Russian, however, soon made his appearance, and coming up to us with uncovered head, bowed and introduced himself as a Cossack from Gizhiga, sent to meet us by the Russian governor at that place.  The courier who had preceded us from Lesnoi had reached Gizhiga ten days before us, and the governor had despatched a Cossack at once to meet us at Kamenoi, and conduct us through the settled Korak villages around the head of Penzhinsk Gulf.  The Cossack soon cleared the yurt of natives, and the Major proceeded to question him about the character of the country north and west of Gizhiga, the distance from Kamenoi to the Russian outpost of Anadyrsk, the facilities for winter travel, and the time necessary for the journey.  Fearful for the safety of the party of men which he presumed to have been landed by the engineer-in-chief at the mouth of the Anadyr River, Major Abaza had intended to go directly from Kamenoi to Anadyrsk himself in search of them, and to send Dodd and me westward along the coast of the Okhotsk Sea to meet Mahood and Bush.  The Cossack, however, told us that a party of men from the Anadyr River had arrived at Gizhiga on dog-sledges just previous to his departure, and that they had brought no news of any Americans in the vicinity of Anadyrsk or on the river.  Col.  Bulkley, the chief-engineer of the enterprise, had promised us, when we sailed from San Francisco, that he would land a party of men with a whale boat at or near the mouth of the Anadyr River, early enough in the season so that they could ascend the river to the settlement of Anadyrsk and open communication with us by the first winter road.  This he had evidently failed to do; for, if a party had been so landed, the Anadyrsk people would certainly have heard something about it.  The unfavourable nature of the country around Bering Strait, or the lateness of the season when the Company’s vessels reached that point, had probably compelled the abandonment of this part of the original plan.  Major Abaza had always disapproved the idea of leaving a party near Bering Strait; but he could not help feeling a little disappointment when he found that no such party had been landed, and that he was left with only four men to explore the eighteen hundred miles of country between the strait and the Amur River.  The Cossack said that no difficulty would be experienced in getting dog-sledges and men at Gizhiga to explore any part of the country west or north of that place, and that the Russian governor would give us every possible assistance.

[Illustration:  INTERIOR OF A KORAK YURT.  GETTING FIRE WITH THE FIRE DRILL Photograph in The American Museum of Natural History]