I was waked about midnight by the splashing of rain in my face and the sobbing of the rising wind in the tree-tops, and upon crawling out of my water-soaked blankets found that Dodd and the Major had brought the tent ashore, pitched it among the trees, and availed themselves of its shelter, but had treacherously left me exposed to a pelting rain-storm, as if it were a matter of no consequence whatever whether I slept in a tent or a mud-puddle!  After mentally debating the question whether I had better go inside or revenge myself by pulling the tent down over their heads, I finally decided to escape from the rain first and seek revenge at some more propitious time.  Hardly had I fallen asleep again when “spat” came the wet canvas across my face, accompanied by a shout of “Get up! it is time to start”; and crawling out from under the fallen tent I walked sullenly down to the raft, revolving in my mind various ingenious schemes for getting even with the Major and Dodd, who had first left me out in the rain, and then waked me up in the middle of the night by pulling a wet tent down over my head.  It was one o’clock in the morning—­dark, rainy, and dismal—­but the moon was supposed to have risen, and our Kamchadal boatmen said that it was light enough to start.  I didn’t believe that it was, but my sleepily expressed opinions had no weight with the Major, and my protests were utterly ignored.  Hoping in the bitterness of my heart that we should run against a snag, I lay down sullenly in the rain on the wet soaking grass of our raft, and tried to forget my misery in sleep.  On account of the contrary wind we could not put up our tent, and were obliged to cover ourselves as best we could with oilcloth blankets and shiver away the remainder of the night.

About an hour after daylight we approached the Kamchadal settlement of Milkova (mil’-ko-vah), the largest native village in the peninsula.  The rain had ceased, and the clouds were beginning to break away, but the air was still cold and raw.  A courier, who had been sent down in a canoe from Sherom on the previous day, had notified the inhabitants of our near approach, and the signal gun which we fired as we came round the last bend of the river brought nearly the whole population running helter-skelter to the beach.  Our reception was “a perfect ovation.”  The “city fathers,” as Dodd styled them, to the number of twenty, gathered in a body at the landing and began bowing, taking off their hats, and shouting “Zdrastvuitie?” [Footnote:  How do you do?] while we were yet fifty yards from the shore; a salute was fired from a dozen rusty flint-lock muskets, to the imminent hazard of our lives; and a dozen natives waded into the water to assist us in getting safely landed.  The village stood a short distance back from the river’s bank, and the natives had provided for our transportation thither four of the worst-looking horses that I had seen in Kamchatka.  Their equipments consisted of wooden