ut my host informed me that a dozen edible kinds
are found within a couple of miles of the village, a kindly provision of
nature, as vegetables are here unknown. There were also edible roots,
one of which I tasted, but have no desire to repeat the experiment. I
was surprised at the sleek appearance of my host's cattle, but he told
me that the plains around Krest afforded good, but coarse, pasturage,
and sufficient hay to last throughout the winter months.

When we left Krest the night was bitterly cold, but clear and starlit,
and that evening is memorable on account of a strange dream which
disturbed my slumbers as I lay snugly ensconced in the sleeping-bag
which was now my nightly couch. Perhaps the roast deer and bilberries
had transported my astral self to the deck of a P. and O. liner at
Colombo, where the passengers were warmly congratulating me on a
successful voyage across Asia. "You have now only Bering Straits to get
over," said one, pledging me in champagne, and the geographical
inconsistency did not strike me until a captain in gold lace, with the
face of a Yakute, pointed out the little difference of several thousand
miles lying between Ceylon and our projected goal. The shock of this
discovery awoke me in terror, to shiver until dawn, yet heartily
thankful that Colombo and I were still where we should be! Not that a
short interval of tropical warmth would have been unwelcome that night,
for although the cold was not so severe as it had been inland, I found
on halting for breakfast that a mirror in a small bag under my pillow
was coated with a thin film of ice.

Grey skies and frequent snow-flurries were experienced as we neared
Nijni-Kolymsk, and as each mile was covered the vegetation on either
side grew scantier, for even at Srendi-Kolymsk the pine forests had lost
their grandeur. Here they dwindled away to scanty fir-trees, stunted
larches and grey-green willows drooping in the snow. There is no sadder
sight in creation than a sunset in these regions, when the heart seems
to sink in sympathy with the dying day, and a dull despair to deaden the
mind, as darkness creeps over a frozen world.

On the morning of Friday, March 28, we reached Nijni-Kolymsk, about
thirty log huts in various stages of decay. This settlement, which was
founded by Cossacks about the middle of the seventeenth century, is
surrounded by low scrub, and, as at Sredni-Kolymsk, the buildings left
standing are so low that they are invisi