VIII.] KOJEREVSKY. 161 



"We felt that we had got among friends once more, and managed by 

 the aid of all these luxuries to pass a very pleasant evening, in 

 spite of the cold. At night the beacon flame of Kluchi, now 

 brilliantly illuminating the clouds of smoke that hung around the 

 crater, now sinking almost to extinctiion, shone out far above our 

 heads. There was an angry look about the volcano, and we were told 

 that its acti\dty had of late been somewhat increased. The explana- 

 tion was simple. The Kanuli, or Spirits of the Mountains, whose 

 home is in the bowels of the volcanoes, had merely been more 

 fortunate than usual. It is hardly necessary, in these days of 

 omniscience, to explain that it is to these beings that all volcanic 

 disturbances are due. They go to the sea at night to catch whales, 

 which are their favourite food, and the roasting of several of these 

 animals withm the crater is, as may be imagined, an operation which 

 requires the consumption of no inconsiderable amount of fuel. 



The weather had become steadily colder from day to day, and 

 as we turned out on the morning of the 11th September we 

 regTetted that the Spirits of the Mountains had not seen fit to do 

 their cooking in closer proximity to our camp. Our moustaches 

 were frozen to the blankets, and the water in the bucket inside our 

 tent was a sheet of ice. Morning observations and photography are 

 always interesting, but they are certainly best appreciated when 

 the thermometer is well above freezing. The view from our camp 

 was glorious, and the mountains, cloudless from base to summit, 

 towered above us with the startling clearness of outline so charac- 

 teristic of northern regions. Kojerevsky — a \Tllage of ten huts and 

 sixty-three inhabitants — lies at the foot of Uskovska, a mountain 

 of nearly 13,000 feet, whose simimit from this aspect presents the 

 appearance of a uniformly rounded dome of snow. It is in reality 

 twenty -three miles off as the crow flies, l)ut the giant scale on 

 which Nature works in these regions belittles space to an extent 

 that is inconceivable, until the hard facts of actual measurement 

 are before one. A little farther to the south and east is Kluchi, 

 whose sharp peak rises to a vertical height of 3j miles above the 

 VOL. I. M 



