THE IVORY MINE:
A TALE OF THE FROZEN SEA.

I. — YAKOUTSK.

YAKOUTSK is one of the principal cities of Siberia, a country the name of which excites exaggerated ideas of sterility and desolation. Watered by rivers, which in every direction do the work of railways, with richly-wooded mountains and valleys, with green slopes, cultivated fields, soft meadows, gardens, and grassy islands in the great streams, with all the common vegetables in pretty fair abundance, with an endless source of commerce in furs and ivory, Siberia, except in its extreme northern provinces, presents, like most other lands, a very considerable amount of compensations for considerable rigour of climate. Yakoutsk is a completely northern town on the great river Lena, with wide streets and miserable huts, all of wood, in many of which ice is still used in winter for panes of glass. A very eminent traveller tells us that on his visit there were 4000 people living in 500 houses; with three stone churches, two wooden ones, and a convent. It had once an antiquity to show — the ancient Ostrog or fortress built in 1647 by the Cossacks; but which menaced ruin more and more every day, being not of stone, but of wood, and at last disappeared. Even here progress is observable, and wretched cabins give way gradually to houses, some of which are even elegantly arranged in the interior. It is a great commercial centre: from the Anubra to Behring's Straits, from the banks of the Frozen Sea to Mount Aldana, from Okhotsk and even Kamtchatka, goods are brought hither, consisting chiefly of furs, seals' teeth and mammoths' tusks, which afford excellent ivory, all of which are sold in the summer to itinerant traders, who give in return powerfully-flavoured tobacco; corn and flour, tea, sugar, strong drinks, Chinese silks and cottons, cloth, iron and copper utensils, and glass.

      The inhabitants of the town are chiefly traders, who buy of the Yakouta hunters their furs at a cheap rate, and then sell them in a mysterious kind of fashion to the agents who come from Russia in search of them. During the annual fair they stow up their goods in private rooms; and here the Irkoutsk men must come and find them. These traders are the Russian inhabitants, the native Yakoutas being the only artisans. In this distant colony of the human race, the new-born child of a Russian is given to a Yakouta woman to nurse, and when old enough, learns to read and write, after which he is brought up to the fur trade, and his education is finished.
 

      Ivan Ivanovitch was a young man born and bred at Yakoutsk. His parents had given him the usual amount of tuition, and then allowed him for a time to follow the bent of his inclination. Ivan took to the chase. Passionately fond of this amusement, he had at an early age started with the Yakouta trappers, and became learned in the search for sables, ermines, and lynxes; could pursue the reindeer and elk on skates; and had even gone to the north in quest of seals. He thus, at the age of twenty, knew the whole active part of his trade, and was aware of all the good hunting-grounds on which the Siberians founded their prosperity. But when he was called on to follow the more quiet and sedentary part of his occupation, he was not one-half so quick. His rough and rude life made town existence distasteful to him, and he evinced all that superb contempt for shop-keeping which characterises the nomadic man, whether Red Indian, Arab, Tartar, or Siberian.

      But Ivan was told he must make his way in the world. His parents, who died before he attained to manhood, left him a small fortune in rubles and furs, which, if he chose to be industrious and persevering, might pave the way to the highest position in his native town. Acting on the pressing advice of his friends, he gave up his wanderings, and went to reside in the house of his fathers, piled up his skins and ivory, bought new ones, and prepared for the annual fair. The merchants from Irkoutsk, the capital, came, and Ivan, who was sharp and clever, did a good trade. But when his furs and teeth were changed into tea, tobacco, brandy, cloth, &c. he did not feel a whit happier. Ivan longed for the arid hills, and lofty mountains, and pellucid lakes — for the exciting hunt and the night bivouac, when gray-headed Yakoutas would, with their ganzis — the Irish duddeen — in their mouths, tell terrible and wonderful stories of ancient days. When eating town fare, his stomach yearned after frozen Yakouta butter, cut up with axes, and for strouganina or frozen fish, with reindeer brains, and other northern delicacies. And then his kind friends told him that he wanted a wife — a possession without which, they assured him, life was dull, adding that in her society he would cease to long for communion with bears and savages.

      Ivan believed them, and, following their advice, launched into society — that is, he went more than usual to the noisy festivities of the town, which form the occupation of the dull season. The good people of Yakoutsk — like all peoples approaching to a savage state, sentimentally called a state of nature, especially in northern climes — considered eating the great business of life. Fabulous legends are told of their enormous capacity for food, approaching that of the Esquimaux; but however this may be, certain it is that a Yakoutsk festival was always commenced by several hours of laborious eating and drinking of fat and oily food and strong brandy. When the utmost limits of repletion were reached, the patriarchs usually took to pipes, cards, and punch, while the ladies prepared tea, and ate roasted nuts, probably to facilitate digestion. The young men conversed with them, or roasted their nuts for them, while perhaps a dandy would perform a Siberian dance to the music of the violin or gousli, a kind of guitar. Ivan joined heartily in all this dissipation: he smoked with the old men; he drank their punch; he roasted nuts for the ladies, and told them wonderful stories, which were always readily listened to, except when some new fashion — which several years before had been forgotten in Paris — found its way via St Petersburg, Moscow, and Irkoutsk, to the deserts of Siberia. Then he was silent; for the ladies had ample subject of discourse, not forgetting the great tea-table topic — scandal; causing the old men to shake their heads, and declare such things were not when they were young. Ivan, however, had one unfailing subject of popularity with the ladies. Like most Russians who have had occasion to travel much in cold places, he relished a cup of tea even better than the punch, for he had learned by experience that there was more genuine warmth in the pot than in the bowl. Most Russian officers are known to share his opinion.

      Ivan had several times had his attention directed to Maria Vorotinska, a young and rich widow, who was the admiration of all Yakoutsk. Her husband had left her a fortune in knowledge of the fur trade and in rubles, with a comfortable house nicely furnished, in Siberia the very height of human felicity. It was commonly reported that Maria, young as she was, was the best bargainer in the land. She got her skins for less than anybody else, and sold them for a higher price. With these qualifications, she must, it was said, prove a jewel to Ivan, who was not a close buyer nor a hard seller. But Ivan for some time remained perfectly insensible both to these social advantages and the great beauty of the lady. He met her often, and even roasted her more nuts than any one else, which was a strong case of preference; but he did not seem caught in the fair one's toils. He neither ate, nor slept, nor amused himself one whit the less than when he first knew her. One evening, however, as Maria handed him his tea, with a hot cake, Ivan, whether owing to some peculiar smile on her face, or to the domestic idea which the act suggested, seemed certainly very much struck, and next day formally proposed. Maria laughed, and tossed her head, and spoke a few good-natured words; and then, without either accepting or rejecting him, hinted something about his youth, his want of devotion to business, and his want of fortune. Ivan, a little warmly, declared himself the best hunter in Yakoutsk, and hence the most practically-experienced of any in the trade, and then gave the sum-total of his possessions.

      "Just one quarter of what good old Vorotinska left me!" replied the prudent Maria.

      "But if I liked," replied Ivan, "I could be the richest merchant in Siberia."

      "How?" asked Maria a little curiously, for the mere mention of wealth was to her like powder to the war-horse.

      "Being almost the only Russian who has lived among the Yakoutas, I know the secret of getting furs cheaper and easier than any one else. Besides, if I chose to take a long journey, I could find ivory in vast heaps. A tradition is current of an ivory mine in the north, which an old Yakouta told me to be truth."

      "Very likely," said Maria, to whom the existence of the fossil ivory of the mammoth in large masses was well known; "but the promich lenicks — trading companies — have long since stripped them."

      "Not this," cried Ivan; "it is a virgin mine. It is away, away in the Frozen Sea, and requires courage and enduring energy to find. Two Yakoutas once discovered it. One was killed by the natives; the other escaped, and is now an old man."

      "If you could find that," said Maria, "you would be the first man in Siberia, and the czar himself would honour you."

      "And you?" asked Ivan humbly.

      "Ivan Ivanovitch," replied Maria calmly, "I like you better than any man in Yakoutsk, but I should adore the great ivory merchant."

      Ivan was delighted. He was a little puzzled by the character of the lady, who, after marrying an old man for his fortune, seemed equally desirous of reconciling her interest and her affections in a second marriage. But very nice ideas are not those of the half-civilised, for we owe every refinement both of mind and body to civilisation, which makes of the raw material man — full of undeveloped elements — what cooking makes of the potato root. Civilisation is the hot water and fire which carry off the crudities, and bring forth the good qualities.

      However this may be, Ivan nursed his idea. Apart from the sudden passion which had invaded him, he had long allowed this fancy to ferment in his brain. During his wandering evenings, a noted hunter named Sakalar, claiming descent from the supposed Tartar founder of the Yakoutas, had often narrated his perilous journey on sledges across the Frozen Sea, his discovery of an ivory mine — that is, of a vast deposit of mammoths' tusks, generally found at considerable depth in the earth, but here open to the grasp of all. He spoke of the thing as a folly of his youth, which had cost the life of his dearest friend, and never hinted at a renewed visit. But Ivan was resolved to undertake the perilous adventure, and even to have Sakalar for his guide.
 

II. — THE YAKOUTA HUNTER.

      Ivan slumbered not over his project. But a few days passed before he was ready to start. He purchased the horses required, and packed up all the varied articles necessary for his journey, and likely to please his Yakouta friend, consisting of tea, rum, brandy, tobacco, gunpowder, and other things of less moment. For himself he took a couple of guns, a pair of pistols, some strong and warm clothes, an iron pot for cooking, a kettle for his tea, with many minor articles absolutely indispensable in the cold region he was about to visit. All travellers in the north have found that ample food, and such drinks as tea, are the most effectual protection against the climate; while oily and fat meat is also an excellent preservative against cold. But Ivan had no need to provide against this contingency. His Yakouta friend knew the value of train oil and grease, which are the staple luxuries of Siberians, Kamtchatkans, and Esquimaux alike.

      The first part of Ivan's journey was necessarily to the yourte, or wigwam of Sakalar, without whom all hope of reaching the goal of his wishes was vain. He had sufficient confidence in himself to venture without a guide towards the plain of Miouré, where his Yakouta friend dwelt. He started at early dawn, without warning of his departure any one save Maria, and entered courageously on the frozen plain which reaches from Yakoutsk to the Polar Sea. The country is here composed of marshes, vast downs, huge forests, and hills covered with snow in the month of September, the time when he began his journey. He had five horses, each tied to the tail of the one before him, while Ivan himself was mounted on the first. He was compelled to ride slowly, casting his eyes every now and then behind to see that all was right. At night he stretched a bear-skin under a bush, lit a huge fire, cooked a savoury mess, and piling clothes over himself, slept. At dawn he rose, crammed his kettle full of clean snow, put it over the embers, and made himself tea. With this warm beverage to rouse him, he again arranged his little caravan, and proceeded on his way. Nothing more painful than this journey can be conceived. There are scarcely any marks to denote the road, while lakes, formed by recent inundations, arrest the traveller every half hour, compelling him to take prodigious rounds equally annoying and perplexing.

