Yolofka, a small Kamchadal settlement of half a dozen houses, is situated among the foot-hills of the great central Kamchatkan range, immediately below the pass which bears its name, and on the direct route to Tigil and the west coast.  It is the head of canoe navigation on the Yolofka River, and the starting-point for parties intending to cross the mountains.  Anticipating difficulty in getting horses enough for our use at this small village, the Major had sent eight or ten overland from Kluchei, and we found them there awaiting our arrival.

Nearly the whole afternoon was spent in packing the horses and getting ready for a start, and we camped for the night beside a cold mountain spring only a few versts away from the Village.  The weather, hitherto, had been clear and warm, but it clouded up during the night, and we began the ascent of the mountains Tuesday morning the 19th, in a cold, driving rain-storm from the north-west.  The road, if a wretched foot-path ten inches wide can be said in any metaphorical sense to be a road, was simply execrable.  It followed the track of a swollen mountain torrent, which had its rise in the melting snows of the summit, and tumbled in roaring cascades down a narrow, dark, precipitous ravine.  The path ran along the edge of this stream, first on one side, then on the other, and then in the water, around enormous masses of volcanic rock, over steep lava slopes, where the water ran like a mill-race through dense entangling thickets of trailing pine, into ragged heaps of fallen tree-trunks, and along narrow ledges of rock where it would be thought that a mountain sheep could hardly pass.  I would guarantee, with twenty men, to hold that ravine against the combined armies of Europe!  Our packhorses rolled down steep banks into the stream, tore their loads off against tree-trunks, stumbled, cut their legs in falling over broken volcanic rocks, took flying leaps across narrow chasms of roaring water, and performed feats which would have been utterly beyond the strength and endurance of any but Kamchatkan horses.  Finally, in attempting to leap a distance of eight or ten feet across the torrent, I was thrown violently from the saddle, and my left foot caught firmly, just above the instep, in the small iron stirrup.  The horse scrambled up the other side and started at a frightened gallop up the ravine, dragging my body over the ground by one leg.  I remember making a desperate effort to protect my head, by raising myself upon my elbows, but the horse kicked me suddenly in the side, and I knew nothing more until I found myself lying upon the ground with my foot still entangled in the broken stirrup, while the horse galloped away up the ravine.  The giving way of a single strap had saved my skull from being crushed like an egg-shell against the jagged rocks.  I was badly bruised and very faint and dizzy, but no bones seemed to be broken, and I got up without assistance.  Thus far the Major had kept his quick temper under strong control; but this