We had hitherto experienced little difficulty in making our way through the peninsula, as we had been especially favoured by weather, and there had been few natural obstacles to stop or delay our progress.  Now, however, we were about to enter a wilderness which was entirely uninhabited, and little known even to our Kamchadal guides.  North of Lesnoi the great central range of the Kamchatka mountains broke off abruptly into the Okhotsk Sea, in a long line of tremendous precipices, and interposed a great rugged wall between us and the steppes of the Wandering Koraks.  This mountain range was very difficult to pass with horses, even in midsummer, and was of course infinitely worse now, when the mountain streams were swollen by the fall rains into foaming torrents, and the storms which herald the approach of winter might be at any moment expected.  The Kamchadals at Lesnoi declared positively that it was of no use to attempt to cross this range until the rivers should freeze over and snow enough fall to permit the use of dog-sledges, and that they were not willing to risk fifteen or twenty horses, to say nothing of their own lives, in any such adventure.  The Major told them, in language more expressive than polite, that he didn’t believe a word of any such yarn; that the mountains had to be crossed, and that go they must and should.  They had evidently never had to deal before with any such determined, self-willed individual as the Major proved to be, and, after some consultation among themselves, they agreed to make the attempt with eight unloaded horses, leaving all our baggage and heavy equipage at Lesnoi.  This the Major at first would not listen to; but after thinking the situation over he decided to divide our small force into two parties—­one to go around the mountains by water with the whale-boat and heavy baggage, and one over them with twenty unloaded horses.  The road over the mountains was supposed to lie near the seacoast, so that the land party would be most of the time within signalling distance of the whale-boat, and in case either party met with any accident or found its progress stopped by unforeseen obstacles the other could come to its assistance.  Near the middle of the mountainous tract, just west of the principal ridge, there was said to be a small river called the Samanka (sa-mahn’-kah), and the mouth of this river was agreed upon as a rendezvous for the two parties in case they lost sight of each other during storms or foggy weather.  The Major decided to go with Dodd in the whale-boat, and gave me command of the land party, consisting of our best Cossack, Viushin, six Kamchadals, and twenty light horses.  Flags were made, a code of signals was agreed upon, the heavy baggage was transferred to the whale-boat and a large sealskin canoe, and early on the morning of October 4th I bade the Major and Dodd good-bye at the beach, and they pushed off.  We started up our train of horses as the boats disappeared around a projecting bluff, and cantered away briskly