      On the morning of the third day Ivan felt a little puzzled about the road. He knew the general direction from the distant mountains, and he wished to avoid a vast morass. Before him was a frozen stream, and on the other side a hillock. Leaving the others to feed as well as they could, he mounted his best horse, and rode across. The ice bent under him as he went, and he accordingly rode gently; but just as he reached the middle, it cracked violently right across, and sank visibly under him. Ivan looked hurriedly round him. The ice was everywhere split, and the next minute his horse, plunging violently, fell through. Instead, however, of falling into a stream of cold water, Ivan found himself in a vast and chilly vault, with a small trickling stream in the middle, and at once recollected a not unfrequent phenomenon. The river had been frozen over when high with floods, but presently the water sinking to its ordinary level, the upper crust of ice alone remained. But Ivan had no desire to admire the gloomy, half-lit vault, extending up and down out of sight; but standing on his horse's back, clambered as best he might upon the surface, leaving the poor animal below. This done, he ran to the shore, and used the well-remembered Yakouta device for extracting his steed: he broke a hole in the ice near the bank, towards which the sagacious brute at once hurried, and was drawn forth. Having thus fortunately escaped a serious peril, he resumed his search on foot, and about mid-day pursued his journey.

      A few hours brought him to the curious plain of the Miouré, where he expected to find the camp of his friend Sakalar. Leaving an almost desert plain, he suddenly stood on the edge of a hollow, circular in form, and six miles across, fertile in the extreme, and dotted with numerous well-stocked fish-ponds. The whole, as may plainly be seen, was once a lake. Scattered over the soil were the yourtes of the Yakoutas, while cattle and horses crowded together in vast flocks. Ivan, who knew the place well, rode straight to a yourte or cabin apart from the rest, where usually dwelt Sakalar. It was larger and cleaner than most of them, thanks to the tuition of Ivan, and the subsequent care of a daughter, who, brought up by Ivan's mother, while the young man wandered, had acquired manners a little superior to those of her tribe.

      This was really needful, for the Yakoutas, a pastoral people of Tartar origin, are singularly dirty, and even somewhat coarse and unintellectual — like all savage nations, in fact, when judged by any one but the poet or the poetic philosopher, who, on examination, will find that ignorance, poverty, misery, and want of civilisation, produce similar results in the prairies of America and the wilds of Siberia, in an Irish cabin, and in the wynds and closes of our populous cities. But the chief defect of the Yakouta is dirt. Otherwise, he is rather a favourable specimen of a savage. Since his assiduous connection with the Russians, he has become even rich, having flocks and herds, and at home plenty of koumise to drink, and horses' flesh to eat. He has great endurance, and can bear tremendous cold. He travels in the snow without tent or pelisse; on reaching the camp, he lies down on the snow, with his saddle for a pillow, his horse-cloth for a bed, his cloak for a covering, and so sleeps. His power of fasting is prodigious; and his eye-sight is so keen, that a Yakouta one day told an eminent Russian traveller that he had seen a great blue star eat a number of little stars, and then cast them up. The man had seen the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Like the Red Indian, he recollects every bush, every stone, every hillock, every pond necessary to find his way, and never loses himself, however great the distance he may have to travel.

      His food is boiled beef and horses' flesh, cows' and mares' milk. But his chief delicacy is raw and melted fat, while quantity is always the chief merit of a repast. He mixes likewise a mess of fish, flour, milk, fat, and a kind of bark, the latter to augment the volume. Both men and women smoke inordinately, swallowing the vapour, as do many dwellers in civilised lands — a most pernicious and terrible habit. Brandy is their most precious drink, their own koumise having not sufficient strength to satisfy them. In summer they wander about in tents collecting hay; in winter they dwell in the yourte or hut, which is a wooden frame, of beehive shape, covered with grass, turf, and clay, with windows of clear ice. The very poor dig three feet below the soil; the rich have a wooden floor level with the adjacent ground, while rude benches all round serve as beds, divided one from the other by partitions. The fireplace is in the middle, inclined towards the door. A pipe carries away the smoke.

      It was almost dark when Ivan halted before the yourte of Sakalar. It was at once larger and cleaner to the eye than any of those around. It had also numerous outhouses full of cows, and one or two men to tend these animals were smoking their pipes at the door. Ivan gave his horses to one of them, who knew him, and entered the hut. Sakalar, a tall, thin, hardy man of about fifty, was just about to commence his evening meal. A huge mass of boiled meat, stewed fish, and a sort of soup, were ready; and a young girl about eighteen, neatly dressed, clean, and pretty — all owing to her Yakoutsk education — was serving the hunter.

      "Spirit of the woods protect me!" shrieked the girl, spilling half of the soup on the floor.

      "What wild horse have you seen, Kolina?" cried the hunter, who had been a little scalded; and then seeing Ivan, added, "A Yakouta welcome to you, my son! My old heart is glad, and I am warm enough to melt an iceberg at the sight of you, Ivan! Kolina, quick! another platter, a fresh mug, the best bottle of brandy, and my red pipe from Moscow!"

      No need was there for the hunter to speak. Kolina, alert as a reindeer, had sprung up from the low bench, and quickly brought forth all their holiday ware, and even began to prepare a cake, such as Ivan himself had taught her to make, knowing that he liked some sort of bread with his meals.

      "And where are you going?" cried Sakalar when the young man had somewhat appeased his hunger.

      "To the North Sea in search of the great ivory mine!" said Ivan abruptly.

      Kolina started back in terror and surprise, while Sakalar fixed his keen eyes on the youth with sorrow and curiosity, and almost unequivocally testified his belief that his favourite pupil in the chase was mad. But Ivan rose and bade the serving-men of the rich Yakouta bring in his boxes, and opened up his store of treasures. There was tea for Kolina; and for Sakalar rum, brandy, powder, guns, tobacco, knives — all that could tempt a Yakouta. The father and daughter examined them with pleasure for some time, but presently Kolina shook her head.

      "Ivan," said Sakalar, "all this is to tempt the poor Yakouta to cross the wilderness of ice. It is much riches, but not enough to make Sakalar mad. The mine is guarded by evil beings: but speak, lad, why would you go there?"

      "Let Kolina give me a pipe and I will tell my story," said Ivan; and filling his glass, the young fur-trader told the story of his love, and his bargain with the prudent widow.

      "And this cold-hearted woman," exclaimed Kolina with emotion, "has sent you to risk life on the horrible Frozen Sea. A Yakouta girl would have been less selfish. She would have said, 'Stay at home, let me have Ivan; the mammoth teeth may lie for ever on the Frozen Sea!'"

      "But the lad will go, and he will be drowned like a dog," said Sakalar more slowly, after this ebullition of feminine indignation.

      "You must go with him, father," continued Kolina with a compassionate look at Ivan; "and as your child cannot remain alone, Kolina will go too!"

      "We will start when the horses have had five days' hay," said Sakalar gravely — the animals alluded to being only fed when about to go a journey — "and Kolina shall go too, for Ivan will be two years on his way."

      Ivan listened in amazement: in the first place, at the sudden decision and warmth of his attached friends, with whom he had dwelt twelve years; then at the time required. He felt considerable doubts as to the widow remaining unmarried such a time; but the explanation of Sakalar satisfied him that it was impossible to perform the journey even in two years. The hunter told him that they must first join the tribes dwelling round Nijnei-Kolimsk (New-Kolimsk), where alone he could get dogs and sledges for his journey across the Frozen Sea. This, with the arrangements, would consume the winter. In the summer nothing could be done. When the winter returned, he must start towards the north pole — a month's journey at least; and if he hit on the place, must encamp there for the rest of the winter. That summer would be spent in getting out the ivory, fattening up the dogs, and packing. The third winter would be occupied by the journey home. On hearing this, Ivan hesitated; but in describing the journey, the spirit of the old hunter got roused, and before night, he was warm in his desire to see over again the scenes of his youthful perils. Kolina solemnly declared she must be of the party; and thus these experienced savages, used to sudden and daring resolves, decided in one night on a journey which would perhaps have been talked of half a century elsewhere before it was undertaken.

      Kolina slept little that night. In a compartment near her was one who had, since childhood, been the ideal of her future. She had loved Ivan as a playmate — she loved him as a man; and here, he whom she had longed for all the winter, and he whom she had hoped to see once more the next summer, had suddenly come, starting on a perilous journey of years, to win the hand of an avaricious but young and beautiful widow. Kolina saw all her fairest dreams thus vanish, and the idol of her heart crumble into dust. And yet she felt no ill-will to Ivan, and never changed her resolve to be the faithful companion and attendant of her father and his friend in their wild journey to the supposed islands in the Frozen Sea.
&NBSP:

III. — NIJNEI-KOLINSK.

      The five days fixed by Sakalar for preparing for the journey were wholly devoted to the necessary arrangements. There was much to be done, and much to be talked of. They had to travel a long way before they reached even the real starting-point of their adventurous voyage. Sakalar, duly to impress Ivan with the dangers and perils of the search, narrated once more in minute detail all his former sufferings. But nothing daunted the young trader. He was one of those men who, under more favourable circumstances, would have been a Cook, a Parry, or a Franklin, perilling everything to make farther discovery in the science of geography.

      The five horses of Ivan were exchanged for others more inured to the kind of journey they were about to undertake. There was one for each of the adventurers, and four to carry the luggage, consisting chiefly of articles with which to pay for the hire of dogs and sledges. All were well armed, while the dress of all was the same — Kolina adopting for the time the habits and appearance of the man. Over their usual clothes they put a jacket of foxes' skins and a fur-breast cover; the legs being covered by hare-skin wrappers. Over these were stockings of soft reindeer leather, and high strong boots of the same material. The knees were protected by knee-caps of fur; and then, above all, was a coat with loose sleeves and hood of double deer-skin. This was not all. After the chin, nose, cars, and mouth had been guarded by appropriate pieces, forming together a mask, they had received the additional weight of a pointed fur cap. Our three travellers, when they took their departure, looked precisely like three animated bundles of old clothes.

