goes
out duck shooting in the depth of winter in a silk night-shirt!

Here, as at Verkhoyansk, our departure was witnessed by officials,
exiles and natives. Even the politicals took an active interest in this
hitherto unattempted journey, although perhaps this was partly due to
the fact that certain sealed missives, destined for Europe, were snugly
concealed about my person. Poor Strajevsky, whom I had learned to regard
more as a friend than as an acquaintance, made a sketch of our departure
which he promised to forward to me, but of course the drawing never
reached its destination. Where is now, I often wonder, the unfortunate
artist? He had lived for some time at Montrouge, in Paris, in order to
study the French language, but I was unable to trace any of the friends
there to whom he sent messages announcing his terrible fate.

From Sredni-Kolymsk, which we left on March 22, our way lay along the
Kolyma River[47] to Nijni-Kolymsk,[48] an almost deserted collection of
log huts surrounding a ruined wooden chapel. Our sleds were now lightly
built, uncovered contrivances to carry two men, about a dozen dogs being
harnessed to each. With a good team one may cover a long distance during
the day over level ground, but our poor half-starved brutes travelled so
slowly that my heart sank when I thought of the distance before them.
Throughout that dismal time America used to seem as unattainable as the
North Pole itself! I now directed that the sleds should travel in a
certain order. Mine was the leading _narta_, and Nos. 2, 3 and 4 were
occupied by de Clinchamp, Harding and Stepan respectively. Numbers 4 and
5 were provision-sleds which should have headed, not brought up the rear
of the caravan, although I did not discover this mistake, which nearly
cost us dearly, until after the passage across Tchaun Bay.

[Footnote 47: The River Kolyma, like the Indigirka, has its source in
the Stanovoi Mountains.]

[Footnote 48: "Sredni" signifies "Middle," and "Nijni" "Lower" Kolymsk,
according to their situations on the Kolyma River.]

Harding and Stepan each drove a sled, the three other drivers being
half-breed Kolyma-Russians, of whom two were of the usual stolid, sulky
type. The third, who accompanied me, was a character. A squat little
bundle of furs, with beady black eyes twinkling slyly from a face to
which incessant cold and bad brandy had imparted the hues of a brilliant
sunset. Local rumour gave Mikouline forty years, but he