San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-07-29
THE EXILES.
RUSSIAN STORY.

-COlu,i tlcLlOuOdl war, pElNdUlOuo ahu ODhSh
of famished beasts.
But the days had heightened. With the
spring the birds had reappeared. The rein
deer, quitting the forests, returned to the
sea coast to get rid of the mosquitoes. New
plants offered some resources; among others
the saxifrages and the g~entians were already
shooting up.
The snow seemed, here and there, veined
with blood, made rusty looking by the hch-
ems, or shaded with green and yellow by a
host of ~rudimentary cryptogamous plants.
The roots of the creeping willow made Q
very good seasoning for the reindeer meat;
the mice burrows furnished the farinaceous
root Of the makarcha, and, to replace the
tea consumed to the last leaf, the fugitives
gathered a certain moss from the green
granite which they mixed with a sort Of arc
matte fern.
The chase had again become possible, and
they were able, especially. to hunt the wild
sheep and the reindeer. After having brok'
eli the icy crust of the rivers, they threw In
their net and caught in abundance the stur-
geon, the mouksoune, the nelma and the
tchir, all large fish belonging to the trout
and salmon families.
One morning at daybreak, r~esounding
cries awoke the sleepers in the open air.
These cries came from a great flock OF
geese that had settled down upon the sur,
face of q h~alf-thawed pond. Yegor, M. LAT.
leur and the Yakoutes armed themselves
with sticks and surrounded the pond. Wab,
plunging amid the water and ice, spread
| disorder among the geese which fed to
the bank, where the hunters killed thirty
In a few minutes. TIL Yakoutes ~displayef
remarkable address in handling their sticks.
Yermac looked on and smiled. Since the
nartas, loaded with supplies from the Hugo
and Maria, had furnished resources for their
daily nourishment, the chief of police, who
counted on the decentralization of the own
ers of the whaler, had not hesitated to ac'
cept his share of the food. He showed him.
self, besides, a skillful fisherman and ex-
celled in the preparation of fish soup.
A few days afterwards, the fugitives Kill
ed, also with sticks, a dozen swans. These
birds moult later than geese.
They met a herd of reindeer which allow
ed them to approach it. This led them to
believe that the reindeer were private prop
erty. They were right. The Tchouktchls
to whom the animals belonged had, doubt
less, hidden themselves on perceiving the
little caravan Of white people.
They crossed with infinite trouble and
great danger the mountainous region leading
to the sources of the Anadyr. Thu country
had the widest possible look,
Threatening rocks rose perpendicularly
along deep valleys; the tempestuous wind,
driven into the Dogs and r~avines, whirled
about there and escaped with a hiss, rem
dering the passage Of the defles toilsome
and p~erilous.
Sometimes, they were forced to quit the
sledges and walk beside them along STEEP
paths on the edges of precipices, into which
the least false step would have sufficed tt
p~recipitate them. The dogs had great diff.
Guilty in advancing.
Happily for the travellers, the snow Gov
cred the slopes and prevented them from
slipping. At other times. thick fogs sud
denly surrounded them, shutting of the
sight of their road, until the summit upon
which they happened to be seemed like an
island rising from the midst Of an agitated
sea.
Finally, they reached the Anadyr, which
flows, parallel to the chain of mountains
cutting the Tchouktchi peninsula, from
north to south and afterwards to the north
east. They followed the banks of this river,
and, many times, had occasion to use, to
cross the broad streams which flow into 1t,
the light skin boat which they had with
them, the materials of which had been
brought from the hut on Cape Baranoff by
the Yakoutes.
They halted for a few days at the mouth
of the Krasnaia, one of the ~afluents of the
Anadyr, two hundred miles from the sea.
It was a spot favorable for hunting. Be.
sides, the dogs had bleeding paws and re.
quired rest.
When the fugitives resumed their jour
ney, they arrived in less than ten days at
the place where the Anadyr ceases to be Q
river and becomes the Bay of Onemene.
1t was now necessary for them to shun
the ostrog Of Anadyr. They went along the
coast towards the south, advancing cautious.
ly; they kept near enough to the sea to
watch it and far enough from the shore to
escape observation.
The sea was yet encountered with ice
blocks. They would have to wait until all
these frozen masses were in motion and the
spaces of water had increased, before they
could hope to sea a sail.
One day, from the summit of a lofty
promontory the fugitives witnessed that i'm
mense breaking up of the ice, which is the
grandest and most terrifying spectacle that
one can imagine. The icebergs at first move
l~aboriously from their places. Cracked by
the thaw and mined by the sea, they crum-
be upon themselves with a great din. 9th
ers advance, turning about in the free waters
already agitated by the wind from the main
sea; they have a menacing look with their