      All were well armed with gun, pistol, hatchet, and hunting-knife, while the girdle further supported a pipe and tobacco pouch. They had not explained whither they were going, but the whole village knew that they must be about to undertake some perilous journey, and accordingly turned out to cheer them as they went, while several ardent admirers of Kolina were loud in their murmurs at her accompanying the expedition. But the wanderers soon left the plain of Miouré behind them, and entered on the delectable roads leading to the Frozen Sea. Half-frozen marshes and quagmires met them at every step; but Sakalar rode first, and the others followed one by one, and the experienced old hunter, by advancing steadily without hurry, avoided these dangers. They soon reached a vast plain three hundred miles across, utterly deserted by the human race; a desert, composed half of barren rock and half of swampy quagmire, soft above, but at a foot deep solid and perpetual ice. Fortunately it now froze hard, and the surface was fit to bear the horses. But for this, the party must have halted, and waited for a severer frost. The rivers were not frozen when large in volume; and the Aldana had to be crossed in the usual flat-bottomed boat kept for travellers. At night they halted, and with a bush and some deer-skins made a tent. Kolina cooked the supper, and the men searched for some fields of stunted half-frozen grass to let the horses graze. This was the last place where even this kind of food would be found, and for some days their steeds would have to live on a stinted portion of hay.

      On they went over the arid plain, which, however, affords nourishment for some trees, fording rivers, floundering through marshes, and still meeting some wretched apology for grass; when, on the third day, down came the snow in a pelting cloud, and the whole desert changed in an instant from sombre gray to white. The real winter was come. Now all Sakalar's intelligence was required. Almost every obvious sign by which to find his way had disappeared, and he traversed the plain wholly guided by distant hills, and by observing the stars at night. This Sakalar did assiduously; and when he had once started under the guidance of the twinkling lights of the heavens, rarely was he many yards out at the next halt. He always chose the side of a hillock to camp, where there was a tree or two, and half-rotten trunks with bushes to make a huge fire.

      It was nearly dawn on the fifth morning after entering the plain, and Ivan and Kolina yet slept. But Sakalar slept not. They had nearly reached the extremity of the horrible desert, but a new danger occupied the thoughts of the hunter. They were now in the track of the wild and savage Tchouktchas, and their fire might have betrayed them. Had Sakalar been alone, he would have slept in the snow without fire; for he knew the peril of an encounter with the independent Tchouktchas, who have only recently been even nominally brought into subjection to Russia.

      The heavy fall of snow of the two previous days rendered the danger greater. Sakalar sat gravely upon a fallen tree — a pipe in his mouth, and his eye fixed on the distant horison. For some time nothing remarkable caught his gaze; but at last he saw a number of dark objects on the snow, gallopping directly towards the camp. Sakalar at once recognised a number of reindeer. It was the Tchouktchas on their sledges, bounding with lightning speed along the frozen surface!

      "Up!" cried the hunter. And when his companions were on their feet, "Quick with your guns! The enemy are on us! But show a bold front, and let them feel the weight of lead!"

      Ivan and Kolina quietly took up their post, and awaited the orders of Sakalar. No time was lost, and fortunately, for the savages were already near, and were next minute alighting from their sledges: hand in hand they advanced along the snow, with their long ice shoes, to the number of a dozen. A simultaneous discharge of the heavy-metalled guns of the camp — one of which, that of Sakalar, wounded the foremost man — checked their career, and they fell back to hold a conference. It became evident at once that they had no firearms, which removed almost all idea of danger. Ivan and Kolina now proceeded to load the horses, and when all was ready, the whole party mounted, and rode off, followed at a respectful distance by the Siberian Arabs.

      The travellers, however, received no further annoyance from them, and camped the next night on the borders of the Toukoulane, at the foot of the mountains of Verkho-Yansk. After the usual repose, they began the severest part of the journey. Rugged rocks, deep ravines, avalanches, snow, and ice, all were in their way. Now they rode along the edge of frightful precipices, on a path so narrow, that one false step was death; now they forced their way through gulleys full of snow, where their horses were buried to their girths, and they had to drag them out by main force. Fortunately the Siberian horse, though small, is sturdy and indefatigable, living during a three months' journey on faded grass and half-frozen half-rotten herbage. That evening they camped on the loftiest part of the road, where it winds through still elevated rocks.

      The middle of the next day brought them to another plain not much superior to that which they had passed through, but yet less miserable-looking, and with the additional advantage of having yourtes here and there to shelter the traveller. The cold was now intense; and glad indeed was Ivan of the comforts of his Siberian dress, which at first had appeared so heavy. The odd figures which Kolina and Sakalar presented under it made him smile at the notion which Maria Vorotinska would have formed of her lover under a garb that doubled his natural volume. Several halts took place, and caused great delay, from the slippery state of the ice on the rivers. The unshod horses could not stand. A fire had to be lit; and when sufficient ashes was procured, it had to be spread across in a narrow pathway, and the nags led carefully along this track — one of the many artifices required to combat the rigorous character of the climate. And thus, suffering cold and short commons, and making their way for days through frosty plains over ice and snow, amid deep ravines and over lofty hills, they at length reached Nijnei-Kolimsk, though not without being almost wholly knocked up, especially Kolina, who was totally unused to such fatigues.

      They had now almost reached the borders of the great Frozen Sea. The village is situated about eighteen degrees farther north than London, and is nearly as far north as Boothia Felix, the scene of Captain Ross's four years' sojourn in the ice. It was founded two hundred years ago by a wandering Cossack; though what could have induced people to settle in a place which the sun lights, but never warms, is a mystery; where there is a day that lasts fifty-two English days, and a night that lasts thirty-eight; where there is no spring and no autumn, but a faint semblance of summer for three months, and then winter; where few dwarf willows and stunted grass form all the vegetation; and where, at a certain distance below the surface, there is frost as old as the current epoch' of the geologist. But by way of compensation, reindeer and elks, brown and black bears, foxes and squirrels, abound; there are also wolves, and the isatis or polar fox; there are swans, and geese, and ducks, partridges and snipes, and in the rivers abundance of fish. And yet, though the population be now so scanty, and the date of the peopling of Kolimsk is known, there was once a numerous race in these regions, the ruins of whose forts and villages are yet found. The population is about 5000, including the whole district, of whom about 300 are Russians, the descendants of Siberian exiles. They dwell in houses made of wood thrown up on the shore, and collected by years of patience, and of moss and clay. The panes of the windows in winter are of ice, six inches thick; in summer, of skins. The better class are neatly and even tastefully dressed, and are clean, which is the very highest praise that can be given to half-civilised as well as to civilised people.

      They are a bold, energetic, and industrious race. Every hour of weather fit for out-door work is spent in fishing and hunting, and preparing food for the winter. In the light sledge, or on skates, with nets and spears, they are labouring at each of these employments in its season. Towards the end of the long winter, just as famine and starvation threaten the whole population, a perfect cloud of swans, and geese, and ducks, and snipes, pour in; and man and woman, boy and girl, all rush forth to the hunt. The fish come in next, as the ice breaks; and presently the time for the reindeer hunt comes round. Every minute of the summer season is consumed in laying in a stock of all these aliments for a long and dreary season, when nothing can be caught. The women collect herbs and roots. As the summer is just about to end, the herrings appear in shoals, and a new source of subsistence is opened up. Later still, they fish by opening holes in the newly-formed ice. Nor is Kolimsk without its trade. The chief traffic of the region is at the fair of Ostrovnoye, but Nijnei-Kolimsk has its share. The merchants who come to collect the furs which the adventurous Tchouktchas have acquired, even the opposite side of Behring's Straits, from the North American Indians, halt here, and sell tea, tobacco, brandy, and other articles.

      The long night had set in when Ivan and his companions entered Kolimsk. Well it was that they had come, for the cold was becoming frightful in its intensity, and the people of the village were much surprised at the arrival of travellers. But they found ready accommodation, a Cossack widower giving them half his house.
 

IV. — THE FROZEN SEA.

      Ivan soon found himself received into the best society of the place. All were glad to welcome the adventurous trader from Yakoutsk; and when he intimated that his boxes of treasure, his brandy and tea, and rum and tobacco, were to be laid out in the hire of dogs and sledges, he found ample applicants, though, from the very first, all refused to accompany his party as guardians of the dogs. Sakalar, however, who had expected this, was nothing daunted, but, bidding Ivan amuse himself as best he could, undertook all the preparations. But Ivan found as much pleasure in teaching what little he knew to Kolina as in frequenting the fashionable circles of Kolimsk. Still, he could not reject the numerous polite invitations to evening parties and dances which poured upon him. I have said evening parties, for though there was no day, yet still the division of the hours was regularly kept, and parties began at five P.M., to end at ten. There was singing and dancing, and gossip and tea, of which each individual would consume ten or twelve large cups; in fact, despite the primitive state of the inhabitants, and the vicinity to the Polar Sea, these assemblies very much resembled in style those of Paris and London. The costumes, the saloons, and the hours, were different, while the manners were less refined, but the facts were the same.

      When the carnival came round, Ivan, who was a little vexed at the exclusion of Kolina from the fashionable Russian society, took care to let her have the usual amusement of sliding down a mountain of ice, which she did to her great satisfaction. But he took care also at all times to devote to her his days, while Sakalar wandered about from yourte to yourte in search of hints and information for the next winter's journey. He also hired the requisite nartas, or sledges, and the thirty-nine dogs which were to draw them, thirteen to each. Then he bargained for a large stock of frozen and dry fish for the dogs, and other provisions for them. selves. But what mostly puzzled the people were his assiduous efforts to get a man to go with them who would harness twenty dogs to an extra sledge. To the astonishment of everybody, three young men at last volunteered, and three extra sledges were then procured.

      The summer soon came round, and then Ivan and his friends started out at once with the hunters, and did their utmost to be useful. As the natives of Kolimsk went during the chase a long distance towards Cape Sviatoi, the spot where the adventurers were to quit the land and venture on the Frozen Sea, they took care, at the furthest extremity of their hunting trip, to leave a deposit of provisions. They erected a small platform, which they covered with drift wood, and on this they placed the dried fish. Above were laid heavy stones, and every precaution used to ward off the isatis and the glutton. Ivan during the summer added much to his stock of hunting knowledge.

      At length the winter came round once more, and the hour arrived so long desired. The sledges were ready — six in number, and loaded as heavily as they could bear. But for so many dogs, and for so many days, it was quite certain they must economise most strictly; while it was equally certain, if no bears fell in their way on the journey, that they must starve, if they did not perish otherwise on the terrible Frozen Sea. Each narta, loaded with eight hundredweight of provisions and its driver, was drawn by six pair of dogs and a leader. They took no wood, trusting implicitly. to Providence for this most essential article. They purposed following the shores of the Frozen Sea to Cape Sviatoi, because on the edge of the sea they hoped to find, as usual, plenty of wood, floated to the shore during the brief period when the ice was broken and the vast ocean in part free. One of the sledges was less loaded than the rest with provisions, because it bore a tent, an iron plate for fire on the ice, a lamp, and the few cooking utensils of the party.
 

      Early one morning in the month of November — the long night still lasting — the six sledges took their departure. The adventurers had every day exercised themselves with the dogs for some hours, and were pretty proficient. Sakalar drove the first team, Kolina the second, and Ivan the third. The Kolimsk men came afterwards. They took their way along the snow towards the mouth of the Tchouktcha river. The first day's journey brought them to the extreme limits of vegetation, after which they entered on a vast and interminable plain of snow, along which the nartas moved rapidly. But the second day, in the afternoon, a storm came on. The snow fell in clouds, the wind blew with a bitterness of cold as searching to the form of man as the hot blast of the desert, and the dogs appeared inclined to halt. But Sakalar kept on his way towards a hillock in the distance, where the guides spoke of a hut of refuge. But before a dozen yards more could be crossed, the sledge of Kolina was overturned, and a halt became necessary.

      Ivan was the first to raise his fair companion from the ground; and then with much difficulty — their hands, despite all the clothes, being half-frozen — they again put the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped, but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow, within which they soon lay snug, their noses only out of the hole, while over this the sagacious brutes put the tip of their long bushy tails.

      At the end of an hour well employed, the hut was freed inside from snow, and a fire of stunted bushes with a few logs lit in the middle. Here the whole party cowered, almost choked with the thick smoke, which, however, was less painful than the blast from the icy sea. The smoke escaped with difficulty, because the roof was still covered with firm snow, and the door was merely a hole to crawl through. At last, however, they got the fire to the state of red embers, and succeeded in obtaining a plentiful supply of tea and food; after which, their limbs being less stiff, they fed the dogs.

      While they were attending to the dogs, the storm abated, and was followed immediately by a magnificent aurora borealis. It rose in the north, a sort of semi-arch of light; and then across the heavens, in almost every direction, darted columns of a luminous character. The light was as bright as that of the moon in its full. There were jets of lurid red light in some places, which disappeared and came again; while there being a dead calm after the storm, the adventurers heard a kind of rustling sound in the distance, faint and almost imperceptible, and yet believed to be the rush of the air in the sphere of the phenomenon. A few minutes more, and all had disappeared.

      After a hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They told with considerable vigour and effect long stories of their adventures, mostly exaggerated — and when not impossible, most improbable — of bears killed in hand to hand combat, of hundreds of deer slain in the crossing of a river, and of multitudinous heaps of fish drawn in one cast of a seine; and then, wrapped in their thick clothes, and every one's feet to the fire, the whole party soon slept. Ivan and Kolina, however, held whispered converse together for a little while; but fatigue soon overcame even them.

      The next day they advanced still farther towards the pole, and on the evening of the third camped within a few yards of the great Frozen Sea. There it lay before them, scarcely distinguishable from the land. As they looked upon it from a lofty eminence, it was hard to believe that that was a sea before them. There was snow on the sea and snow on the land; there were mountains on both, and huge drifts, and here and there vast polinas — a space of soft, watery ice, which resembled the lakes of Siberia. All was bitter, cold, sterile, bleak, and chilling to the eye, which vainly sought a relief. The prospect of a journey over this desolate plain, intersected in every direction by ridges of mountain icebergs, full of crevices, with soft salt ice here and there, was dolorous indeed; and yet the heart of Ivan quaked not. He had now what he sought in view; he knew there was land beyond, and riches, and fame.

      A rude tent, with snow piled round the edge to keep it firm, was erected. It needed to be strongly pitched, for in these regions the blast is more quick and sudden than in any place perhaps in the known world, pouring down along the fields of ice with terrible force direct from the unknown caverns of the northern pole. Within the tent, which was of double reindeer skin, a fire was lit; while behind a huge rock, and under cover of the sledges, lay the dogs. As usual, after a hearty meal, and hot tea — drunk perfectly scalding — the party retired to rest. About midnight all were awoke by a sense of oppression and stifling heat. Sakalar rose, and by the light of the remaining embers scrambled to the door. It was choked up by snow. The hunter immediately began to shovel it from the narrow hole through which they entered or left the hut, and then groped his way out. The snow was falling so thick and fast, that the travelling yourte was completely buried; and the wind being directly opposite to the door, the snow had drifted round and concealed the aperture. The dogs now began to howl fearfully. This was too serious a warning to be disdained. They smelt the savage bear of the icy seas, which in turn had been attracted to them by its sense of smelling. Scarcely had the sagacious animals given tongue, when Sakalar, through the thick-falling snow, and amid the gloom, saw a dull heavy mass rolling directly towards the tent. He levelled his gun, and fired, after which he seized a heavy steel wood axe, and stood ready. The animal had at first halted, but next minute he came on growling furiously. Ivan and Kolina now both fired, when the animal turned and ran. But the dogs were now round him, and Sakalar behind them. One tremendous blow of his axe finished the huge beast, and there he lay in the snow. The dogs then abandoned him, refusing to eat fresh bear's meat, though, when frozen, they gladly enough accept it.

      The party again sought rest, after lighting an oil lamp with a thick wick, which, in default of the fire, diffused a tolerable amount of warmth in a small place occupied by six people. But they did not sleep; for though one of the bears was killed, the second of the almost invariable couple was probably near, and the idea of such vicinity was anything but agreeable. These huge quadrupeds have been often known to enter a hut and stifle all its inhabitants. The night was therefore far from refreshing, and at an earlier hour than usual all were on foot. Every morning the same routine was followed:— Hot tea, without sugar or milk, was swallowed to warm the body; then a meal, which took the place of dinner, was cooked, and devoured; then the dogs were fed; and then the sledges, which had been inclined on one side, were placed horizontally. This was always done, to water their keel — to use a nautical phrase; for this water freezing they glided along all the faster. A portion of the now hard-frozen bear was given to the dogs, and the rest placed on the sledges, after the skin had been secured towards making a new covering at night.

      This day's journey was half on the land, half on the sea, according as the path served. It was generally very rough, and the sledges made but slow way. The dogs, too, had coverings put on their feet, and on every other delicate place, which made them less agile. In ordinary cases, on a smooth surface, it is not very difficult to guide a team of dogs, when the leader is a first-rate animal. But this is an essential point, otherwise it is impossible to get along. Every time the dogs hit on the track of a bear, or fox, or other animal, their hunting instincts are developed: away they dart like mad, leaving the line of march, and, in spite of all the efforts of the driver, begin the chase. But if the front dog be well trained, he dashes on one side in a totally opposite direction, smelling and barking as if he had a new track. If his artifice succeeds, the whole team dart away after him, and speedily losing the scent, proceed on their journey.

      Sakalar, who still kept ahead of the party, when making a wide circuit out at sea about mid-day, at the foot of a steep hill of rather rough ice, found his dogs suddenly increasing their speed, but in the right direction. To this he had no objection, though it was very doubtful what was beyond. However, the dogs darted ahead with terrific rapidity, until they reached the summit of the hill, The ice was here very rough and salt, which impeded the advance of the sledge: but off are the dogs, down a very steep descent, furiously tugging at the sledge halter, till away they fly like lightning. The harness had broken off, and Sakalar remained alone on the crest of the hill. He leaped off the nartas, and stood looking at it with the air of a man stunned. The journey seemed checked violently. Next instant, his gun in hand, he followed the dogs right down the hill, dashing away too like a madman in his long hunting-skates. But the dogs were out of sight, and Sakalar soon found himself opposed by a huge wall of ice. He looked back; he was wholly out of view of his companions. To reconnoitre, he ascended the wall as best he could, and then looked down into a sort of circular hollow of some extent, where the ice was smooth and even watery.

      He was about to turn away, when his sharp eye detected something moving; and all his love of the chase was at once aroused. He recognised the snow-cave of a huge bear. It was a kind of cavern, caused by the falling together of two pieces of ice, with double issue. Both apertures the bear had succeeded in stopping up, after breaking a hole in the thin ice of the sheltered polina, or sheet of soft ice. Here the cunning animal lay in wait. How long he had been lying it was impossible to say; but almost as Sakalar crouched down to watch, a seal came to the surface, and lay against the den of its enemy to breathe. A heavy paw was passed through the hole, and the sea-cow was killed in an instant. A naturalist would have admired the wit of the ponderous bear, and passed on; but the Siberian hunter knows no such thought, and as the animal issued forth to seize his prey, a heavy ball, launched with unerring aim, laid him low.

      Sakalar now turned away in search of his companions, whose aid was required to secure a most useful addition to their store of food; and as he did so, he heard a distant and plaintive howl. He hastened in the direction, and in a quarter of an hour came to the mouth of a narrow gut between two icebergs. The stick of the harness had caught in the fissure, and checked the dogs, who were barking with rage. Sakalar caught the bridle, which had been jerked out of his hand, and turned the dogs round. The animals followed his guidance; and he succeeded, after some difficulty, in bringing them to where lay his game. He then fastened the bear and seal, both dead and frozen even in this short time, and joined his companions.

      For several days the same kind of difficulties had to be overcome, and then they reached the sayba, where the provisions had been placed in the summer. It was a large rude box, erected on piles, and the whole stock was found safe. As there was plenty of wood in this place, they halted to rest the dogs and repack the sledges. The tent was pitched, and they all thought of repose. They were now about wholly to quit the land, and to venture in a north-westerly direction on the Frozen Sea.
 

V. — ON THE ICE.

      Despite the fire made on the iron plate in the middle of the tent, our adventurers found the cold at this point of their journey most poignant. It was about Christmas; but the exact time of year had little to do with the matter. The wind was northerly, and keen; and they often at night had to rise and promote circulation by a good run on the snow. But early on the third day all was ready for a start. The sun was seen that morning on the edge of the horison for a short while, and promised soon to give them days. Before them were a line of icebergs, seemingly an impenetrable wall; but it was necessary to brave them. The dogs, refreshed by two days of rest, started vigorously, and a plain hill of ice being selected, they succeeded in reaching its summit. Then before them lay a vast and seemingly interminable plain. Along this the sledges ran with great speed; and that day they advanced nearly thirty miles from the land, and camped on the sea in a valley of ice.

