e out of the _lodka_, we all
climbed up to the beacon-tower, with the hope that, as it was still
fairly light, we might be able to see with a glass the vessel that had
made the smoke; but from the high black cliffs of Matuga Island on one
side of the Gulf, to the steep slope of Cape Catherine on the other,
there was nothing to break the horizon line except here and there a
field of drifting ice. Returning to the Cossack barrack, we spread
our bearskins and blankets down on the rough plank floor and went
disconsolate to bed.

Early the next morning, I was awakened by one of the Cossacks with
the welcome news that there was a large square-rigged vessel in the
offing, five or six miles beyond Matuga Island. I climbed hastily up
the bluff, and had no difficulty in making out with a glass the masts
and sails of a good-sized bark, evidently a whaler, which, although
hull down, was apparently cruising back and forth with a light
southerly breeze across the Gulf.

We ate breakfast hastily, put on our fur _kukhlankas_ and caps, and
started in a whale-boat under oars for the ship, which was distant
about fifteen miles. Although the wind was light and the sea
comparatively smooth, it was a hard, tedious pull; and we did not get
alongside until after ten o'clock. Pacing the quarter-deck, as we
climbed on board was a good-looking, ruddy-faced, gray-haired man whom
I took to be the captain. He evidently thought, from our outer fur
dress, that we were only a party of natives come off to trade; and he
paid no attention whatever to us until I walked aft and said: "Are you
the captain of this bark?"

At the first word of English, he stopped as if transfixed, stared at
me for a moment in silence, and then exclaimed in a tone of profound
astonishment: "Well! I'll be dod-gasted! Has the universal Yankee got
up here?"

"Yes, Captain," I replied, "he is not only here, but he has been here
for two years or more. What bark is this?"

"The _Sea Breeze_, of New Bedford, Massachusetts," he replied, "and I
am Captain Hamilton. But what are you doing up in this God-forsaken
country? Have you been shipwrecked?"

"No," I said, "we're up here trying to build a telegraph line."

"A telegraph line!" he shouted. "Well, if that ain't the craziest
thing I ever heard of! Who's going to telegraph from here?"

I explained to him that we were trying to establish telegraphic
communication between America and Europe by way of Alaska, Bering
Strait, and