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Updated: June 7, 2025
He seemed to be unusually sober and anxious about something, and as soon as he had bowed and bade me good-morning, he turned to our Cossack, Viushin, and began in a low voice to relate to him something which had just occurred, and which seemed to be of great interest to them both.
Finding it impossible to make my horse face the wind, I dismounted, and, compass in hand, led him away in the direction of the sea, followed by Viushin, who, with an enormous bearskin wrapped around his head, looked like some wild animal. The guide, seeing that we were determined to trust in the compass, finally concluded to go with us.
Just as Viushin was filling up our cups for the third time, the skin curtain of the low doorway at our side was lifted up, and the most extraordinary figure which I ever beheld in Kamchatka crawled silently in, straightened up to its full height of six feet, and stood majestically before us. It was an ugly, dark-featured man about thirty years of age.
At last, when it had already begun to grow dark, we saw a high column of white steam in the distance, which rose, Dodd and Viushin said, from the hot springs of Malqua; and in fifteen minutes we rode, tired, wet, and hungry, into the settlement. Supper was a secondary consideration with me that night. All I wanted was to crawl under a table where no one would step on me, and be let alone.
Owing to my imperfect knowledge of the language, and the low tone in which the conversation was carried on, I failed to catch its purport; but it closed with an earnest request from Kolmagórof that Viushin should give him some article of clothing, which I understood to be a scarf or tippet.
The chief of the Cossacks a simple, honest old fellow, whom it was impossible to suspect of intentional deception confirmed all that Viushin had told me, and gave us many additional particulars.
Out of a little pine box which contained our telegraphic instruments, Viushin had improvised a rude, legless mess-table, which he was engaged in covering with cakes of hardbread, slices of raw bacon, and tumblers of steaming tea.
Viushin and Dodd, who had travelled in Kamchatka before, experienced no difficulty in accommodating themselves to this peculiarity of native architecture; but the Major and I, during the first two weeks of our journey, bore upon the fore parts of our heads, bumps whose extraordinary size and irregularity of development would have puzzled even Spurzheim and Gall.
Dodd and I took off our boots, poured about a pint of muddy water out of each, dried our feet, and, as the steam rose in clouds from our wet clothes, began to feel quite comfortable. Viushin was in high good humour.
Viushin, with the awkward retrograde movements of a disabled crab, speedily followed. "You back out as if Shaitan and all his imps were after you!" "You don't suppose," responded Viushin, with excited gestures, "that I'm going to stay in that hole and be eaten up by Korak dogs? If I was foolish enough to go in, I've got discretion enough to know when to come out.
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