purchased
new suits of furs throughout, and made every preparation for three or
four months of camp life in an arctic climate. The Russian governor
ordered six of his Cossacks to transport Dodd and me on dog-sledges as
far as the Korak village of Shestakova, and sent word to Penzhina by
the returning Anadyrsk people to have three or four men and dog-teams
at the former place by December 20th, ready to carry us on to Penzhina
and Anadyrsk. We engaged an old and experienced Cossack named Gregorie
Zinovief as guide and Chukchi interpreter, hired a young Russian
called Yagor as cook and aid-de-camp (in the literal sense), packed
our stores on our sledges and secured them with lashings of sealskin
thongs, and by December 13th were ready to take the field. That
evening the Major delivered to us our instructions. They were simply
to follow the regular sledge road to Anadyrsk via Shestakova and
Penzhina, to ascertain what facilities it offered in the way of timber
and soil for the construction of a telegraph line, to set the natives
at work cutting poles at Penzhina and Anadyrsk, and to make side
explorations where possible in search of timbered rivers connecting
Penzhinsk Gulf with Bering Sea. Late in the spring we were to return
to Gizhiga with all the information which we could gather relative
to the country between that point and the Arctic Circle. The Major
himself would remain at Gizhiga until about December 17th, and then
leave on dog-sledges with Viushin and a small party of Cossacks for
the settlement of Okhotsk. If he made a junction with Mahood and Bush,
at that place, he would return at once, and meet us again at Gizhiga
by the first of April, 1866.

CHAPTER XXIII

DOG-SLEDGE TRAVEL--ARCTIC MIRAGES--CAMP AT NIGHT--A HOWLING
CHORUS--NORTHERN LIGHTS

The morning of December 13th dawned clear, cold, and still, with a
temperature of thirty-one degrees below zero; but as the sun did not
rise until half-past ten, it was nearly noon before we could get our
drivers together, and our dogs harnessed for a start. Our little party
of ten men presented quite a novel and picturesque appearance in their
gaily embroidered fur coats, red sashes, and yellow foxskin hoods,
as they assembled in a body before our house to bid good-bye to the
ispravnik and the Major. Eight heavily loaded sledges were ranged in
a line in front of the door, and almost a hundred dogs were springing
frantically against their harnesses, and raisi