en cried out
despairingly, "Oh, Barin! How does the come-_pass_ know anything about
these accursed mountains? The come-_pass_ never has been over this
road before. I've travelled here all my life, and, God forgive me, I
don't know where the sea is!" Hungry, anxious, and half frozen as I
was, I could not help smiling at our guide's idea of an inexperienced
compass which had never travelled in Kamchatka, and could not
therefore know anything about the road. I assured him confidently that
the "come-_pass_" was a great expert at finding the sea in a storm;
but he shook his head mournfully, as if he had little faith in its
abilities, and refused to go in the direction that I indicated.
Finding it impossible to make my horse face the wind, I dismounted,
and, compass in hand, led him away in the direction of the sea,
followed by Viushin, who, with an enormous bearskin wrapped around his
head, looked like some wild animal. The guide, seeing that we were
determined to trust in the compass, finally concluded to go with us.
Our progress was necessarily very slow, as the snow was deep, our
limbs chilled and stiffened by their icy covering, and a hurricane of
wind blowing in our faces. About the middle of the afternoon, however,
we came suddenly out upon the very brink of a storm-swept precipice a
hundred and fifty feet in depth, against the base of which the sea was
hurling tremendous green breakers with a roar that drowned the rushing
noise of the wind. I had never imagined so wild and lonely a scene.
Behind and around us lay a wilderness of white, desolate peaks,
crowded together under a grey, pitiless sky, with here and there a
patch of trailing-pine, or a black pinnacle of trap-rock, to intensify
by contrast the ghastly whiteness and desolation of the weird snowy
mountains. In front, but far below, was the troubled sea, rolling
mysteriously out of a grey mist of snowflakes, breaking in thick
sheets of clotted froth against the black cliff, and making long
reverberations, and hollow, gurgling noises in the subterranean
caverns which it had hollowed out. Snow, water, and mountains, and in
the foreground a little group of ice-covered men and shaggy horses,
staring at the sea from the summit of a mighty cliff! It was a simple
picture, but it was full of cheerless, mournful suggestions. Our
guide, after looking eagerly up and down the gloomy precipitous coast
in search of some familiar landmark, finally turned to me with a
brighter