canine peace jubilee which fairly made the air quiver with sound.  At last we stopped in front of a large one-story log house, and were assisted by twelve or fifteen natives to dismount and enter.  As soon as Dodd could collect his confused faculties he demanded:  “What in the name of all the Russian saints is the matter with this settlement; is everybody insane?” Viushin was ordered to send for the starosta, or head man of the village, and in a few moments he made his appearance, bowing with the impressive persistency of a Chinese mandarin.

A prolonged colloquy then took place in Russian between the Major and the starosta, broken by explanatory commentaries in the Kamchadal language, which did not tend materially to elucidate the subject.  An evident and increasing disposition to smile gradually softened the stern lines of the Major’s face, until at last he burst into a laugh of such infectious hilarity that, notwithstanding my ignorance of the nature of the fun, I joined in with hearty sympathy.  As soon as he partially recovered his composure he gasped out, “The natives took you for the Emperor!”—­and then he went off in another spasm of merriment which threatened to terminate either in suffocation or apoplexy.  Lost in bewilderment I could only smile feebly until he recovered sufficiently to give me a more intelligible explanation of his mirth.  It appeared that the courier who had been sent from Petropavlovsk to apprise the natives throughout the peninsula of our coming, had carried a letter from the Russian governor giving the names and occupations of the members of our party, and that mine had been put down as “Yagor Kennan, Telegraphist and Operator.”  It so happened that the starosta of Milkova possessed the rare accomplishment of knowing how to read Russian writing, and the letter had been handed over to him to be communicated to the inhabitants of the village.  He had puzzled over the unknown word “telegraphist” until his mind was in a hopeless state of bewilderment, but had not been able to give even the wildest conjecture as to its probable meaning. “Operator,” however, had a more familiar sound; it was not spelled exactly in the way to which he had been accustomed, but it was evidently intended for “Imperator,” the Emperor!—­and with his heart throbbing with the excitement of this startling discovery and his hair standing on end from the arduous nature of his exegetical labours, he rushed furiously out to spread the news that the Tsar of all the Russias was on a visit to Kamchatka and would pass through Milkova in the course of three days!  The excitement which this alarming announcement created can better be imagined than described.  The all-absorbing topic of conversation was, how could Milkova best show its loyalty and admiration for the Head of the Imperial Family, the Right Arm of the Holy Orthodox Church, and the Mighty Monarch of seventy millions of devoted souls?  Kamchadal ingenuity gave it up in despair!  What could a