ppened. A driving
snowstorm was sweeping down the valley, and Nature had assumed
suddenly the stern aspect and white pitiless garb of winter. Snow had
already fallen to a depth of three inches in the valley, and on the
mountains, of course, it would be deep, soft, and drifted. I hesitated
for a moment about attempting to cross the rugged range in such
weather; but my orders were imperative to go on at least to the
Samanka River, and a failure to do so might defeat the object of the
whole expedition. Previous experience convinced me that the Major
would not let a storm interfere with the execution of his plans; and
if he should succeed in reaching the Samanka River and I should not, I
never could recover from the mortification of the failure, nor be able
to convince him that Anglo-Saxon blood was as good as Slavonic. I
reluctantly gave the order therefore to break camp, and as soon as the
horses could be collected and saddled we started for the base of the
mountain range. Hardly had we ascended two hundred feet out of the
shelter of the valley before we were met by a hurricane of wind from
the northeast, which swept blinding, suffocating clouds of snow down
the slope into our faces until earth and sky seemed mingled and lost
in a great white whirling mist. The ascent soon became so steep and
rocky that we could no longer ride our horses up it. We therefore
dismounted, and wading laboriously through deep soft drifts, and
climbing painfully over sharp jagged rocks, which cut open our
sealskin boots, we dragged our horses slowly upward. We had ascended
wearily in this way perhaps a thousand feet, when I became so
exhausted that I was compelled to lie down. The snow in many places
was drifted as high as my waist, and my horse refused to take a step
until he was absolutely dragged to it. After a rest of a few moments
we pushed on, and after another hour of hard work we succeeded in
gaining what seemed to be the crest of the mountain, perhaps 2000 feet
above the sea. Here the fury of the wind was almost irresistible.
Dense clouds of driving snow hid everything from sight at a distance
of a few steps, and we seemed to be standing on a fragment of a
wrecked world enveloped in a whirling tempest of stinging snowflakes.
Now and then a black volcanic crag, inaccessible as the peak of the
Matterhorn, would loom out in the white mist far above our heads, as
if suspended in mid-air, giving a startling momentary wildness to the
scene;