IMPASSABLE SCRUB i8i 



last few hundred yards had to be negotiated by 

 wading in midstream, owing to impassable scrub on 

 both sides. 



Leaving- the horses in charge of one of our fol- 

 lowers, we began ascending- the right bank, which 

 implied a couple of hours' continuous scramble 

 through the dense zone of alder, dwarf cedars, and 

 rhododendrons. We kept constantly sliding down 

 the exposed roots, and one step forward often meant 

 a downshoot of two or three yards. Moreover, the 

 slope was uncommonly steep, at places almost per- 

 pendicular, while the mosquitoes, aroused from their 

 slumber by our movements, took their revenge, and 

 satisfied their appetites on our hands and faces. It 

 was not until the sun was high over the opposite ridge 

 that we finally emerged from that deadly zone and 

 could see where we were. In spite of the recently 

 endured struggle, it was not without an indescribable 

 feeling of curiosity, mingled with an unsurpassed sense 

 of freedom, that I set my foot on the timber-line of 

 those unexplored wastes, which no one had as vet 

 admired, no sportsman except our old guide had 

 visited. Standing on a narrow ledge of rock, I com- 

 manded a view over a vast stretch of moor, slanting- 

 down from the Kamchatskaia \'ershina and other 

 lower pinnacles, with its innumerable patches of snow 



