and hardships
such as these which I have described, and probably to some extent
by this very expedition, and finally committed suicide by shooting
himself at one of the lonely Siberian settlements on the coast of the
Okhotsk Sea.

I have described somewhat in detail this trip to Yamsk because it
illustrates the darkest side of Siberian life and travel. It is not
often that one meets with such an experience, or suffers so many
hardships in any one journey; but in a country so wild and sparsely
populated as Siberia, winter travel is necessarily attended with more
or less suffering and privation.

[Illustration: Iron Skin Scraper]

CHAPTER XXXVI

BRIGHT ANTICIPATIONS--A WHALE-SHIP SIGNALLED--THE BARK SEA
BREEZE--NEWS FROM THE ATLANTIC CABLE--REPORTED ABANDONMENT OF THE
OVERLAND LINE

When, in the latter part of March, Major Abaza returned to Yakutsk to
complete the organisation and equipment of our Yakut labourers, and I
to Gizhiga to await once more the arrival of vessels from America, the
future of the Russian-American Telegraph Company looked much brighter.
We had explored and located the whole route of the line, from the Amur
River to Bering Sea; we had half a dozen working-parties in the field,
and expected to reinforce them soon with six or eight hundred hardy
native labourers from Yakutsk; we had cut and prepared fifteen or
twenty thousand telegraph poles, and were bringing six hundred
Siberian ponies from Yakutsk to distribute them; we had all the wire
and insulators for the Asiatic Division on the ground, as well as an
abundant supply of tools and provisions; and we felt more than hopeful
that we should be able to put our part of the overland line to
St. Petersburg in working order before the beginning of 1870. So
confident, indeed, were some of our men, that, in the pole-cutting
camps, they were singing in chorus every night, to the air of a well
known war-song.

"In eighteen hundred and sixty-eight
Hurrah! Hurrah!
In eighteen hundred and sixty-eight
Hurrah! Hurrah!
In eighteen hundred and sixty-eight,
The cable will be in a miserable state,
And we'll all feel gay
When they use it to fish for whales.

"In eighteen hundred and sixty-nine
Hurrah! Hurrah!
In eighteen hundred and sixty-nine
Hurrah! Hurrah!
In eighteen hundred and sixty-nine
We're going to finish this overland line;
And we'll all feel gay
When it brings us good news from home."

But it was fa