“My last pieces of wood were quickly lighted--some water was thawed and warmed--I poured into it the spirits from a flask containing a specimen of natural history, and drank. A new life seemed to awaken in me; my thoughts returned again to my family, to the happy days I had spent with the friends of my youth. Soon I fell into a profound sleep--how long it lasted I know not--but on awakening I felt like another man, and my breast was filled with gratitude. Appetite returned with recovery, and I was reduced to eat leather and birch-bark, when a ptarmigan fortunately came within reach of my gun. Having thus obtained some food for the journey, I resolved, although still very feeble, to set out and seek the provisions we had buried. Packing some articles of dress, my gun and ammunition, my journal, etc., on my small hand-sledge, I proceeded slowly, and frequently resting. At noon I saw, on a well-known declivity of the hills, three black spots which I had not previously noticed, and as they changed their position, I at once altered my route to join them. We approached each other--and, judge of my delight, it was Trischun, the Samoïede chieftain, whom I had previously assisted in the prevailing epidemic, and who now, guided by one of my companions, had set out with three sledges to seek me. Eager to serve his benefactor, the grateful savage had made his reindeer wander without food over a space of 150 versts where no moss grew. “I now heard that my companions had fortunately reached the Samoïedes four days after our separation; but the dreadful snow-storms had prevented the nomads from coming sooner to my assistance, and had even forced them twice to retrace their steps. “On September 30 the Samoïedes brought me to my tent, and on October 9 we bade the Taimur an eternal farewell. After five months we hailed with delight, on October 20, the verge of the forest, and on the following day we reached the smoky hut on the Boganida, where we had left our friends.” Having thus accompanied Middendorff on his adventurous wanderings through Taimuria, I will now give a brief account of his observations on the climate and natural productions of this northern land. The remark of Saussure that the difference of temperature between light and shade is greatest in summer, and in the high latitudes, was fully confirmed by Middendorff. While the thermometer marked -37° in the shade, the hillsides exposed to the sun were dripping with wet, and towards the end of June, though the mean temperature of the air was still below the freezing-point of water, the snow had already entirely disappeared on the sunny side of the Taimur River. Torrents came brawling down the hills; the swollen rivers rose forty or sixty feet above their winter level, and carried their icy covering along with them to the sea.