short all over his head, dressed in neat broadcloth coat and trousers and a spotless linen shirt, with seal rings on his fingers, a plain gold chain at his vest button, and a cane. We recognised him at once as the ispravnik, or Russian governor. Dodd and I made a sudden attempt to escape from the room, but we were too late, and saluting our visitor with "zdrastvuitia," [Footnote: "Good health," or "Be in health," the Russian greeting.] we sat down awkwardly enough on our chairs, rolled our smoky hands up in our scarlet and yellow cotton handkerchiefs, and, with a vivid consciousness of our dirty faces and generally disreputable appearance, tried to look self-possessed, and to assume the dignity which befitted officers of the great Russian-American Telegraph Expedition! It was a pitiable failure. We could not succeed in looking like anything but Wandering Koraks in reduced circumstances. The ispravnik, however, did not seem to notice anything unusual in our appearance, but rattled away with an incessant fire of quick, nervous questions, such as "When did you leave Petropavlovsk? Are you just from America? I sent a Cossack. Did you meet him? How did you cross the tundras; with the Koraks? _Akh!_ those _proclatye_ Koraks! Any news from St. Petersburg? You must come over and dine with me. How long will you stay in town? You can take a bath now before dinner. Ay! _lòodee!_ [very loud and peremptory]. Go and tell my Ivan to heat up the bath quick! _Akh Chort yeekh! vazmee!_" and the restless little man finally stopped from sheer exhaustion, and began pacing nervously across the room, while the Major related our adventures, gave him the latest news from Russia, explained our plans, the object of our expedition, told him of the murder of Lincoln, the end of the Rebellion, the latest news from the French invasion of Mexico, the gossip of the Imperial Court, and no end of other news which had been old with us for six months, but of which the poor exiled ispravnik had never heard a word. He had had no communication with Russia in almost eleven months. After insisting again upon our coming over to his house immediately to dine, he bustled out of the room, and gave us an opportunity to wash and dress.