formal calls from the Russian merchants of the place, visited
the ispravnik and drank his delicious "flower tea" and smoked his
cigarettes in the evening, and indemnified ourselves for three months
of rough life by enjoying to the utmost such mild pleasures as the
little village afforded. This pleasant, aimless existence, however,
was soon terminated by an order from the Major to prepare for the
winter's campaign, and hold ourselves in readiness to start for the
Arctic Circle or the west coast of the Okhotsk Sea at a moment's
notice. He had determined to explore a route for our proposed line
from Bering Strait to the Amur River before spring should open, and
there was no time to be lost. The information which we could gather
at Gizhiga with regard to the interior of the country was scanty,
indefinite, and unsatisfactory. According to native accounts, there
were only two settlements between the Okhotsk Sea and Bering Strait,
and the nearest of these--Penzhina--was four hundred versts distant.
The intervening country consisted of great moss tundras impassable
in summer, and perfectly destitute of timber; and that portion of it
which lay north-east of the last settlement was utterly uninhabitable
on account of the absence of wood. A Russian officer by the name of
Phillippeus had attempted to explore it in the winter of 1860, but had
returned unsuccessful, in a starving and exhausted condition. In the
whole distance of eight hundred versts between Gizhiga and the mouth
of the Anadyr River there were said to be only four or five places
where timber could be found large enough for telegraph poles, and
over most of the route there was no wood except occasional patches
of trailing-pine. A journey from Gizhiga to the last settlement,
Anadyrsk, on the Arctic Circle, would occupy from twenty to thirty
days, according to weather, and beyond that point there was no
possibility of going under any circumstances. The region west of
Gizhiga, along the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, was reported to be
better, but very rugged and mountainous, and heavily timbered with
pine and larch. The village of Okhotsk, eight hundred versts distant,
could be reached on dog-sledges in about a month. This, in brief, was
all the information we could get, and it did not inspire us with very
much confidence in the ultimate success of our enterprise. I
realised for the first time the magnitude of the task which the
Russian-American Telegraph Company had undertak