercise; but we succeeded in reaching the village about one o'clock, long before our canoes came in sight.
Yolofka, a small Kamchadal settlement of half a dozen houses, is situated among the foot-hills of the great central Kamchatkan range, immediately below the pass which bears its name, and on the direct route to Tigil and the west coast. It is the head of canoe navigation on the Yolofka River, and the starting-point for parties intending to cross the mountains. Anticipating difficulty in getting horses enough for our use at this small village, the Major had sent eight or ten overland from Kluchei, and we found them there awaiting our arrival.
Nearly the whole afternoon was spent in packing the horses and getting ready for a start, and we camped for the night beside a cold mountain spring only a few versts away from the Village. The weather, hitherto, had been clear and warm, but it clouded up during the night, and we began the ascent of the mountains Tuesday morning the 19th, in a cold, driving rain-storm from the north-west. The road, if a wretched foot-path ten inches wide can be said in any metaphorical sense to be a road, was simply execrable. It followed the track of a swollen mountain torrent, which had its rise in the melting snows of the summit, and tumbled in roaring cascades down a narrow, dark, precipitous ravine. The path ran along the edge of this stream, first on one side, then on the other, and then in the water, around enormous masses of volcanic rock, over steep lava slopes, where the water ran like a mill-race through dense entangling thickets of trailing pine, into ragged heaps of fallen tree-trunks, and along narrow ledges of rock where it would be thought that a mountain sheep could hardly pass. I would guarantee, with twenty men, to hold that ravine against the combined armies of Europe! Our packhorses rolled down steep banks into the stream, tore their loads off against tree-trunks, stumbled, cut their legs in falling over broken volcanic rocks, took flying leaps across narrow chasms of roaring water, and performed feats which would have been utterly beyond the strength and endurance of any but Kamchatkan horses. Finally, in attempting to leap a distance of eight or ten feet across the torrent, I was thrown violently from the saddle, and my left foot caught firmly, just above the instep, in the small iron stirrup. The horse scrambled up the other side and started at a frightened gallop up the ravine, dragging my body over the ground by one leg. I remember making a desperate effort to protect my head, by raising myself upon my elbows, but the horse kicked me suddenly in the side, and I knew nothing more until I found myself lying upon the ground with my foot still entangled in the broken stirrup, while the horse galloped away up the ravine. The giving way of a single strap had saved my skull from being crushed like an egg-shell against the jagged rocks. I was badly bruised and very faint and dizzy, but no bones seemed to be broken, and I got up without assistance. Thus far the Major had kept his quick temper under strong control; but this was too much, and he hurled the most furious invectives at poor Nicolai for leading us over the mountains by such a horrible pass, and threatened him with the direst punishment when we should reach Tigil. It was of no use for Nicolai to urge in self-defence that there was no other pass; it was his business to find another, and not imperil men's lives by leading them into a God-forsaken ravine like this, choked up with landslides, fallen trees, water, lava, and masses of volcanic rock! If anything happened to any member of our party in this cursed gorge, the Major swore he would shoot Nicolai on the spot! Pale and trembling with fright, the poor guide caught my horse, mended my stirrup strap, and started on ahead to show that he was not afraid to go where he asked us to follow.
I believe we must have jumped our horses across that mountain torrent fifty times in an ascent of 2000 feet, to avoid the rocks and landslides which appeared first on one side and then on the other. One of our packhorses had given out entirely, and several others were nearly disabled, when, late in the afternoon, we finally reached the summit of the mountains, 4000 feet above the sea. Before us, half hidden by grey storm-clouds and driving mist, lay a great expanse of level table-land, covered to a depth of eighteen inches with a soft dense cushion of arctic moss, and holding water like an enormous sponge. Not a tree nor a landmark of any kind could be seen—nothing but moss and flying scud. A cold piercing wind from the north swept chilly storm-clouds across the desolate mountain top, and drove tiny particles of half-frozen rain into our faces with blinding, stinging force. Drenched to the skin by eight or nine hours' exposure to the storm, tired and weak from long climbing, with boots full of icy water, and hands numb and stiff from cold, we stopped for a moment to rest our horses and decide upon our course. Brandy was dealt out freely to all our men in the cover of a tin pail, but its stimulating influence was so counteracted by cold that it was hardly perceptible. The poor starosta of Yolofka, with dripping clothes, blue lips, chattering teeth, and black hair plastered over his white cheeks, seemed upon the point of giving out. He caught eagerly at the pail-cover full of brandy which the Major handed to him, but every limb was shaking spasmodically, and he spilled most of it in getting it to his mouth.
Fearing that darkness would overtake us before we could reach shelter, we started on toward a deserted, half-ruined "yurt" (yoort) [Footnote: A Mongolian name for a portable or permanent house-like shelter, made of logs, skins, or felt.] which Nicolai said stood near the western edge of this elevated plateau, about eight versts distant. Our horses sank to the knee at every step in the soft, spongy cushion of wet moss, so that we could travel no faster than a slow walk, and the short distance of eight versts seemed to be interminable. After four more dreary hours, spent in wandering about through grey drifting clouds, exposed to a bitter north-west wind, and a temperature of just 32°, we finally arrived in a half-frozen condition at the yurt. It was a low, empty hut, nearly square in shape, built of variously sized logs, and banked over with two or three feet of moss and grass-grown earth, so as to resemble an outdoor cellar. Half of one side had been torn down by storm-besieged travellers for firewood; its earthen floor was dank and wet with slimy tricklings from its leaky roof; the wind and rain drove with a mournful howl down through its chimney-hole; its door was gone, and it presented altogether a dismal picture of neglected dilapidation. Nothing daunted, Viushin tore down another section of the ruined side to make a fire, hung over teakettles, and brought our provision boxes under such shelter as the miserable hut afforded. I never could ascertain where Viushin obtained the water that night for our tea, as there was no available stream within ten miles, and the drippings of the roof were thick and discoloured with mud. I have more than a suspicion, however, that he squeezed it out of bunches of moss which he tore up from the soaking tundra (toon'-drah). Dodd and I took off our boots, poured about a pint of muddy water out of each, dried our feet, and, as the steam rose in clouds from our wet clothes, began to feel quite comfortable.
Viushin was in high good humour. He had voluntarily assumed the whole charge of our drivers during the day, had distinguished himself by most unwearied efforts in raising fallen horses, getting them over breakneck places, and cheering up the disconsolate Kamchadals, and he now wrung the water out of his shirt, and squeezed his wet hair absent-mindedly into a kettle of soup, with a countenance of such beaming serenity and a laugh of such hearty good-nature that it was of no use for anybody to pretend to be cross, tired, cold, or hungry. With that sunny face irradiating the smoky atmosphere of the ruined yurt, and that laugh ringing joyously in our ears, we made fun of our misery and persuaded ourselves that we were having a good time. After a scanty supper of selánka, dried fish, hardtack, and tea, we stretched our tired bodies out in the shallowest puddles we could find, covered ourselves with blankets, overcoats, oilcloths, and bearskins, and succeeded, in spite of our wet clothes and wetter beds, in getting to sleep.