escape from the room, but we were too late, and saluting our visitor with “zdrastvuitia,” [Footnote:  “Good health,” or “Be in health,” the Russian greeting.] we sat down awkwardly enough on our chairs, rolled our smoky hands up in our scarlet and yellow cotton handkerchiefs, and, with a vivid consciousness of our dirty faces and generally disreputable appearance, tried to look self-possessed, and to assume the dignity which befitted officers of the great Russian-American Telegraph Expedition!  It was a pitiable failure.  We could not succeed in looking like anything but Wandering Koraks in reduced circumstances.  The ispravnik, however, did not seem to notice anything unusual in our appearance, but rattled away with an incessant fire of quick, nervous questions, such as “When did you leave Petropavlovsk?  Are you just from America?  I sent a Cossack.  Did you meet him?  How did you cross the tundras; with the Koraks? Akh! those proclatye Koraks!  Any news from St. Petersburg?  You must come over and dine with me.  How long will you stay in town?  You can take a bath now before dinner.  Ay! loodee! [very loud and peremptory].  Go and tell my Ivan to heat up the bath quick! Akh Chort yeekh! vazmee!” and the restless little man finally stopped from sheer exhaustion, and began pacing nervously across the room, while the Major related our adventures, gave him the latest news from Russia, explained our plans, the object of our expedition, told him of the murder of Lincoln, the end of the Rebellion, the latest news from the French invasion of Mexico, the gossip of the Imperial Court, and no end of other news which had been old with us for six months, but of which the poor exiled ispravnik had never heard a word.  He had had no communication with Russia in almost eleven months.  After insisting again upon our coming over to his house immediately to dine, he bustled out of the room, and gave us an opportunity to wash and dress.

Two hours afterward, in all the splendour of blue coats, brass buttons, and shoulder-straps, with shaven faces, starched shirts, and polished leather boots, the “First Siberian Exploring Party” marched over to the ispravnik’s to dine.  The Russian peasants whom we met instinctively took off their frosty fur hoods and gazed wonderingly at us as we passed, as if we had mysteriously dropped down from some celestial sphere.  No one would have recognised in us the dirty, smoky, ragged vagabonds who had entered the village two hours before.  The grubs had developed into blue and golden butterflies!  We found the ispravnik waiting for us in a pleasant, spacious room furnished with, all the luxuries of a civilised home.  The walls were papered and ornamented with costly pictures and engravings, the windows were hung with curtains, the floor was covered with a soft, bright-coloured carpet, a large walnut writing-desk occupied one corner of the room, a rosewood melodeon the other, and in the centre stood the dining-table, covered with a