Having examined the embouchure of the Jaik, and the neighbouring coast of the Caspian Sea, Pallas returned northward, and set up his quarters for the winter of 1769 at Oufa, situated on the river Belaia. Here he employed the time not spent in travelling in working up his journal. The winter unfortunately happened to be peculiarly bad; and this, united with the melancholy situation of the city, and the bad air which prevails there, prevented him from deriving all the advantages which might have been expected from so long a residence. To increase the dulness and insipidity of his stay, he was kept almost a prisoner in the city until the month of May by continual inundations. In all other respects, likewise, the winter was unfavourable. It commenced with September, and continued increasing in rigour until the end of November, when they were visited by terrible tempests, in which several travellers perished on the downs of Orenburg. These continued during the whole of December. January was less severe, and February mild. The winter ended in March, the thaw commenced with April, and then the country was overflowed. Pallas had passed so unpleasant a winter at Oufa, that he saw the time of departure approach with the greatest satisfaction; and, as soon as the overflowing of the rivers had ceased, despatched a soldier before him across the Ural Mountains into the province of Isetsk, with orders to cause the roads and bridges to be repaired. He himself followed on the 16th of May. The weather, notwithstanding the advanced season of the year, was overcast and stormy, with a north-west wind; it hailed, snowed, and rained at intervals; but this did not continue long. In the course of the day he passed by a vast chasm, formed by the sliding of strata from their basis, and by the inhabitants denominated “the bottomless pit.” Here the people had three years before cast the carcasses of all those animals which had died of the murrain, which brought thither a prodigious number of famished and furious wild dogs, and thus rendered the road so dangerous that it was found necessary to send out an armed detachment against them.