ided and chronic inclination to turn its bottom side upward and its
upper side bottomward without the slightest apparent provocation.
I was informed by a reliable authority that a boat capsized on the
Kamchatka, just previous to our arrival, through the carelessness of a
Kamchadal in allowing a jack-knife to remain in his right-hand pocket
without putting something of a corresponding weight into the other;
and that the Kamchadal fashion of parting the hair in the middle
originated in attempts to preserve personal equilibrium while
navigating these canoes. I should have been somewhat inclined to doubt
these remarkable and not altogether new stories, were it not for the
reliability and unimpeachable veracity of my informant, Mr. Dodd. The
seriousness of the subject is a sufficient guarantee that he would not
trifle with my feelings by making it the pretext for a joke.

We indulged ourselves on Saturday morning in a much later sleep than
was consistent with our duty, and it was almost eight o'clock before
we went down to the beach.

Upon first sight of the frail canoes, to which our destinies and
the interests of the Russian-American Telegraph Company were to
be intrusted, there was a very general expression of surprise and
dissatisfaction. One of our party, with the rapid _a priori_ reasoning
for which he was distinguished, came at once to the conclusion that a
watery death would be the inevitable termination of a voyage made in
such vessels, and he evinced a very marked disinclination to embark.
It is related of a great warrior, whose _Commentaries_ were the
detestation of my early life, that during a very stormy passage of the
Ionian Sea he cheered up his sailors with the sublimely egotistical
assurance that they carried "Caesar and his fortunes"; and that,
consequently, nothing disastrous could possibly happen to them. The
Kamchatkan Caesar, however, on this occasion seemed to distrust his
own fortunes, and the attempts at consolation came from the opposite
quarter. His boatman did not tell him, "Cheer up, Caesar, a Kamchadal
and his fortunes are carrying you," but he _did_ assure him that he
had navigated the river for several years, and had "never been drowned
_once_." What more could Caesar ask!--After some demur we all took
seats upon bearskins in the bottoms of the canoes, and pushed off.

All other features of natural scenery in the vicinity of Kluchei sink
into subordination to the grand central figure of the