Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
I could not blame the poor fellow for losing the road in such a storm, but I told him to go on in what he believed to be the direction of the Samanka River, and if we succeeded in finding somewhere a sheltered valley we would camp and wait for better weather.
Late in the afternoon of November 3d, just as the long northern twilight was fading into the peculiar steely blue of an arctic night, our dogs toiled slowly up the last summit of the Samanka Mountains, and we looked down from a height of more than two thousand feet upon the dreary expanse of snow which stretched away to the far horizon. It was the land of the Wandering Koraks.
Early Saturday morning we moved on to the mouth of the valley, pitched our tent in a position to command a view of the approaches to the Samanka River, ballasted its edges with stones to keep the wind from blowing it down, and prepared to wait two days, according to orders, for the whale-boat.
After our unsuccessful attempt to pass the Samanka Mountains, there was nothing for us to do but wait patiently at Lesnoi until the rivers should freeze over, and snow fall to a depth which would enable us to continue our journey to Gizhiga on dog-sledges. It was a long, wearisome delay, and I felt for the first time, in its full force, the sensation of exile from home, country, and civilisation.
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.
Previous experience convinced me that the Major would not let a storm interfere with the execution of his plans; and if he should succeed in reaching the Samanka River and I should not, I never could recover from the mortification of the failure, nor be able to convince him that Anglo-Saxon blood was as good as Slavonic.
Nearly all the horses in the village were more or less disabled, our Samanka mountain guide was blind from inflammatory erysipelas brought on by exposure to five days of storm, and half my party were unfit for duty. Under such circumstances, another attempt to cross the mountains before winter was impossible.
The Kamchadals who accompanied me to the Samanka Mountains were the sons of Christian parents, and had been brought up from infancy in the Greek Church; they were firm believers in the Divine atonement and in Divine providence, and prayed always night and morning for safety and preservation; yet, when overtaken by a storm in that gloomy range of mountains, the sense of the supernatural overcame their religious convictions, God seemed far away while evil spirits were near and active, and they sacrificed a dog, like very pagans, to propitiate the diabolical wrath of which the storm was an evidence.
The hole made by a long slender stick was fairly luminous with what appeared to be deep blue vapour. I never saw this singular phenomenon so marked at any other time during nearly three years of northern travel. About an hour after dark we rode down into a deep lonely valley, which came out, our guide said, upon the sea beach near the mouth of the Samanka River.
There was no more meat, and the hardbread which remained was only a handful of water-soaked crumbs. He and all the Kamchadals, confidently expecting to meet the whale-boat at the Samanka River, had taken only three days' food. He had said nothing about it until the last moment, hoping that the whale-boat would arrive or something turn up; but it could no longer be concealed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking