U8 KAMSCHATKA. [chap. 



regard to the piice to be paid for the distance we had already gone, 

 and when we eventually got off we discovered that we had lost 

 live hours and a certain amount of temper to boot. 



We floated silently down stream for a couple of hours or more, 

 thinking over the discussions that, we knew only too well, would 

 be renewed at the earliest opportunity, when, turning a sudden 

 corner, we found ourselves face to face with a \dew that banished 

 all thoughts of past and future annoyances in a moment. Before 

 us, eighty miles or more away, stood one of the grandest groups of 

 volcanoes in the known world. Others there are, it is true, that 

 are higher, although in most cases the elevation of the ground from 

 which they take their rise detracts in no little degree from their 

 apparent height. But here, from a base elevated scarce a hundred 

 feet above the sea, a series of cones of the most exquisitely- 

 symmetrical shape rose in heights varying from twelve to seventeen 

 thousand feet. They were three in number. Nearest us was 

 Tolbatchinska, dog-toothed in shape, with its apex on the western 

 side,. a long thin puff of white smoke drifting from its shoulder ; 

 and beyond, apparently in close proximity to one another, rose the 

 twin peaks of Kojerevska and Kluchefskaya, perfect in their outline, 

 — pyramids of the purest snow, before which one felt how poor was 

 all language to express the sense of their perfect beauty. Snow 

 mountains were no novelty to us. We had seen the Andes and the 

 Alps, and had watched the sun rise on Cotopaxi, on Etna, on 

 Fujiyama, and a dozen other mountains of equal note. But here 

 all questions of comparison would have been a sacrilege, and 

 floating noiseless over the unruffled surface of the river we sat 

 spellbound, drinking in the view. The sun sank slowly as we 

 crept along, and slope and peak, at first a dazzling white, turned 

 slowly to a glowing gold. On either hand the fast-approaching 

 night had changed the glories of the autumn tints to a sombre 

 shade of violet, and behind us the river was a mere streak of light. 

 The bright glow of the fire upon the other raft lit up the bearded 

 faces of our Eussian guides around it, and when the daylight had 



