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Updated: June 5, 2025
The Kamchadals at Lesnoi declared positively that it was of no use to attempt to cross this range until the rivers should freeze over and snow enough fall to permit the use of dog-sledges, and that they were not willing to risk fifteen or twenty horses, to say nothing of their own lives, in any such adventure.
After supper I lay down upon my bearskins in the tent, and fell asleep watching the round moon rise over a ragged volcanic peak east of the valley. On the second day we travelled through a narrow tortuous valley among the mountains, over spongy swamps of moss, and across deep narrow creeks, until we reached a ruined subterranean hut nearly half way from Lesnoi to the Samanka River.
On November 1st we put on our heavy fur clothes, which turned us into wild animals of most ferocious appearance, bade good-by to all the hospitable people of Lesnoi, and set out with a train of sixteen sledges, eighteen men, two hundred dogs, and forty days' provisions, for the territory of the Wandering Koraks.
Much as we dreaded it, there was nothing to be done but to attempt another passage of the mountain range, and that without a moment's delay. I had been ordered to wait for the whale-boat two days; but circumstances, I thought, justified a disobedience of orders, and I directed the Kamchadals to be ready to start for Lesnoi early the next morning.
Two natives, dressed in fur coats and trousers, approached us with violent gesticulations, shouting to us in Russian not to shoot, and holding up something white, like a flag of truce. As soon as they came near enough one of them handed me a wet, dirty piece of paper, with a low bow, and I recognised him as a Kamchadal from Lesnoi. They were messengers from the Major!
Lesnoi was situated, as nearly as we could ascertain, in lat. 59° 20', long. 160° 25', about a hundred and fifty versts south of the Korak steppes, and nearly two hundred miles in an air line from the settlement of Gizhiga, which for the present was our objective point.
I remember particularly a song called the Penzhinski, sung one night by the natives at Lesnoi, which was, without exception, the sweetest, and yet the most inexpressibly mournful combination of notes that I had ever heard. It was a wail of a lost soul, despairing, yet pleading for mercy. I tried in vain to get a translation of the words.
If you treat them well, your slightest wish will be their law; and they will do their best in their rude way to show their appreciation of kindness, by anticipating and meeting even your unexpressed wants. During our stay at Lesnoi the Major chanced one day to inquire for some milk. The starosta did not tell him that there was not a cow in the village, but said that he would try to get some.
About two hours after dark we heard the howling of dogs from Lesnoi, and twenty minutes later we rode into the settlement, dashed up to the little log house of the starosta, and burst in upon the Major and Dodd as they sat at supper. Our long ride was over. Thus ended our unsuccessful expedition to the Samanka Mountains the hardest journey I ever experienced in Kamchatka.
Thanking God in my heart that the other party was safe, I tore open the note and read hastily: Sea Shore, 15 versts from Lesnoi, October 4th. Driven ashore here by the storm. Hurry back as fast as possible. S. Abaza. The Kamchadal messengers had left Lesnoi only one day behind us, but had been detained by the storm and bad roads, and had only reached on the previous night our second camp.
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