ound myself again with the lost
intellectual atmosphere of civilisation, nor reconcile those earlier
anticipations with this strangely different experience. The absurd
fancies, which had seemed so vivid and so true only three months
before, had now faded away into the half-remembered imagery of a
dream, and nothing was real but the tranquil river which flowed at my
feet, the birch tree which dropped its yellow leaves upon my head, and
the far-away purple mountains.

I was roused from my reverie by the furious beating of a tin
mess-kettle, which was the summons to breakfast. In half an hour
breakfast was despatched, the tent struck, camp equipage packed up,
and we were again under way. We floated all day down the river toward
Kluchei, getting ever-changing views of the mountains as they were
thrown into new and picturesque combinations by our motion to the
northward. We reached Kazerefski at dark, and, changing our crew,
continued our voyage throughout the night. At daybreak on Friday we
passed Kristi (kris-tee'), and at two o'clock in the afternoon arrived
at Kluchei, having been just eleven days out from Petropavlovsk.

The village of Kluchei is situated in an open plain on the right
bank of the Kamchatka River, at the very foot of the magnificent
Kluchefskoi volcano, and has nothing to distinguish it from other
Kamchadal towns, except the boldness and picturesque beauty of its
situation. It lies exactly in the midst of the group of superb
isolated peaks which guard the entrance to the river, and is shadowed
over frequently by the dense, black smoke of two volcanoes. It was
founded early in the eighteenth century by a few Russian peasants who
were taken from their homes in central Russia, and sent with seeds and
farming utensils to start a colony in far-away Kamchatka. After a
long adventurous journey of six thousand miles across Asia by way of
Tobolsk (to-bolsk'), Irkutsk (eer-kootsk'), Yakutsk (yah-kootsk'), and
Kolyma (kol-e-mah'), the little band of involuntary emigrants finally
reached the peninsula, and settled boldly on the Kamchatka River,
under the shadow of the great volcano. Here they and their descendants
have lived for more than a hundred years, until they have almost
forgotten how they came there and by whom they were sent.
Notwithstanding the activity and frequent eruption of the two
volcanoes behind the village, its location never has been changed, and
its inhabitants have come to regard with indiffer