204 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



Leaves were turning- red, the tall grass, a few hours 

 ago of a deep green, was being touched with yellow, 

 and the briar roses were already dropping their pink 

 petals ; the cedars seemed alone to resist the first 

 touches of approaching autumn. Yet that morning, 

 when I was awakened at three o'clock, a damp, foggy 

 morning, the calendar indicated that it was only the 

 15th of July. I resolved to make an energetic attempt 

 to secure a good head, for no red-letter day had as 

 yet been marked in my diary, and failure after so long 

 a journey was not a pleasant prospect. Littledale 

 might rest on his laurels, but my two small rams were 

 not an important contribution to our common bag. I 

 intended that day to try the country beyond the Kam- 

 chatskaia Vershina, and started at four a.m. up the 

 valley leading to the lake accompanied by Tallent, 

 whom I was to leave on my way to photograph the 

 neighbourhood of the source of the Kamchatka River. 

 Luckily the mist lifted soon after our departure, and 

 a couple of hours brought us to the thick zone of bush, 

 through which we pushed our ponies, availing our- 

 selves occasionally of the channel in midstream. On 

 reaching the vast stretches of moorland which led up 

 to the volcano, we proceeded over steep slopes of 

 snow towards a saddle to its left. Two bears were 

 quietly feeding some eight hundred yards off amongst 



