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He then related an instance of a Russian merchant whose wife was attacked by the "Anadyrski bol," and who actually made a winter journey from Gizhiga to Yamsk a distance of 300 versts to procure a silk dress for which she had asked and which could not be elsewhere obtained! Of course the women do not always ask for articles which they might be supposed to want in a state of health.
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.
The eight hundred labourers whom he had engaged were being rapidly sent forward to Okhotsk, and more than a hundred and fifty were already at work at that place and at Yamsk. The equipment and transportation of the remainder still required his personal supervision, and it would be impossible, he wrote, for him to return that winter to Gizhiga.
As soon as possible after the departure of the Varag, the Clara Bell was brought into the mouth of the river, her cargo of brackets and insulators discharged, Lieutenant Arnold and party sent on board, and with the next high tide, August 26th, she sailed for Yamsk and San Francisco, leaving no one at Gizhiga but the original Kamchatkan party, Dodd, the Major, and myself.
The sea on one side, and the cliffs on the other, still hemmed us in; but on the following day we succeeded in making our escape through the valley of the Kánanaga River. The twelfth day of our journey found us on a great steppe called the Málkachán, only thirty miles from Yamsk; and although our dog-food and provisions were both exhausted, we hoped to reach the settlement late in the night.
He could not promise us that this route would be practicable, but he had heard that there was a beach for at least a part of the distance between the Viliga and Yamsk, and he thought that we might make our way along this beach and the pripaika, or ice-foot, to a ravine, twenty-five or thirty miles farther west, which would lead us up on the tundra beyond the mountains.
Nothing but a strong will and the most intense vitality enabled him to hold out during these last six dismal hours. When we had warmed, rested, and dried ourselves at the camp-fire of the Yakuts, we resumed our journey, and late in the afternoon we drove into the settlement of Yamsk, after thirteen days of harder experience than usually falls to the lot of Siberian travellers, Mr.
Arnold at Yamsk, Sandford on the Tilghai, and Bush at Anadyrsk, were trying, with the few men they had, to accomplish some work; but, owing to deep snow-storms, intensely cold weather, and a general lack everywhere of provisions and dogs, their efforts were mostly fruitless.
The Viliga Mountains which blocked up the road to Yamsk were cut by three gaps or passes, all of which opened into the valley, and in clear weather could be easily found and crossed.
He could come however, as far as the settlement of Yamsk, three hundred versts west of Gizhiga, and requested me to meet him at that place within twelve days after the receipt of his letter. I started at once with one American companion named Leet, taking twelve days' dog-food and provisions.
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