I was waked early on the following morning by the jubilant music of “Oh, Su-san’-na-a-a, don’t ye cry for me!” and crawling out of the tent I surprised one of our native boatmen in the very act of drumming on a frying-pan and yelling out joyously: 

  “Litenin’ struck de telegraf,
  Killed two thousand niggers;
  Shut my eyes to hole my breff,
  Su-san’-na-a-a, don’t ye cry!”

A comical skin-clad native, in the heart of Kamchatka, playing on a frying-pan and singing, “Oh, Susanna!” like an arctic negro minstrel, was too much for my gravity, and I burst into a fit of laughter, which, soon brought out Dodd.  The musician, who had supposed that he was exercising his vocal organs unheard, stopped suddenly, and looked sheepishly around, as if conscious that he had been making himself ridiculous in some way, but did not know exactly how.

“Why, Andrei,” said Dodd, “I didn’t know you could sing in English.”

“I can’t, Barin,” was the reply; “but I can sing a little in American.”

Dodd and I went off in another roar of laughter, which puzzled poor Andrei more and more.

“Where did you learn?” Dodd asked.

“The sailors of a whaling-ship learned it to me when I was in Petropavlovsk, two years ago; isn’t it a good song?” he said, evidently fearing that there might be something improper in the sentiment.

“It’s a capital song,” Dodd replied reassuringly; “do you know any more American words?”

“Oh yes, your honour!” (proudly) “I know ‘dam yerize,’ ’by ’m bye tomorry,’ ‘no savey John,’ and ‘goaty hell,’ but I don’t know what they all mean.”

It was evident that he didn’t!  His American education was of limited extent and doubtful utility; but not even Cardinal Mezzofanti himself could have been more proud of his forty languages than poor Andrei was of “dam yerize” and “goaty hell.”  If ever he reached America, the blessed land that he saw in his happier dreams, these questionable phrases would be his passports to the first society.

While we had been talking with Andrei, Viushin had built a fire and prepared breakfast, and just as the sun peered into the valley we sat down on bearskins around our little candle-box and ate some “selanka,” or sour soup, upon which Viushin particularly prided himself, and drank tumbler after tumbler of steaming tea. Selanka, hardtack, and tea, with an occasional duck roasted before the fire on a sharp stick, made up our bill of fare while camping out.  Only in the settlements did we enjoy such luxuries as milk, butter, fresh bread, preserved rose-petals, and fish pies.

Taking our places again in the canoes after breakfast, we poled on up the river, shooting occasionally at flying ducks and swans, and picking as we passed long branches full of wild cherries which drooped low over the water.  About noon we left the canoes to go around a long bend in the river, and started on foot with a native guide for Yolofka.  The grass in the river bottom and on the plains was much higher than our waists, and walking through it was very fatiguing exercise; but we succeeded in reaching the village about one o’clock, long before our canoes came in sight.