A shooting trip to Kamchatka . bstinately refusing to be loaded. The same opera-tion had to be repeated three or four times over, andalthough the men appeared accustomed to the job,and no novices in the art of packing, hardly had weoone two hundred vards ahead when a general stam-pede took place, the young toals joining with theirmothers in wild contusion, and our baggage Hying inall directions. Luckily no serious harm resulted fromthis indescribable luclec, save a long and tedious path led through monotonous birch woods with adense undergrowth of scrub, and crossed several side-wate
A shooting trip to Kamchatka . bstinately refusing to be loaded. The same opera-tion had to be repeated three or four times over, andalthough the men appeared accustomed to the job,and no novices in the art of packing, hardly had weoone two hundred vards ahead when a general stam-pede took place, the young toals joining with theirmothers in wild contusion, and our baggage Hying inall directions. Luckily no serious harm resulted fromthis indescribable luclec, save a long and tedious path led through monotonous birch woods with adense undergrowth of scrub, and crossed several side-waters of the Avatcha. Our horses kept constantlystumbling against roots of trees, and one of them fellinto the stream, damping our precious Hour. Therewas not a sign or track of animals of any kind, even 146 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA birds being extremely scarce. On the other hand,mosquitoes never ceased to harass both ponies andmen. It is possible that whatever game there mightbe in these woods had retired to hioher oround on. ONE OF OUR IACK-rONIES. account of these merciless foes. The Stars/iina toldme in earnest that bears are so troubled by mosquitoesand gnats that, in order to escape from their enemies,they will run a few hundred yards and suddenlycrouch down under a bush in the hope of misleadingtheir tormentors ; although they are probably soon MOSQUITOES 147 discovered by their pursuers or attacked by the first time our mosquito-nets were produced ;these we carried over our faces, and a considerablerelief they were to us, for without them we shouldprobably never have dared to cross the Ganal were accompanied all through the woods by astrong- smell of wild garlic, which grows profusely inthe country ; tiowers were not numerous as yet—only afew crocuses and anemones scattered here and the nati\es had promised a short twenty-verst(thirteen miles) march to Koriak, we lound that theKamchatkan unit is akin to the Scotch niile, and thatwe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidshootingtrip, bookyear1904
