The second day's ride without food was a severe trial of my strength, and I began to be tormented by a severe gnawing, burning pain in my stomach. I tried to quiet it by eating seeds from the cones of trailing-pine and drinking large quantities of water; but this afforded no relief, and I became so faint toward evening that I could hardly sit in my saddle. About two hours after dark we heard the howling of dogs from Lesnoi, and twenty minutes later we rode into the settlement, dashed up to the little log house of the _starosta_, and burst in upon the Major and Dodd as they sat at supper. Our long ride was over. Thus ended our unsuccessful expedition to the Samanka Mountains--the hardest journey I ever experienced in Kamchatka. Two days afterward, the anxiety and suffering which the Major had endured in a five days' camp on the sea beach during the storm, brought on a severe attack of rheumatic fever, and all thoughts of farther progress were for the present abandoned. Nearly all the horses in the village were more or less disabled, our Samanka mountain guide was blind from inflammatory erysipelas brought on by exposure to five days of storm, and half my party were unfit for duty. Under such circumstances, another attempt to cross the mountains before winter was impossible. Dodd and the Cossack Meranef (mer-ah'-nef) were sent back to Tigil after a physician and a new supply of provisions, while Viushin and I remained at Lesnoi to take care of the Major. [Illustration: Stone Lamps] CHAPTER XVI KAMCHATKAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS--CHARACTER OF PEOPLE--SALMON-FISHING-- SABLE-TRAPPING--KAMCHADAL LANGUAGE--NATIVE MUSIC--DOG-DRIVING--WINTER DRESS