      It was a singular spot. Vast sugar-loaf hills of ice, as old perhaps as the world, threw their lofty cones to the skies on all sides, while they rested doubtless on the bottom of the ocean. Every fantastic form was there: there seemed in the distance cities and palaces as white as chalk; pillars and reversed cones, pyramids and mounds of every shape, valleys and lakes; and under the influence of the optical delusions of the locality, green fields and meadows, and tossing seas. Here the whole party rested soundly, and pushed on hard the next day in search of land.

      Several tracks of foxes and bears were now seen, but no animals were discovered. The route, however, was changed. Every now and then newly-formed fields of ice were met, which a little while back had been floating. Lumps stuck up in every direction, and made the path difficult. Then they reached a vast polinas, where the humid state of the surface told that it was thin, and of recent formation. A stick thrust into it went through. But the adventurers took the only course left them. The dogs were placed abreast, and then, at a signal, were launched upon the dangerous surface. They flew rather than ran. It was necessary, for as they went, the ice cracked in every direction, but always under the weight of the nartas, which were off before they could be caught by the bubbling waters. As soon as the solid ice was again reached, the party halted, deep gratitude to Heaven in their hearts, and camped for the night.

      But the weather had changed. What is called here the warm wind had blown all day, and at night a hurricane came on. As the adventurers sat smoking after supper, the ice beneath their feet trembled, shook, and then fearful reports bursting on their ears, told them that the sea was cracking in every direction. They had camped on an elevated iceberg of vast dimensions, and were for the moment safe. But around them they heard the rush of waters. The vast Frozen Sea was in one of its moments of fury. In the deeper geas to the north it never freezes firmly — in fact there is always an open sea, with floating bergs. When a hurricane blows, these clear spaces become terribly agitated. Their tossing waves and mountains of ice act on the solid plains, and break them up at times. This was evidently the case now. About midnight our travellers, whose anguish of mind was terrible, felt the great iceberg afloat. Its oscillations were fearful. Sakalar alone preserved his coolness. The men of Nijnei-Kolimsk raved and tore their hair, crying that they had been brought wilfully to destruction; Kolina kneeled, crossed herself, and prayed; while Ivan deeply reproached himself as the cause of so many human beings encountering such awful peril. The rockings of their icy raft were terrible. It was impelled hither and thither by even huger masses. Now it remained on its first level, then its surface presented an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and it seemed about to turn bottom up. All recommended themselves to God, and awaited their fate. Suddenly they were rocked more violently than ever, and were all thrown down by the shock. Then all was still.

      The hurricane lulled, the wind shifted, snow began to fall, and the prodigious plain of loose ice again lay quiescent. The bitter frost soon cemented its parts once more, and the danger was over. The men of Nijnei-Kolimsk now insisted on an instant return; but Sakalar was firm, and, though their halt had given them little rest, started as the sun was seen above the horison. The road was fearfully bad. All was rough, disjointed, and almost impassable. But the sledges had good whalebone keels, and were made with great care to resist such difficulties. The dogs were kept moving all day, but when night came they had made little progress. But they rested in peace. Nature was calm, and morning found them still asleep. But Sakalar was indefatigable, and as soon as he had boiled a potful of snow, made tea, and awoke his people.

      They were now about to enter a labyrinth of toroses or icebergs. There was no plain ground within sight; but no impediment could be attended to. Bears made these their habitual resorts, while the wolf skulked every night round the camp, waiting their scanty leavings. Every eye was stretched in search of game. But the road itself required intense care, to prevent the sledges overturning. Towards the afternoon they entered a narrow valley of ice full of drifted snow, into which the dogs sank, and could scarcely move. At this instant two enormous white bears presented themselves. The dogs sprang forward; but the ground was too heavy for them. The hunters, however, were ready. The bears marched boldly on, as if savage from long fasting. No time was to be lost. Sakalar and Ivan singled out each his animal. Their heavy ounce ball struck both. The opponent of Sakalar turned and fled, but that of Ivan advanced furiously towards him. Ivan stood his ground, axe in hand, and struck the animal a terrible blow on the muzzle. But as he did so, he stumbled, and the bear was upon him. Kolina shrieked; Sakalar was away after his prize; but the Kolimsk men rushed in. Two fired: the third struck the animal with a spear. The bear abandoned Ivan, and faced his new antagonists. The contest was now unequal, and before half an hour was over, the stock of provisions was again augmented, as well as the means of warmth. They had very little wood, and what they had was used sparingly. Once or twice a tree, fixed in the ice, gave them additional fuel; but they were obliged chiefly to count on oil. A small fire was made at night to cook by; but it was allowed to go out, the tent was carefully closed, and the caloric of six people, with a huge lamp with three wicks, served for the rest of the night.

      About the sixth day they struck land. It was a small island, in a bay of which they found plenty of drift wood. Sakalar was delighted. He was on the right track. A joyous halt took place, a splendid fire was made, and the whole party indulged themselves in a glass of rum — a liquor very rarely touched, from its known tendency to increase rather than to diminish cold. A hole was next broken in the ice, and an attempt made to catch some seals. Only one, however, rewarded their efforts; but this, with a supply of wood, filled the empty space made in the sledges by the daily consumption of the dogs. But the island was soon found to be infested with bears: no fewer than five, with eleven foxes, were killed, and then huge fires had to be kept up at night to drive their survivors away.

      Their provender thus notably increased, the party started in high spirits; but though they were advancing towards the pole, they were also advancing towards the Deep Sea, and the ice presented innumerable dangers. Deep fissures, lakes, chasms, mountains, all lay in their way; and no game presented itself to their anxious search. Day after day they pushed on — here making long circuits, there driven back, and losing sometimes in one day all they had made in the previous twelve hours. Some fissures were crossed on bridges of ice, which took hours to make, while every hour the cold seemed more intense. The sun was now visible for hours, and, as usual in these parts, the cold was more severe since his arrival.

      At last, after more than twenty days of terrible fatigue, there was seen looming in the distance what was no doubt the promised land. The sledges were hurried forward — for they were drawing towards the end of their provisions — and the whole party was at length collected on the summit of a lofty mountain of ice. Before them were the hills of New Siberia; to their right a prodigious open sea; and at their feet, as far as the eye could reach, a narrow channel of rapid water, through which huge lumps of ice rushed so furiously, as to have no time to cement into a solid mass.

      The adventurers stood aghast. But Sakalar led the way to the very brink of the channel, and moved quietly along its course until he found what he was in search of. This was a sheet or floe of ice, large enough to bear the whole party, and yet almost detached from the general field. The sledges were put upon it, and then, by breaking with their axes the narrow tongue which held it, it swayed away into the tempestuous sea. It almost turned round as it started. The sledges and dogs were placed in the middle, while the five men stood at the very edge to guide it as far as possible with their hunting spears.

      In a few minutes it was impelled along by the rapid current, but received every now and then a check when it came in contact with heavier and deeper masses. The Kolimsk men stood transfixed with terror as they saw themselves borne out towards that vast deep sea which eternally tosses and rages round the Arctic Pole; but Sakalar, in a peremptory tone, bade them use their spears. They pushed away heartily; and their strange raft, though not always keeping its equilibrium, was edged away both across and down the stream. At last it began to move more slowly, and Sakalar found himself under the shelter of a huge iceberg, and then impelled up stream by a backwater current. In a few minutes the much-wished-for shore was reached.

      The route was rude and rugged as they approached the land; but all saw before them the end of their labours for the winter, and every one proceeded vigorously. The dogs seemed to smell the land, or at all events some tracks of game, for they hurried on with spirit. About an hour before the usual time of camping they were under a vast precipice, turning which, they found themselves in a deep and sheltered valley, with a river at the bottom, frozen between its lofty banks, and covered by deep snow.

      "The ivory mine!" said Sakalar in a low tone to Ivan, who thanked him by an expressive look.
 

VI. — THE IVORY MINE.

      The end of so perilous and novel a journey, which must necessarily, under the most favourable circumstances, have produced more honour than profit, was attained; and yet the success of the adventure was doubtful. The season was still too cold for any search for fossil ivory, and the first serious duty was the erection of a winter residence. Fortunately there was an ample supply of logs of wood, some half-rotten, some green, lying under the snow on the shores of the bay into which the river poured, and which had been deposited there by the currents and waves. A regular pile, too, was found, which had been laid up by some of the provident natives of New Siberia, who, like the Esquimaux, live in the snow. Under this was a large supply of frozen fish, which was taken without ceremony, the party being near starvation. Of course Sakalar and Ivan intended replacing the hoard, if possible, in the short summer.

      Wood was made the groundwork of the winter hut which was to be erected, but snow and ice formed by far the larger portion of the building materials. So hard and compact did the whole mass become when finished, and lined with bear-skins and other furs, that a huge lamp sufficed for warmth during the day and night, and the cooking was done in a small shed by the side. The dogs were now set to shift for themselves as to cover, and were soon buried in the snow. They were placed on short allowance, now they had no work to do; for no one yet knew what were the resources of this wild place.

      As soon as the more immediate duties connected with a camp had been completed, the whole party occupied themselves with preparing traps for foxes, and in other hunting details. A hole was broken in the ice in the bay; and this the Kolimsk men watched with assiduity for seals. One or two rewarded their efforts, but no fish were taken. Sakalar and Ivan, after a day or two of repose, started with some carefully-selected dogs in search of game, and soon found that the great white bear took up his quarters even in that northern latitude. They succeeded in killing several, which the dogs dragged home.

      About ten days after their arrival in the great island, Sakalar, who was always the first to be moving, roused his comrades round him just as a party of a dozen strange men appeared in the distance. They were short stout fellows, with long lances in their hands, and, by their dress, very much resembled the Esquimaux. Their attitude was menacing in the extreme, and by the advice of Sakalar a general volley was fired over their heads. The invaders halted, looked confusedly around, and then ran away. Firearms retained, therefore, all their pristine qualities with these savages.

      "They will return," said Sakalar moodily: "they did the same when I was here before, and then came back and killed my friend at night. Sakalar escaped."

      Counsel was now held, and it was determined, after due deliberation, that strict watch should be kept at all hours, while much was necessarily trusted to the dogs. All day one of the party was on the look-out, while at night the hut had its entrance well barred. Several days, however, were thus passed without molestation, and then Sakalar took the Kolimsk men out to hunt, and left Ivan and Kolina together. The young man had learned the value of his half-savage friend: her devotion to her father and the party generally was unbounded. She murmured neither at privations nor at sufferings, and kept up the courage of Ivan by painting in glowing terms all his brilliant future. She seemed to have laid aside her personal feelings, and to look on him only as one doing battle with fortune in the hope of earning the hand of the rich widow of Yakoutsk. But Ivan was much disposed to gloomy fits; he supposed himself forgotten, and slighted, and looked on the time of his probation as interminable. It was in this mood that one day he was roused from his fit by a challenge from Kolina to go and see if the seals had come up to breathe at the hole which every morning was freshly broken in the ice. Ivan assented, and away they went gaily down to the bay. No seals were there, and after a short stay, they returned towards the hut, recalled by the distant howling of the dogs. But as they came near, they could see no sign of men or animals, though the sensible brutes still whined under the shelter of their snow heaps. Ivan, much surprised, raised the curtain of the door, his gun in hand, expecting to find that some animal was inside. The lamp was out, and the hut in total darkness. Before Ivan could recover his upright position, four men leaped on him, and he was a prisoner.

