On Saturday, Jan. 20th, N.S., Kozhevin returned from his visit to the Chukchis north of Anadyrsk, bringing as we expected later and fuller particulars with regard to the party of exiled Americans south of Bering Strait.  It consisted, according to the best Chukchi intelligence, of only five men, and was located on or near the Anadyr River, about one day’s journey above its mouth.  These five men were living, as we had previously been told, in a little subterranean house rudely constructed of bushes and boards, and entirely buried in drifted snow.  They were said to be well supplied with provisions, and had a great many barrels, which the Chukchis supposed to contain vodka, but which we presumed to be barrels of salt-beef.  They made a fire, the natives said, in the most wonderful manner by burning “black stones in an iron box,” while all the smoke came out mysteriously through a crooked iron tube which turned around when the wind blew!  In this vivid but comical description we of course recognised a coal stove and a pipe with a rotary funnel.  They had also, Kozhevin was told, an enormous tame black bear, which they allowed to run loose around the house, and which chased away the Chukchis in a most energetic manner.  When I heard this I could no longer restrain a hurrah of exultation.  The party was made up of our old San Francisco comrades, and the tame black bear was Robinson’s Newfoundland dog!  I had petted him a hundred times in America and had his picture among my photographs.  He was the dog of the expedition.  There could no longer be any doubt whatever that the party thus living under the snow on the great steppes south of Bering Strait was the long talked of Anadyr River exploring party, under the command of Lieutenant Macrae; and our hearts beat fast with excitement as we thought of the surprise which we should give our old friends and comrades by coming upon them suddenly in that desolate, Godforsaken region, almost two thousand miles away from the point where they supposed we had landed.  Such a meeting would repay us tenfold for all the hardships of our Siberian life.

Everything, by this time, was ready for a start.  Our sledges were loaded five feet high with provisions and dog-food for thirty days; our fur tent was completed and packed away, to be used if necessary in intensely cold weather; bags, overstockings, masks, thick sleeping-coats, snow-shovels, axes, rifles, and long Siberian snow-shoes were distributed around among the different sledges, and everything which Gregorie, Dodd, and I could think of was done to insure the success of the expedition.