in Petropavlovsk, and who was familiar with the Russian language and the habits and customs of the natives. With this addition our whole force numbered five men, and was to be divided into three parties; one for the western coast of the Okhotsk Sea, one for the northern coast, and one for the country between the Sea and the Arctic Circle. All minor details, such as means of transportation and subsistence, were left to the discretion of the several parties. We were to live on the country, travel with the natives, and avail ourselves of any and every means of transportation and subsistence which the country afforded. It was no pleasure excursion upon which we were about to enter. The Russian authorities at Petropavlovsk gave us all the information and assistance in their power, but did not hesitate to express the opinion that five men would never succeed in exploring the eighteen hundred miles of barren, almost uninhabited country between the Amur River and Bering Strait. It was not probable, they said, that the Major could get through the peninsula of Kamchatka at all that fall as he anticipated, but that if he did, he certainly could not penetrate the great desolate steppes to the northward, which were inhabited only by wandering tribes of Chukchis (chook'-chees) and Koraks. The Major replied simply that he would show them what we could do, and went on with his preparations.
On Saturday morning, August 26th, the Olga sailed with Mahood and Bush for the Amur River, leaving the Major, Dodd, and me at Petropavlovsk, to make our way northward through Kamchatka.
As the morning was clear and sunny, I engaged a boat and a native crew, and accompanied Bush and Mahood out to sea.
As we began to feel the fresh morning land-breeze, and to draw out slowly from under the cliffs of the western coast, I drank a farewell glass of wine to the success of the "Amur River Exploring Party," shook hands with the captain and complimented his Dutch History, and bade good-bye to the mates and men. As I went over the side, the second mate seemed overcome with emotion at the thought of the perils which I was about to encounter in that heathen country, and cried out in funny, broken English, "Oh, Mr. Kinney! [he could not say Kennan] who's a g'un to cook for ye, and ye can't get no potatusses?" as if the absence of a cook and the lack of potatoes were the summing up of all earthly privations. I assured him cheerfully that we could cook for ourselves and eat roots; but he shook his head, mournfully, as if he saw in prophetic vision the state of misery to which Siberian roots and our own cooking must inevitably reduce us. Bush told me afterward that on the voyage to the Amur he frequently observed the second mate in deep and melancholy reverie, and upon approaching him and asking him what he was thinking about, he answered, with a mournful shake of the head and an indescribable emphasis: "Poor Mr. Kinney! Poor Mr. Kinney!" Notwithstanding the scepticism with which I treated his sea-serpent, he gave me a place in his rough affections, second only to "Tommy," his favourite cat, and the pigs.
As the Olga sheeted home her topgallant sails, changed her course more to the eastward, and swept slowly out between the heads, I caught a last glimpse of Bush, standing on the quarter-deck by the wheel, and telegraphing some unintelligible words in the Morse alphabet with his arm. I waved my hat in response, and turning shoreward, with a lump in my throat, ordered the men to give way. The Olga was gone, and the last tie which connected us with the civilised world seemed severed.
[Illustration: Bone Knife or Scraper]
CHAPTER VI
A COSSACK WEDDING—THE PENINSULA OP KAMCHATKA
Our time in Petropavlovsk, after the departure of the Olga, was almost wholly occupied in making preparations for our northern journey through the Kamchatkan peninsula. On Tuesday, however, Dodd told me that there was to be a wedding at the church, and invited me to go over and witness the ceremony. It took place in the body of the church, immediately after some sort of morning service, which had nearly closed when we entered. I had no difficulty in singling out the happy individuals whose fortunes were to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony. They betrayed their own secret by their assumed indifference and unconsciousness.
The unlucky (lucky?) man was a young, round-headed Cossack about twenty years of age, dressed in a dark frock-coat trimmed with scarlet and gathered like a lady's dress above the waist, which, with a reckless disregard for his anatomy, was assumed to be six inches below his armpits. In honour of the extraordinary occasion he had donned a great white standing collar which projected above his ears, as the mate of the Olga would say, "like fore to'gallant studd'n' s'ls." Owing to a deplorable lack of understanding between his cotton trousers and his shoes they failed to meet by about six inches, and no provision had been made for the deficiency. The bride was comparatively an old woman—at least twenty years the young man's senior, and a widow. I thought with a sigh of the elder Mr. Weller's parting injunction to his son, "Bevare o' the vidders," and wondered what the old gentleman would say could he see this unconscious "wictim" walking up to the altar "and thinkin' in his 'art that it was all wery capital." The bride wore a dress of that peculiar sort of calico known as "furniture prints," without trimming or ornaments of any kind. Whether it was cut "bias" or with "gores," I'm sorry to say I do not know, dress-making being as much of an occult science to me as divination. Her hair was tightly bound up in a scarlet silk handkerchief, fastened in front with a little gilt button. As soon as the church service was concluded the altar was removed to the middle of the room, and the priest, donning a black silk gown which contrasted strangely with his heavy cowhide boots, summoned the couple before him.
After giving to each three lighted candles tied together with blue ribbon, he began to read in a loud sonorous voice what I supposed to be the marriage service, paying no attention whatever to stops, but catching his breath audibly in the midst of a sentence and hurrying on again with tenfold rapidity. The candidates for matrimony were silent, but the deacon, who was looking abstractedly out of a window on the opposite side of the church, interrupted him occasionally with doleful chanted responses.
At the conclusion of the reading they all crossed themselves devoutly half a dozen times in succession, and after asking them the decisive question the priest gave them each a silver ring. Then came more reading, at the end of which he administered to them a teaspoonful of wine out of a cup. Reading and chanting were again resumed and continued for a long time, the bridegroom and bride crossing and prostrating themselves continually, and the deacon closing up his responses by repeating with the most astounding rapidity, fifteen times in five seconds, the words "Gáspodi pomilui" (goss'-po-dee-po-mee'-loo-ee), "God have mercy upon us." He then brought in two large gilt crowns ornamented with medallions, and, blowing off the dust which had accumulated upon them since the last wedding, he placed them upon the heads of the bridegroom and bride.
The young Cossack's crown was altogether too large, and slipped down over his head like a candle-extinguisher until it rested upon his ears, eclipsing his eyes entirely. The bride's hair—or rather the peculiar manner in which it was "done up"—precluded the possibility of making a crown stay on her head, and an individual from among the spectators was detailed to hold it there. The priest then made the couple join hands, seized the groom's hand himself, and they all began a hurried march around the altar—the priest first, dragging along the Cossack, who, blinded by the crown, was continually stepping on his leader's heels; the bride following the groom, and trying to keep the crown from pulling her hair down; and lastly, the supernumerary stepping on the bride's dress and holding the gilt emblem of royalty in its place. The whole performance was so indescribably ludicrous that I could not possibly keep my countenance in that sober frame which befitted the solemnity of the occasion, and nearly scandalised the whole assembly by laughing out loud. Three times they marched in this way around the altar, and the ceremony was then ended. The bride and groom kissed the crowns reverently as they took them off, walked around the church, crossing themselves and bowing in succession before each of the pictures of saints which hung against the wall, and at last turned to receive the congratulations of their friends. It was expected
