The people of the Aniuj were already suffering great distress when, on September 12, 1821, the eagerly-expected reindeer herds made their appearance on the right bank of the river. Never had such a multitude been seen; they covered the hills, and their horns might have been mistaken at a distance for a moving forest. In a short time numbers of the Siberian tribes had assembled, ready to destroy them. But the wary animals, alarmed by some circumstance or other, took another road, and, leaving the banks of the river, vanished on the mountains. The despair of the people may be imagined; some lamented aloud and wrung their hands, others threw themselves upon the ground and scratched up the snow, others stood motionless like statues--a dreadful image of the universal misery. The later fishing-season likewise failed in this deplorable year, and many hundreds died in the following winter. While the men of Kolymsk are busily employed during the short summer in hunting, fishing, and hay-making, the women wander over the country, particularly in the mountains, to gather edible roots, aromatic herbs, and berries of various kinds, which latter, however, do not every year arrive at maturity. The berry-gathering here, like the vintage elsewhere, is a time of merriment. The younger women and girls go together in large parties, passing whole days and nights in the open air. When the berries are collected, cold water is poured over them, and they are preserved in a frozen state for a winter treat. Social parties are not unknown at Kolymsk, and are perhaps not less entertaining than in more refined communities. Floods of weak tea (for the aromatic leaves “which cheer, but not inebriate,” are very dear at Kolymsk) form the staple of the entertainment; and as sugar is also an expensive article, every guest takes a lump of candy in his mouth, lets the tea which he sips flow by, and then replaces it upon the saucer. It would be considered very unmannerly were he to consume the whole piece, which thus is able to do duty at more than one _soirée_. Next to tea, brandy is a chief requisite of a Kolymsk party. The busiest time at Kolymsk is in February, when the caravan from Jakutsk arrives on its way to the fair of Ostrownoje. It consists of about twenty merchants, each of whom leads from ten to forty sumpter horses. This is the time not only for sale and purchase, but also for hearing the last news from the provincial capital Jakutsk, and receiving intelligence six months old from Moscow and St. Petersburg. From this short account of Kolymsk life it may well be imagined what a sensation it must have made in so secluded a place when Wrangell arrived there in November, and informed the people that he was come to spend the better part of the next three years among them.