To escape the mosquitoes, whose relentless persecution became almost unendurable, we rode on more briskly through a broad, level valley, filled with a dense growth of tall umbelliferous plants, trotted swiftly up a little hill, and rode at a thundering gallop into the village of Korak, amid the howling and barking of a hundred and fifty half-wild dogs, the neighing of horses, running to and fro of men, and a scene of general confusion. At Korak we changed most of our horses and men, ate an _al fresco_ lunch under the projecting eaves of a mossy Kamchadal house, and started at two o'clock for Malqua, another village, fifty or sixty miles distant, across the watershed of the Kamchatka River. About sunset, after a brisk ride of fifteen or eighteen miles, we suddenly emerged from the dense forest of poplar, birch, and mountain ash which had shut in the trail, and came out into a little grassy opening, about an acre in extent, which seemed to have been made expressly with a view to camping out. It was surrounded on three sides by woods, and opened on the fourth into a wild mountain gorge, choked up with rocks, logs, and a dense growth of underbrush and weeds. A clear cold stream tumbled in a succession of tinkling cascades down the dark ravine, and ran in a sandy flower-bordered channel through the grassy glade, until it disappeared in the encircling forest. It was useless to look for a better place than this to spend the night, and we decided to stop while we still had daylight. To picket our horses, collect wood for a fire, hang over our teakettles, and pitch our little cotton tent, was the work of only a few moments, and we were soon lying at full length upon our warm bearskins, around our towel-covered candle-box, drinking hot tea, discussing Kamchatka, and watching the rosy flush of sunset as it slowly faded over the western mountains. As I was lulled to sleep that night by the murmuring plash of falling water, and the tinkling of our horses' bells from the forest behind our tent, I thought that nothing could be more delightful than camp life in Kamchatka.