g upon the owners to take
four men as passengers to the Russian settlement of Nikolaievsk
(nik-o-lai'-evsk), at the mouth of the Amur River. This, although not
so desirable a point for beginning operations as some others on the
northern coast of the Sea, was still much better than any which could
be selected on the Asiatic coast of the North Pacific; and a party was
soon organised to sail in the _Olga_ for Kamchatka and the mouth of
the Amur. This party consisted of Major S. Abaza, a Russian gentleman
who had been appointed superintendent of the work, and leader of the
forces in Siberia; James A. Mahood, a civil engineer of reputation in
California; R. J. Bush, who had just returned from three years' active
service in the Carolinas, and myself,--not a very formidable force in
point of numbers, nor a very remarkable one in point of experience,
but strong in hope, self-reliance, and enthusiasm.

On the 28th of June, we were notified that the brig _Olga_ had nearly
all her cargo aboard, and would have "immediate despatch."

This marine metaphor, as we afterward learned, meant only that she
would sail some time in the course of the summer; but we, in our
trustful inexperience, supposed that the brig must be all ready to
cast off her moorings, and the announcement threw us into all
the excitement and confusion of hasty preparation for a start.
Dress-coats, linen shirts, and fine boots were recklessly thrown or
given away; blankets, heavy shoes, and overshirts of flannel were
purchased in large quantities; rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives of
formidable dimensions gave our room the appearance of a disorganised
arsenal; pots of arsenic, jars of alcohol, butterfly-nets, snake-bags,
pill-boxes, and a dozen other implements and appliances of science
about which we knew nothing, were given to us by our enthusiastic
naturalists and packed away in big boxes; Wrangell's (vrang'el's)
_Travels_, Gray's _Botany_, and a few scientific works were added to
our small library; and before night we were able to report ourselves
ready--armed and equipped for any adventure, from the capture of a new
species of bug, to the conquest of Kamchatka!

As it was against all precedent to go to sea without looking at the
ship, Bush and I appointed ourselves an examining committee for the
party, and walked down to the wharf where she lay. The captain, a
bluff Americanised German, met us at the gangway and guided us through
the little brig from stem t