With the separation of the two arches into bars the aurora reached its utmost magnificence, and from that time its supernatural beauty slowly but steadily faded.  The first arch broke up, and soon after it the second; the flashes of colour appeared less and less frequently; the luminous bands ceased to revolve across the zenith; and in an hour nothing remained in the dark starry heavens to remind us of the aurora, except a few faint Magellan clouds of luminous vapour.

The month of February wore slowly away, and March found us still living in Anadyrsk, without any news from the Major, or from the missing men, Arnold and Macrae.  Fifty-seven days had now elapsed since they left their camp on the lower Anadyr, and we began to fear that they would never again be seen.  Whether they had starved, or frozen to death on some great desolate plain south of Bering Strait, or been murdered by the Chukchis, we could not conjecture, but their long absence was a proof that they had met with some misfortune.

I was not at all satisfied with the route over which we had passed from Shestakova to Anadyrsk, on account of its barrenness, and the impossibility of transporting heavy telegraph poles over its great snowy steppes from the few wooded rivers by which it was traversed.  I accordingly started from Anadyrsk with five dog-sledges on March 4th, to try to find a better route between the Anadyr and the head-waters of the Penzhina River.  Three days after our departure we met, on the road to Penzhina, a special messenger from Gizhiga, bringing a letter from the Major dated Okhotsk, January 19th.  Enclosed were letters from Colonel Bulkley, announcing the landing of the Anadyr River party under Lieutenant Macrae, and a map showing the location of their camp.  The Major wrote as follows:  “In case—­what God forbid—­Macrae and party have not arrived at Anadyrsk, you will immediately, upon the receipt of this letter, do your utmost to deliver them from their too long winter quarters at the mouth of the Anadyr, where they were landed in September.  I was told that Macrae would be landed only in case of perfect certainty to reach Anadyrsk in boats, and I confess I don’t like such surprises as Colonel Bulkley has made me now.  For the present our duty consists in doing our utmost to extricate them from where they are, and you must get every dog-sledge you can, stuff them with dog-food and provisions, and go at once in search of Macrae’s camp.”  These directions I had already anticipated and carried out, and Macrae’s party, or at least all I could find of it, was now living in Anadyrsk.  When the Major wrote this letter, however, he did not suppose that Dodd and I would hear of the landing of the party through the Wandering Chukchis, or that we would think of going in search of them without orders.  He knew that he had told us particularly not to attempt to explore the Anadyr River until another season, and did not expect that we would go beyond the last settlement.