a few clouds, too ethereal even to cast shadows, and you will
perhaps have a faint idea of one of the most beautiful landscapes in
all Kamchatka. The Sierra Nevadas may afford views of more savage
wildness, but nowhere in California or Nevada have I ever seen the
distinctive features of both winter and summer--snow and roses, bare
granite and brilliantly coloured foliage--blended into so harmonious
a picture as that presented by the Genal valley on a sunshiny day in
early autumn.

Dodd and I devoted most of our leisure time during the afternoon to
picking and eating berries. Galloping furiously ahead until we
had left the caravan several miles behind, we would lie down in a
particularly luxuriant thicket by the river bank, tie our horses to
our feet, and bask in the sunshine and feast upon yellow honeyed
"moroshkas" (mo-ro'-shkas) and the dark purple globes of delicious
blueberries, until our clothes were stained with crimson spots, and
our faces and hands resembled those of a couple of Comanches painted
for the war-path.

The sun was yet an hour high when we approached the native village of
Genal. We passed a field where men and women were engaged in cutting
hay with rude sickles, returned their stare of amazement with
unruffled serenity, and rode on until the trail suddenly broke off
into a river beyond which stood the village.

Kneeling upon our saddles we succeeded in fording the shallow stream
without getting wet, but in a moment we came to another of about the
same size. We forded that, and were confronted by a third. This we
also passed, but at the appearance of the fourth river the Major
shouted despairingly to Dodd, "Ay! Dodd! How many _paganni_ rivers do
we have to wade through in getting to this beastly village?" "Only
one," replied Dodd composedly. "One! Then how many times does this
one river run past this one settlement?" "Five times," was the calm
response. "You see," he explained soberly, "these poor Kamchadals
haven't got but one river to fish in, and that isn't a very big one,
so they have made it run past their settlement five times, and by this
ingenious contrivance they catch five times as many salmon as they
would if it only passed once!" The Major was surprised into silence,
and seemed to be considering some abstruse problem. Finally he raised
his eyes from the pommel of his saddle, transfixed the guilty Dodd
with a glance of severe rebuke, and demanded solemnly, "How many times
must a given