murderous inclinations by the side of my imperturbable
driver. Here my unprotected nose began to freeze again, and my time,
until we reached Shestakova, was about equally divided between rubbing
that troublesome feature with one hand, holding on with the other, and
picking myself up out of snow-drifts with both.

The only satisfaction I had was in seeing the state of exasperation
to which the Major was reduced by the stupidity and ugliness of his
driver. Whenever he wanted to go on, the driver insisted upon stopping
to take a smoke; when he wanted to smoke, the driver capsized
him skilfully into a snow-drift; when he wanted to walk down a
particularly steep hill, the driver shouted to his dogs and carried
him to the bottom like an avalanche, at the imminent peril of his
life; when he desired to sleep, the driver intimated by impudent
gestures that he had better get out and walk up the side of a
mountain; until, finally, the Major called Kerrillof and made him tell
the Korak distinctly and emphatically, that if he did not obey orders
and show a better disposition, he would be lashed on his sledge,
carried to Gizhiga, and turned over to the Russian governor for
punishment. He paid some attention to this; but all our drivers
exhibited an insolent rudeness which we had never before met with in
Siberia, and which was very provoking. The Major declared that when
our line should be in process of construction and he should have force
enough to do it, he would teach the Kamenoi Koraks a lesson that they
would not soon forget.

We travelled all the afternoon over a broken country, perfectly
destitute of vegetation, which lay between a range of bare white
mountains and the sea, and just before dark reached the settlement of
Shestakova, which was situated on the coast, at the mouth of a small
wooded stream. Stopping there only a few moments to rest our dogs, we
pushed on to another Korak village called Mikina (Mee-kin-ah), ten
miles farther west, where we finally stopped for the night.

[Illustration: A WOMAN ENTERING A YURT OF THE SETTLED KORAKS]

Mikina was only a copy of Kamenoi on a smaller scale. It had the same
hour-glass houses, the same conical _balagans_ elevated on stilts, and
the same large skeletons of sealskin _baideras_ (bai'-der-ahs') or
ocean canoes were ranged in a row on the beach. We climbed up
the best-looking _yurt_ in the village--over which hung a dead
disembowelled dog, with a wreath of green grass aroun