      Kolina drew back, and cocked her gun; but the natives, satisfied with their present prey, formed round Ivan in a compact body, tied his hands, and bade him walk. Their looks were sufficiently wild and menacing to make him move, especially as he recognised them as belonging to the warlike party of the Tchouktchas — a tribe of Siberians, who wander about the Polar Seas in search of game, who cross Behring's Straits in skin-boats, and who probably are the only persons who, by their temporary sojourn in New Siberia, have caused some to suppose it inhabited. Kolina stood uncertain what to do, but in a few minutes she roused four of the dogs, and followed. Ivan bawled to her to go back; but the girl paid no attention to his request, determined, as it seemed, to know his fate.

      The savages hurried Ivan along as rapidly as they could, and soon entered a deep and narrow ravine, which about the middle parted into two. The narrowest path was selected, and the dwelling of the natives soon reached. It was a cavern, the narrow entrance of which they crawled through; Ivan followed the leader, and soon found himself in a large and wonderful cave. It was by nature divided into several compartments, and contained a party of twenty men, as many or more women, and numerous children. It was warmed in two ways — by wood fires and grease lamps, and by a bubbling semi-sulphurous spring, that rushed up through a narrow hole, and then fell away into a deep well, that carried its warm waters to mingle with the icy sea. The acrid smoke escaped by holes in the roof. Ivan, his arms and legs bound, was thrust into a separate compartment filled with furs, and formed by a projection of the rock, and the skin-boats which this primitive race employed to cross the most stormy seas. He was almost stunned: he lay for a while without thought or motion. Gradually he recovered, and gazed around: all was night, save above, where by a narrow orifice he saw the smoke which hung in clouds around the roof escaping. He expected death. He knew the savage race he was among, who hated interference with their hunting-grounds, and whose fish he and his party had taken. What, therefore, was his surprise when, from the summit of the roof, he heard a gentle voice whispering in soft accents his own name. His ears must, he thought, deceive him. The hubbub close at hand was terrible. A dispute was going on. Men, women, and children all joined, and yet he had heard the word "Ivan." "Kolina," he replied in equally low but clear tones. As he spoke, a knife rolled near him. But he could not touch it. Then a dark form filled the orifice about a dozen feet above his head, and something moved down among projecting stones, and then Kolina stood by him. In an instant Ivan was free, and an axe in his hand. The exit was before them. Steps were cut in the rock, to ascend to the upper entrance, near which Ivan had been placed without fear, because tied. But a rush was heard, and the friends had only time to throw themselves deeper into the cave, when four men rushed in, knife in hand, to immolate the victim. Such had been the decision come to after the debate.

      Their lamps revealed the escape of the fugitive. A wild cry drew all the men together, and then up they scampered along the rugged projections, and the barking of the dogs as they fled, showed that they were in hot and eager chase. Ivan and Kolina lost no time. They advanced boldly, knife and hatchet in hand, sprang amid the terrified women, darted across their horrid cavern, and before one of them had recovered from her fright, were in the open air. On they ran in the gloom for some distance, when they suddenly heard muttered voices. Down they sunk behind the first large stone, concealing themselves as well as they could in the snow. The party moved slowly on towards them.

      "I can trace their tracks still," said Sakalar in a low deep tone. "On while they are alive, or at least for vengeance!"

      "Friends!" cried Ivan.

      "Father!" said Kolina, and in an instant the whole party were united. Five words were enough to determine Sakalar. The whole body rushed back, entered the cavern, and found themselves masters of it without a struggle: the women and children attempted no resistance. As soon as they were placed in a corner, under the guard of the Kolimsk men, a council was held. Sakalar, as the most experienced, decided what was to be done. He knew the value of threats: one of the women was released, and bade go tell the men what had occurred. She was to add the offer of a treaty of peace, to which, if both parties agreed, the women were to be given up on the one side, and the hut and its contents on the other. But the victors announced their intention of taking four of the best-looking boys as hostages, to be returned whenever they were convinced of the good faith of the Tchouktchas. The envoy soon returned, agreeing to everything. They had not gone near the hut, fearing an ambuscade. The four boys were at once selected, and the belligerents separated.

      Sakalar made the little fellows run before, and thus the hut was regained. An inner cabin was at once erected for the prisoners, and the dogs placed over them as spies. But as the boys understood Sakalar to mean that the dogs were to eat them if they stirred, they remained still enough, and made no attempt to run away.

      A hasty meal was now cooked, and after its conclusion, Ivan related the events of the day, warmly dilating on the devotion and courage of Kolina, who, with the keenness of a Yakouta, had found out his prison by the smoke, and had seen him on the ground despite the gloom. Sakalar then explained how, on his return, he had been terribly alarmed, and had followed the trail on the snow. After mutual congratulations, the whole party went to sleep.

      The next morning early, the mothers came humbly with provisions for their children. They received some trifling presents, and were sent away in delight. About mid-day the whole tribe presented themselves unarmed, within a short distance of the hut, and offered to traffic. They brought a great quantity of fish, which they wanted to exchange for tobacco. Sakalar, who spoke their language freely, first gave them a roll, letting them understand it was in payment of the fish taken without leave. This at once dissipated all feelings of hostility, and solid peace was insured. So satisfied was Sakalar of their sincerity, that he at once released the captives.

      From that day the two parties were one, and all thoughts of war were completely at an end. A vast deal of bloodshed had been prevented by a few concessions both sides. The same result might indeed have been come to by killing half of each little tribe, but it is doubtful if the peace would have been as satisfactory to the survivors afterwards.
 

VII. — THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN.

      Occupied with the chase, with bartering, and with conversing with their new friends, the summer gradually came round. The snow melted, the hills became a series of cascades, in every direction water poured towards the sea. But the hut remained solid and firm, a little earth only being cast over the snow. Flocks of ducks and geese soon appeared, a slight vegetation was visible, and the sea was in motion. But what principally drew all eyes were the vast heaps of fossil ivory exposed to view on the banks of the stream, laid bare more and more every year by the torrents of spring. A few days sufficed to collect a heap greater than they could take away on the sledges in a dozen journeys. Ivan gazed at his treasure in mute despair. Were all that at Yakoutsk, he was the richest merchant in Siberia; but to take it thither seemed impossible. But in stepped the adventurous Tchouktchas. They offered, for a stipulated sum in tobacco and other valuables, to land a large portion of the ivory at a certain spot on the shores of Siberia by means of their boats. Ivan, though again surprised at the daring of these wild men, accepted the proposal, and engaged to give them his whole stock. The matter was thus settled, and our adventurers and their new friends dispersed to their summer avocations.

      These consisted in fishing and hunting, and repairing boats and sledges. The canoes of the Tchouktchas were wholly made of skins and whalebone, and bits of wood; but they were large, and capable of sustaining great weight. Their owners purposed to start as soon as the ice was wholly broken up, and to brave all the dangers of so fearful a navigation. They were used to impel themselves along in every open space, and to take shelter on icebergs from danger. When one of these icy mountains went in the right direction, they stuck to it; but at others they paddled away amid dangers of which they seemed wholly unconscious.

      A month was taken up in fishing, in drying the fish, or in putting it in holes where there was eternal frost. An immense stock of seals' flesh, of oil and fat, was laid in; and then one morning, with a warm wind behind, the Tchouktchas took their departure, and the small party of adventurers remained alone. Their hut was now broken up, the sledges put in order, the tent erected, and all made ready for their second journey. The sledges were not only repaired, but enlarged, to bear the heaviest possible load at starting. A few days' overloading were not minded, as the provisions would soon decrease. Still, not half so much could be taken as they wished, and yet Ivan had nearly a ton of ivory, and thirty tons was the greatest produce of any one year in all Siberia.

      But the sledges were ready long before the sea was so. The interval was spent in continued hunting, to prevent any consumption of the travelling store. All were heartily tired, long before it was over, of a day nearly as long as two English months, and hailed the sight of the first white fox with pleasure. Soon ducks and geese began to disappear, the fish sank away, and were rare, the bears came roaring round the camp, and then the scanty vegetation and the arid rocks were covered with a thin coat of snow. The winter at once set in with intense rigour; the sea ceased to toss and heave; the icebergs and fields moved more and more slowly; and at last ocean and land were blended into one — the night of a month was come, and the sun was seen no more.

      The dogs were now roused up, having been well fed during the summer; the sledges harnessed; and the instant the sea was firm enough to sustain them, the party started. Sakalar's intention was to try forced marches in a straight line. Fortune favoured them. The frost was unusually severe, and the ice thicker and more solid than the previous year. Not a single accident occurred to them for some days. At first they did not move exactly in the same direction as when they had come, making more towards the east; but they soon found traces of their previous winter's journey, proving that a whole plain of ice had been forced away at least fifty miles during the thaw. This was Sakalar's explanation, but the men of Kolimsk persisted in stating that they were going wrong. A dispute ensued, which threatened to break up the party. But Ivan declared he would pay no one who abandoned the guidance of Sakalar, and the three men obeyed.

      The road was now again rugged and difficult, firing was getting scarce, the dogs were devouring the fish with rapidity, and only half the ocean-journey was over. But on they pushed with desperate energy, every eye once more keenly on the look-out for game. But this time a stray fox alone rewarded their exertions. No man spoke. Every one drove his team in sullen silence, for all were on short allowance, and all were hungry. They sat on what was to them more valuable than gold, and yet they had not what was necessary for subsistence. The dogs were urged every day to the utmost limits of their strength. But so much space had been taken up by the ivory, that at last there remained neither food nor fuel. None knew at what distance they were from the shore, and their position seemed desperate. There were even whispers of killing some of the dogs; and Sakalar and Ivan were loudly upbraided for their avarice, which had brought the party into such straits.

      "See!" said the old hunter suddenly with a delighted smile, pointing towards the south.

