here
is never any wind, and this is fortunate, for although 60 deg. or 70
deg. below zero are quite bearable in stillness, 30 deg. or 40 deg.
higher, accompanied by only a moderate gale, would probably kill every
living thing before it. A few weeks later, when we reached the Arctic
Ocean, the approach of a gale was always preceded by a rising
thermometer, and clear, cold weather by a fall of the same.

At Verkhoyansk, as at Yakutsk, nothing met me but difficulties, and the
_ispravnik_ implored me to abandon the journey. Sredni-Kolymsk, he said,
was twelve hundred miles away, and with weak reindeer it might take us a
couple of months to reach the Tsar's remotest settlement. This would
bring us into early May, and about the first week in June the thaw
comes, and travelling is impossible. And even at Sredni-Kolymsk another
two thousand miles of wild and desolate country, almost bereft of
inhabitants, would lie between us and Bering Straits. Not only
Katcherofsky but the exiles begged me to abandon the journey, if not for
my own sake, for that of my companions. It was unfair, they urged, to
drive men to almost certain death. Altogether I don't think I shall ever
forget the hours of anxiety I passed at Verkhoyansk. Should we advance
or should we retreat was a question which I alone had the power to
decide, and one which Providence eventually settled for me with the
happiest results. Nevertheless, even in the dark days which followed,
when lost in the blinding blizzards of Tchaun Bay, or exposed to the
drunken fury of the Tchuktchis on Bering Straits, I have seldom passed a
more unpleasant and harassing period of my existence than those two days
under the care of Ivan Katcherofsky, Chief of Police of Verkhoyansk,
North-Eastern Siberia.

[Illustration: THE CHIEF OF POLICE, VERKHOYANSK.]

But notwithstanding adverse pressure on all sides I resolved to burn my
boats, and push on, although well aware that, Verkhoyansk once left
behind us, there would be no retreat. And it is only fair to add that my
companions were just as keen on an advance as their leader. The
_ispravnik_, seeing that further argument was useless, shrugged his
shoulders and solely occupied himself with cramming the sledges full of
interesting looking baskets and bottles. And on the bright sunlit
morning of March 2 we left Verkhoyansk, our departure being witnessed by
our kindly old host and all the exiles. Our course this time was in a
north-easterly directi