116 - KAMSCHATKA. [chap. 



having failed, kicked one of the packhorses violently in the belly 

 while unloading it. The effect was excellent. The poor animal, 

 who, like the Pope's mule in Daudet's charming little story, had 

 many an old score to pay off, turned round and bit his aggressor so 

 successfully in the face as to leave hun with a portion of his cheek 

 hanging down. Here we mterfered to prevent reprisals, and 

 while the conqueror was led off' to a patch of the most succulent- 

 looking grass we could find, Vodki retired to his tent to nurse his 

 wound for the next two days. 



Accustomed as we had become during the earlier part of our 

 journey to the wonderfully dense growth of the annual herbage, 

 especially in the birch-forests and in the vicinity of the rivers, I do 

 not think we had ever seen it in more rank luxuriance than we 

 found it here. Our camp was pitched on a little eminence two or 

 three hundred yards from the river, but the latter would have been 

 almost unapproachable had it not been for the numerous bear-tracks 

 that led in every direction through the forest of grass. As it was, 

 the vegetation rose three or four feet above our heads, and was in 

 places so thick that we could never be sure that our next footstep 

 would not precipitate us into one of the hidden streams with which 

 the marshy ground abounded. In such ground shooting is almost 

 impossible, and the only plan is to lie up in concealment on the 

 banks of the river, on the chance of a bear coming out in the 

 neighbourhood to fish. 



We spent the remaining two or three hours of daylight in this 

 monotonous and chilling amusement, and rose wet and stiff" with 

 cold without any success having attended us. The bears had in all 

 probability deserted this part for some other place where fish were 

 more numerous, and the only recent spoor we saw was that of an 

 otter, an animal that is apparently far from common in the 

 peninsula. 



The following morning, since there appeared to be no fish in 

 the river, we put our rods together and tried a fly in Kamschatkan 

 waters for the first time. Paradoxical as it may seem, a river of 



