The sun was yet an hour high when we approached the native village of Genal.  We passed a field where men and women were engaged in cutting hay with rude sickles, returned their stare of amazement with unruffled serenity, and rode on until the trail suddenly broke off into a river beyond which stood the village.

Kneeling upon our saddles we succeeded in fording the shallow stream without getting wet, but in a moment we came to another of about the same size.  We forded that, and were confronted by a third.  This we also passed, but at the appearance of the fourth river the Major shouted despairingly to Dodd, “Ay!  Dodd!  How many paganni rivers do we have to wade through in getting to this beastly village?” “Only one,” replied Dodd composedly.  “One!  Then how many times does this one river run past this one settlement?” “Five times,” was the calm response.  “You see,” he explained soberly, “these poor Kamchadals haven’t got but one river to fish in, and that isn’t a very big one, so they have made it run past their settlement five times, and by this ingenious contrivance they catch five times as many salmon as they would if it only passed once!” The Major was surprised into silence, and seemed to be considering some abstruse problem.  Finally he raised his eyes from the pommel of his saddle, transfixed the guilty Dodd with a glance of severe rebuke, and demanded solemnly, “How many times must a given fish swim past a given settlement, in order to supply the population with food, provided the fish is caught every time he goes past?” This reductio ad absurdum was too much for Dodd’s gravity; he burst into a laugh, and digging his heels into his horse’s ribs, dashed with a great splatter into the fourth arm or bend of the river, and rode up on the other side into the village of Genal.

We took up our quarters at the house of the “starosta” (stah’-ro-stah) or head man of the village, and spread our bearskins out on the clean white floor of a low room, papered in a funny way with old copies of the Illustrated London News.  A coloured American lithograph, representing the kiss of reconciliation between two offended lovers, hung against the wall on one side, and was evidently regarded with a good deal of pride by the proprietor, as affording incontestable evidence of culture and refined taste, and proving his familiar acquaintance with American art, and the manners and customs of American society.

Dodd and I, notwithstanding our fatigue, devoted the evening entirely to literary pursuits; searching diligently with tallow candles over the wall and ceiling for consecutive numbers of the Illustrated London News, reading court gossip from a birch plank in the corner, and obituaries of distinguished Englishmen from the back of a door.  By dint of industry and perseverance we finished one whole side of the house before bedtime, and having gained a vast amount of valuable information with regard to the war in New Zealand, we were encouraged to pursue our investigations in the morning upon the three remaining sides and the ceiling.  To our great regret, however, we were obliged to start on our pilgrimage without having time to find out how that war terminated, and we have never been able to ascertain to this day!  Long before six o’clock we were off with fresh horses for a long ride of ninety versts to Pushchin (poosh’-chin).