with the distant sky.  It was not without uneasiness that I thought of the possibility of being overtaken by a ten days’ storm in such a region as this.  We had made, as nearly as we could estimate, since leaving Anadyrsk, about two hundred versts; but whether we were anywhere near the seacoast or not we had no means of knowing.  The weather for nearly a week had been generally clear, and not very cold; but on the night of February 1st the thermometer sank to -35 deg., and we could find only just enough small green bushes to boil our teakettle.  We dug everywhere in the snow in search of wood, but found nothing except moss, and a few small cranberry bushes which would not burn.  Tired with the long day’s travel, and the fruitless diggings for wood, Dodd and I returned to camp, and threw ourselves down upon our bearskins to drink tea.  Hardly had Dodd put his cup to his lips when I noticed that a curious, puzzled expression came over his face, as if he found something singular and unusual in the taste of the tea.  I was just about to ask him what was the matter, when he cried in a joyful and surprised voice, “Tide-water!  The tea is salt!” Thinking that perhaps a little salt might have been dropped accidentally into the tea, I sent the men down to the river for some fresh ice, which we carefully melted.  It was unquestionably salt.  We had reached the tide-water of the Pacific, and the ocean itself could not be far distant.  One more day must certainly bring us to the house of the American party, or to the mouth of the river.  From all appearances we should find no more wood; and anxious to make the most of the clear weather, we slept only about six hours, and started on at midnight by the light of a brilliant moon.

[Illustration:  A MAN OF THE YUKAGIRS]

On the eleventh day after our departure from Anadyrsk, toward the close of the long twilight which succeeds an arctic day, our little train of eleven sledges drew near the place where, from Chukchi accounts, we expected to find the long-exiled party of Americans.  The night was clear, still, and intensely cold, the thermometer at sunset marking forty-four degrees below zero, and sinking rapidly to -50 deg. as the rosy flush in the west grew fainter and fainter, and darkness settled down upon the vast steppe.  Many times before, in Siberia and Kamchatka, I had seen nature in her sterner moods and winter garb; but never before had the elements of cold, barrenness, and desolation seemed to combine into a picture so dreary as the one which was presented to us that night near Bering Strait.  Far as eye could pierce the gathering gloom in every direction lay the barren steppe like a boundless ocean of snow, blown into long wave-like ridges by previous storms.  There was not a tree, nor a bush, nor any sign of animal or vegetable life, to show that we were not travelling on a frozen ocean.  All was silence and desolation.  The country seemed abandoned by God and man to the Arctic Spirit, whose