      The whole party looked eagerly. A thick column of smoke rose in the air at no very considerable distance, curling up in dark wreaths, and then dispersing in light vapour through the air. This was the signal agreed on with the Tchouktchas, who were to camp where there was plenty of wood, and guide them in the right direction by a continued beacon. Every hand was raised to urge on the dogs towards this point. The animals, hungry and weary, pulled, but unwillingly. They were impelled forward, however, by every art; and at last, from the summit of a hill of ice, they saw the shore and the blaze of the fire. The wind was towards them, and the atmosphere heavy. The dogs smelled the distant camp, and darted almost recklessly forward. The adventurers kept ready to leap in case of being overturned. But the will of the animals was greater than their power, and they sank near the Tchouktcha huts, panting and exhausted. Their allies of the spring were true to their plighted faith, and gave them food, of which man and beast stood in the most pressing necessity. Dogs and men ate greedily, and then sought repose. The Tchouktchas had performed their journey with wonderful success and rapidity, and had found time to lay in a pretty fair stock of fish. This they freely shared with Ivan and his party, and were delighted when he abandoned his whole stock of tobacco and rum to them, and part of his tea. Two days were spent in the mutual interchange of good offices, in repose, and in letting the dogs recover from their prostration. But no more time could be spared. There were many days yet before them, and certainly not provisions enough for the time.

      The Tchouktchas too had been four years absent in their wanderings, and were eager to get home once more to the land of the reindeer, and to their friends. They were perhaps the greatest travellers of a tribe noted for its faculty of locomotion. And so, with warm expressions of esteem and friendship on both sides, the two parties separated — the men of the east making their way on foot towards the Straits of Behring.
 

VIII. — THE VOYAGE HOME.

      Under considerable disadvantages did Sakalar, Ivan, and their friends prepare for the conclusion of their journey. Their provisions were very scanty, and their only hope of replenishing their stores was on the banks of the Vchivaya River, which, being in some places pretty rapid; might not be frozen over. Sakalar and his friends determined to strike out in a straight line. Part of the ivory had to be concealed and abandoned, to be fetched another time; but as their stock of provisions was so small , they were able to take the principal part. It had been resolved, after some debate, to make in a direct line for the Vchivaya River, and thence to Nijnei-Kolimsk. The road was of a most difficult, and, in part, unknown character; but it was imperative to move in as straight a direction as possible. Time was the great enemy they had to contend with, because their provisions were sufficient for a limited period only.

      The country was at first level enough, and the dogs, after their rest, made sufficiently rapid progress. At night they had reached the commencement of a hilly region, while in the distance could already be seen pretty lofty mountains. According to a plan decided on from the first, the human members of the party were placed at once on short allowance, while the dogs received as much food as could be reasonably given. At early dawn the tent was struck, and the dogs were impelled along the banks of a small river completely frozen. Indeed, after a short distance, it was taken as the smoothest path. But at the end of a dozen miles they found themselves in a narrow gorge between two hills, and at the foot of a once foaming cataract, now hard frozen. It was necessary to retreat some miles, and gain the land once more. The only path which was now found practicable was along the bottom of some pretty steep rocks. But the track got narrower and narrower, until the dogs were drawing them along the edge of a terrific precipice with not four feet of holding. All alighted, and led the dogs, for a false step was death. Fortunately the pathway became no narrower, and in one place it widened out, and made a sort of hollow. Here a bitter blast, almost strong enough to cast them from their feet, checked further progress, and on that naked spot, under a projecting mass of stone, without fire, did the whole party halt. Men and dogs huddled together for warmth, and all dined on raw and frozen fish. A few hours of sleep, however, were snatched; and then, as the storm abated, they again advanced. The descent was soon reached, and led into a vast plain without tree or bush. A range of snow-clad hills lay before them, and through a narrow gully between two mountains was the only practicable pathway. But all hearts were gladdened by the welcome sight of some argali, or Siberian sheep, on the slope of a hill. These animals are the only winter game, bears and wolves excepted. Kolina was left with the dogs, and the rest started after the animals, which were pawing in the thin snow for some moss or half-frozen herbs. Every caution was used to approach them against the wind, and a general volley soon sent them scampering away to the mountain-tops, leaving three behind. But Ivan saw that he had wounded another, and away he went in chase. The animal ascended a hill, and then halted. But seeing a man coming quickly after him, it turned and fled down the opposite side. Ivan was instantly after him. The descent was steep, but the hunter only saw the argali, and darted down. He slided rather than ran with fearful rapidity, and passed the sheep by, seeking to check himself too late. A tremendous gulf was before him, and his eyes caught an instant glimpse of a deep distant valley. Then he saw no more until he found himself lying still. He had sunk, on the very brink of the precipice, into a deep snow bank formed by some projecting rock, and had only thus been saved from instant death. Deeply grateful, Ivan crept cautiously up the hill-side, though not without his prize, and rejoined his companions.

      The road now offered innumerable difficulties. It was rough and uneven — now hard, now soft. They made but slow progress for the next three days, while their provisions began to draw to an end. They had at least a dozen days more before them. All agreed that they were now in the very worst difficulty they had yet been in. The evening they dined on their last meal of mutton and fish they were at the foot of a lofty hill, which they determined to ascend while strength was left. The dogs were urged up the steep ascent, and after two hours' toil, they reached the summit. It was a table-land, bleak and miserable, and the wind was too severe to permit camping. On they pushed, and camped a little way down its sides.

      The next morning the dogs had no food, while the men had nothing but large draughts of warm tea. But it was impossible to stop. Away they hurried, after deciding that, if nothing turned up by the next morning, two or three of the dogs must be killed to save the rest. Little was the ground they got over, with hungry beasts and starving men, and all were glad to halt near a few dried larches. Men and dogs eyed each other suspiciously. The animals, sixty-four in number, had they not been educated to fear man, would have soon settled the matter. But there they lay, panting and faint — to start up suddenly with a fearful howl. A bear was on them. Sakalar fired, and then in rushed the dogs, savage and fierce. It was worse than useless, it was dangerous, for the human beings of the party to seek to share this windfall. It was enough that the dogs had found something to appease their hunger.

      Sakalar, however, knew that his faint and weary companions could not move the next day if tea alone were their sustenance that night. He accordingly put in practice one of the devices of his woodcraft. The youngest of the larches was cut down, and the coarse outside bark was taken off. Then every atom of the soft bark was peeled off the tree, and being broken into small pieces, was cast into the iron pot, already full of boiling water. The quantity was great, and made a thick substance. Round this the whole party collected, eager for the moment when they could fall to. But Sakalar was cool and methodical even in that terrible hour. He took a spoon, and quietly skimmed the pot, to take away the resin that rose to the surface. Then gradually the bark melted away, and presently the pot was filled by a thick paste, that looked not unlike glue. All gladly ate, and found it nutritive, pleasant, and warm. They felt satisfied when the meal was over, and were glad to observe that the dogs returned to the camp completely satisfied also, which, under the circumstances, was matter of great gratification.

      In the morning, after another mess of larch-bark soup, and after a little tea, the adventurers again advanced on their journey. They were now in an arid, bleak, and terrible plain of vast extent. Not a tree, not a shrub, not an elevation was to be seen. Starvation was again staring them in the face, and no man knew when this dreadful plain would end. That night the whole party cowered in their tent without fire, content to chew a few tea-leaves preserved from the last meal. Serious thoughts were now entertained of abandoning their wealth in that wild region. But as none pressed the matter very hardly, the sledges were harnessed again next morning, and the dogs driven on. But man and beast were at the last gasp, and not ten miles were traversed that day, the end of which brought them to a large river, on the borders of which we some trees. Being wide and rapid, it was not frozen, and there was still hope. The seine was drawn from a sledge, and taken into the water. It was fastened from one side to another of a narrow gut, and there left. It was of no avail examining it until morning, for the fish only come out at night.

      There was not a man of the party who had his exact senses about him, while the dogs lay panting on the snow, their tongues hanging out, their eyes glaring with almost savage fury. The trees round the bank were large and dry, and not one had an atom of soft bark on it. All the resource they had was to drink huge draughts of tea, and then seek sleep. Sakalar set the example, and the Kolimsk men, to whom such scenes were not new, followed his advice; but Ivan walked up and down before the tent. A huge fire had been made, which was amply fed by the wood of the river bank, and it blazed on high, showing in bold relief the features of the scene. Ivan gazed vacantly at everything; but he saw not the dark and glancing river — he saw not the bleak plain of snow — his eyes looked not on the romantic picture of the tent and its bivouac-fire: his thoughts were on one thing alone. He it was who had brought them to that pass, and on his head rested all the misery endured by man and beast, and, worst of all, by the good and devoted Kolina.

      There she sat, too, on the ground, wrapped in her warm clothes, her eye, fixed on the crackling logs. Of what was she thinking? Whatever occupied her mind, it was soon chased away by the sudden speech of Ivan. "Kolina," said he, in a tone which borrowed a little of intensity from the state of mind in which hunger had placed all of them, "canst thou ever forgive me?"

      "What?" replied the young girl softly.

      "My having brought you here to die, far away from your native hills?"

      "Kolina cares little for herself," said the Yakouta maiden, rising and speaking perhaps a little wildly; "let her father escape, and she is willing to lie near the tombs of the old people on the borders of the icy sea."

      "But Ivan had hoped to see for Kolina many bright happy days; for Ivan would have made her father rich, and Kolina would have been the richest unmarried girl in the plain of Miouré!"

      "And would riches make Kolina happy?" said she sadly.

      "Young girl of the Yakouta, hearken to me! Let Ivan live or die this hour: Ivan is a fool. He left home and comfort to cross the icy seas in search of wealth, and to gain happiness; but if he had only had eyes, he would have stopped at Miouré. There he saw a girl, lively as the heaven-fire in the north, good, generous, kind; and she was an old friend, and might have loved Ivan; but the man of Yakoutsk was blind, and told her of his passion for a selfish widow, and the Yakouta maiden never thought of Ivan but as a brother!"

      "What means Ivan?" asked Kolina, trembling with emotion.

      "Ivan has long meant, when he came to the yourte of Sakalar, to lay his wealth at his feet, and beg of his old friend to give him his child; but Ivan now fears that he may die, and wishes to know what would have been the answer of Kolina?"

      "But Maria Vorotinska?" urged the girl, who seemed dreaming.

      "Has long been forgotten. How could I not love my old playmate and friend! Kolina — Kolina, listen to Ivan! Forget his love for the widow of Yakoutsk, and Ivan will stay in the plain of Vchivaya and die."

      "Kolina is very proud," whispered the girl, sitting down on a log near the fire, and speaking in a low tone; "and Kolina thinks yet that the friend of her father has forgotten himself. But if he be not wild, if the sufferings of the journey have not made him say that which is not, Kolina would be very happy."

      "Be plain, girl of Miouré — maiden of the Yakouta tribe! and play not with the heart of a man. Can Kolina take Ivan as her husband?"

      A frank and happy reply gave the Yakoutsk merchant all the satisfaction he could wish; and then followed several hours of those sweet and delightful explanations which never end between young lovers when first they have acknowledged their mutual affection. They had hitherto concealed so much, that there was much to tell; and Ivan and Kolina, who for nearly three years had lived together, with a bar between their deep but concealed affection, seemed to have no end of words. Ivan had begun to find his feelings change from the very hour Sakalar's daughter volunteered to accompany him, but it was only in the cave of New Siberia that his heart had been completely won.

      So short, and quiet, and sweet were the hours, that the time of rest passed by without thought of sleep. Suddenly, however, they were roused to a sense of their situation, and leaving their wearied and exhausted companions still asleep, they moved with doubt and dread to the water's side. Life was now doubly dear to both, and their fancy painted the coming forth of an empty net as the termination of all hope. But the net came heavily and slowly to land. It was full of fish. They were on the well-stocked Vchivaya. More than three hundred fish, small and great, were drawn on shore; and then they recast the net.

      "Up, man and beast!" thundered Ivan, as, after selecting two dozen of the finest, he abandoned the rest to the dogs.

      The animals, faint and weary, greedily seized on the food given them, while Sakalar and the Kolimsk men could scarcely believe their senses. The hot coals were at once brought into requisition, and the party were soon regaling themselves on a splendid meal of tea and broiled fish. I should alarm my readers did I record the quantities eaten. An hour later, every individual was a changed being, but most of all the lovers. Despite their want of rest, they looked fresher than any of the party. It was determined to camp at least twenty-four hours more in that spot; and the Kolimsk men declared that as the river must be the Vchivaya, they could draw the seine all day, for the river was deep, its waters warmer than others, and its abundance of fish such as to border on the fabulous. They went accordingly down to the side of the stream, and then the happy Kolina gave free vent to her joy. She burst out into a song of her native land, and gave way to some demonstrations of delight, the result of her earlier education, that astonished Sakalar. But when he heard that during that dreadful night he had found a son, Sakalar himself almost lost his reason. The old man loved Ivan almost as much as his own child, and when he saw the youth in his yourte on his hunting trips, had formed some project of the kind now brought about; but the confessions of Ivan on his last visit to Miouré had driven all such thoughts away.

      "Art in earnest, Ivan?" said he after a pause of some duration.

      "In earnest!" exclaimed Ivan laughing; "why, I fancy the young men of Miouré will find me so, if they seek to question my right to Kolina."

      Kolina smiled, and looked happy; and the old hunter heartily blessed his children, adding that the proudest, dearest hope of his heart was now within probable realisation.

      The predictions of the Kolimsk men were realised. The river gave them as much fish as they needed for their journey home; and as now Sakalar knew his way, there was little fear for the future. An ample stock was piled on the sledges, the dogs had unlimited feeding for two days, and then away they sped towards an upper part of the river, which, being broad and shallow, was no doubt frozen on the surface. They found it as they expected, and even discovered that the river was gradually freezing all the way down. But little caring for this now, on they went, and after considerable fatigue, and some delay, arrived at Kolimsk, to the utter astonishment of all the inhabitants, who had long given them up for lost.

      Great rejoicings took place. The friends of the three Kolimsk men gave a grand festival, in which the rum, and tobacco, and tea, which had been left at the place as payment for their journey, played a conspicuous part. Then, as it was necessary to remain here some time, while the ivory was brought from the deposit near the sea, Ivan and Kolina were married. Neither of them seemed to credit the circumstance, even when fast tied by the Russian church. It had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly on both, that their heads could not quite make the affair out. But they were married in right down earnest, and Kolina was a proud and happy woman. The enormous mass of ivory brought to Kolimsk excited the attention of a distinguished exile, who drew up a statement in Ivan's name, and prepared it for transmission to the White Czar, as the emperor is called in these parts.

      When summer came, the young couple, with Sakalar and a caravan of merchants, started for Yakoutsk, Ivan being by far the richest and most important member of the party. After a single day's halt at Miouré, on they went to the town, and made their triumphal entry in September. Ivan found Maria Vorotinska a wife and mother, and his vanity was not much wounded by the falsehood. The ci devant widow was a little astonished at Ivan's return, and particularly at his treasure of ivory; but she received his wife with politeness, a little tempered by her sense of her own superiority to a savage, as she designated Kolina to her friends in a whisper. But Kolina was so gentle, so pretty, so good, so cheerful, so happy, that she found her party at once, and the two ladies became rival leaders of the fashion.

      This lasted until the next year, when a messenger from the capital brought a letter to Ivan from the emperor himself thanking him for his narrative, sending him a rich present, his warm approval, and the office of first civil magistrate in the city of Yakoutsk. This turned the scales wholly on one side, and Maria bowed low to Kolina. But Kolina had no feelings of the parvenu, and she was always a general favourite. Ivan accepted with pride his sovereign's favour, and by dint of assiduity, soon learned to be a useful magistrate. He always remained a good husband, a good father, and a good son, for he made the heart of old Sakalar glad. He never regretted his journey: he always declared he owed to it wealth and happiness, a high position in society, and an admirable wife. Great rejoicings took place many years after in Yakoutsk at the marriage of the son of Maria, united to the daughter of Ivan, and from the first unto the last, none of the parties concerned ever had reason to mourn over the perilous journey in search of the IVORY MINE.

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      For the information of the non-scientific, it may be necessary to mention that the ivory alluded to in the preceding tale is derived from the tusks of the mammoth, or fossil elephant of the geologist. The remains of this gigantic quadruped are found all over the northern hemisphere, from the 40th to the 75th degree of latitude; but most abundantly in the region which lies between the mountains of Central Asia and the shores and islands of the Frozen Sea. So profusely do they exist in this region, that the tusks have, for more than a century, constituted an important article of traffic — furnishing a large proportion of the ivory required by the carver and turner. The remains lie imbedded in the upper tertiary clays and gravels; and these, by exposure to river-currents, to the waves of the sea, and other erosive agencies, are frequently swept away during the thaws of summer, leaving tusks and bones in masses, and occasionally even entire skeletons in a wonderful state of preservation. The most perfect specimen yet obtained, and from the study of which the zoologist has been enabled to arrive at an accurate knowledge of the structure and habits of the mammoth, is that discovered by a Tungusian fisherman near the mouth of the river Lena in the summer of 1799. Being in the habit of collecting tusks among the débris of the gravel cliffs (for it is generally at a considerable elevation in the cliffs and river banks that the remains occur), he observed a strange shapeless mass projecting from an ice-bank some fifty or sixty feet above the river; during next summer's thaw he saw the same object rather more disengaged from amongst the ice; in 1801 he could distinctly perceive the tusk and flank of an immense animal; and in 1803, in consequence of an earlier and more powerful thaw, the huge carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell on the sandbank beneath. In the spring of the following year the fisherman cut off the tusks, which he sold for 50 rubles (£7, 10s.); and two years afterwards, our countryman, Mr Adams, visited the spot, and gives the following account of this extraordinary phenomenon:— "At this time I found the mammoth still in the same place, but altogether mutilated. The discoverer was contented with his profit for the tusks, and the Yakoutski of the neighbourhood had cut off the flesh, with which they fed their dogs; during the scarcity, wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, wolverines, and foxes, also fed upon it, and the traces of their footsteps were seen around. The skeleton, almost entirely cleared of its flesh, remained whole, with the exception of a fore-leg. The head was covered with a dry skin; one of the ears, well preserved, was furnished with a tuft of hair. All these parts have necessarily been injured in transporting them a distance of 7330 miles (to the imperial museum of St Petersburg), but the eyes have been preserved, and the pupil of one can still be distinguished. The mammoth was a male, with a long mane on the neck. The tail and proboscis were not preserved. The skin, of which I possess three-fourths, is of a dark-gray colour, covered with reddish wool and black hairs; but the dampness of the spot where it had lain so long had in some degree destroyed the hair. The entire carcase, of which I collected the bones on the spot, was nine feet four inches high, and sixteen feet four inches long, without including the tusks, which measured nine feet six inches along the curve. The distance from the base or root of the tusk to the point is three feet seven inches. The two tusks together weighed three hundred and sixty pounds English weight, and the head alone four hundred and fourteen pounds. The skin was of such weight, that it required ten persons to transport it to the shore; and after having cleared the ground, upwards of thirty-six pounds of hair were collected, which the white bears had trodden while devouring the flesh." Since then, other carcases of elephants have been discovered in a greater or less degree of preservation; as also the remains of rhinoceroses, mastodons, and allied pachyderms — the mammoth, more abundantly, in the old world, the mastodon in the new. In every case these animals differ from existing species; are of more gigantic dimensions; and, judging from their natural coverings of thick-set curly-crisped wool and strong hair, upwards of a foot in length, were fitted to live, if not in a boreal, at least in a coldly-temperate region. Indeed there is proof positive of the then milder climate of these regions in the discovery of pine and birch-trunks, where no vegetation now flourishes; and further, in the fact that fragments of pine leaves, birch twigs, and other northern plants, have been detected between the grinders, and within the stomachs, of these animals. We have thus evidence that, at the close of the tertiary, and shortly after the commencement of the current epoch, the northern hemisphere enjoyed a much milder climate; that it was the abode of huge pachyderms now extinct; that a different distribution of sea and land prevailed; and that, on a new distribution of sea and land, accompanied also by a different relative level, these animals died away, leaving their remains to be imbedded in the clays, gravels, and other alluvial deposits, where, under the antiseptic influence of an almost eternal frost, many of them have been preserved as entire as at the fatal moment they sank under the rigours of external conditions no longer fitted for their existence. It has been attempted by some to prove the adaptability of these animals to the present conditions of the northern hemisphere; but so untenable in every phase is this opinion, that it would be sheer waste of time and space to attempt its refutation. That they may have migrated northward and southward with the seasons is more than probable, though it has been stated that the remains diminish in size the farther north they are found; but that numerous herds of such huge animals should have existed in these regions at all, and that for thousands of years, presupposes an exuberant arboreal vegetation, and the necessary degree of climate for its growth and development. It has been mentioned that the mastodon and mammoth seem to have attained their meridian towards the close of the tertiary epoch, and that a few may have lived even into the current era; but it is more probable that the commencement of existing conditions was the proximate cause of their extinction, and that not a solitary specimen ever lived to be the contemporary of man.

(THE END)