MONTAUK POINT, LONG ISLAND. KING AND QUEEN OF THE MONTAUKS. us below to the comfortable fireside of the keeper's family, where we sat listening to stories of storms from the southeast, during which the whole weight of the Atlantic is thrown directly upon Montauk Head. The light-house is built of granite, and, founded on a rock, stands on the bluff sixty feet above the beach. The sea is silently eating its way toward the tower, and this will soon compel a removal to the higher ground west. piece of the said lands, and delivered as our act The mark of Wianambone, O The mark of Sachem Squa, X The mark of Yombo, A further bond, made by Wyandanah and Sassakatako, sachems of Montauket, 1687, with the consent of the Montauket Indians, conveyed to the trustees of the freeholders of ye town of East Hampton "all the tract of land at Montauket, from sea to sea." And the trustees, for themselves and the freeholders, engaged that the Indians "have leave to plant what corn soever they have occasion for to plant from time to time, where they see cause, themselves and The two hundred descendants their heirs forever, upon the land as purchased of them by us." of the original purchasers are waiting for the time when the tribe will be extinct, and there shall be no lien upon the land. The Indians are said to be idle and worthless, except their king and queen, who are industrious, quiet citizens. The king, David Pharaoh, was that day attending court at Riverhead; therefore we concluded it would not pay to visit them. The wood begins to grow more dense on the Early the next morning we were sketching the sunrise, but the fishermen were up before north side, and we are gradually leaving the us, trolling for blue-fish. We had arranged to glorious downs, dotted here and there with have a team sent to take us off, and by eight herds and flocks. The air is pure and bracing, o'clock we started homeward, the road leading the autumn tints of surpassing beauty, and all over and around the knolls, at times follow-things conspire to make a perfect day. We ing the beaten path, at others over the unbroken sod. To the left we caught a glimpse of the sea and the curved column of smoke on the distant horizon. Then we descended down into a deep dell, by the dry bed of a former pool, now covered with the dead leaves of the pond-lily. Rising again, to the north of us lies Gardiner's Island and the distant Connecticut shore, and still further eastward, in the faint blue distance, Rhode Island, and off due east from the Point, Block Island. The sky and water are an intense blue, while the sand spits and points on the northerly side look like Now golden beaches in the morning light. and then we pass clumps of scrub-growth clad in russet and gold. Our driver pointed out a few scattered houses, forming the village of the once powerful Montauk Indians, who have now dwindled In 1660 their ancesto about a dozen persons. tors conveyed to certain parties of the plantation of East Hampton "all the neck of land called Montauk, with all and every part and parcel thereof from sea to sea, from the utmost end of the land eastward to the sea-side, unto the other end of the said land westward, adjoining to the bounds of East Hampton,......with meadow, wood, stone, creeks, ponds, and whatsoever doth or may grow upon or issue from the same, with all the profits and commodities, by sea or land, unto the aforesaid inhabitants of East Hampton, their heirs and assigns, forever. ......And in token thereof have digged up a give way to the exhilaration we feel, and free- REINDEER, DOGS, AND SNOW-SHOES: SIBERIAN TRAVEL AND EXPLORATION.* TW GHIJIGHA, EASTERN SIBERIA. WENTY years ago it had come to be accepted that, if it lay within human power, communication by telegraph must be established between Europe and America, or-taking the two great commercial points of the two continents as representatives of the whole-between London and New York. The failure of the first attempt to lay a cable across the Atlantic produced a general conviction that no direct telegraphic communication could be made across that ocean. How a few men, prominent among whom was Mr. Cyrus W. Field, would not accept this conclusion, and how these few at last found themselves right, against the judgment of the many, is a story which need not here be told. Its results are evinced every morning, when we read in the newspaper every important event which had happened in Europe ten hours before. The impossibility of a direct telegraphic line across the Atlantic having been assumed, several plans were proposed for lines crossing the ocean at places where it becomes narrowed to a mere strait. We have here to do with only one of these schemes. Russia had already es Reindeer, Dogs, and Snow-shoes: A Journal of Siberian Travel and Explorations, made in the Years 1865, 1866, and 1867. By RICHARD J. BUSH, late of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. With Map and Illustrations. New York: Harper and Brothers. [tablished a line from St. Petersburg to the mouth of the Amoor. The American continent was also traversed by a line from New York to San Francisco. In 1864 the American Western Union Telegraphic Company, having obtained the requisite authority from the Russian, British, and American governments, undertook the work of connecting these two lines. According to the original idea-if we may so designate it-the northeastern extremity of Asia formed a solid triangle, presenting its apex to the continent of America, from which, close under the arctic circle, it was separated only by Behring Strait, less than forty miles broad. But at a time far antedating all human history the southeastern side of this Asiatic triangle of land had been eaten into by a deep indentation of the ocean, known to us as the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, bounded on the west and north by China, Tartary, and Siberia, and on the east by the peninsula of Kamtchatka, which separates it from Behring Sea, an arm of the great Pacific Ocean. The original line of the coast is indicated by the Kurile and Japanese islands, which are only the summits of a former mountain coast range, whose sides and feet are far beneath the present ocean, and whose loftiest peak, the volcano of Fusiyama, in Japan, si lent for almost two centuries, rises to a height | line from the Amoor to San Francisco must of 14,000 feet above the waters. This Sea of Okhotsk, into which empties the Amoor, was assumed to be too broad to be traversed by a telegraphic cable, and so the skirt its western and northern sides. To reach Behring Strait the line must not only traverse the twenty-five intervening degrees of longitude, but must run northward, directly out of its nearest way, through twenty degrees of lat- | hardy, and ambitious, and are well provided for itude. Then, having crossed the Behring our journey. Strait, it must make a wide circuit of forty-five degrees of longitude and thirty-eight degrees of latitude southward before reaching San Francisco. The whole distance on this line from the Amoor to San Francisco is about 7000 miles; and with the exception of a few hundred miles in California and Oregon, communication must be established through a country heretofore and now almost uninhabited, the greater part of which can never become the abode of civilized man. A telegraphic message sent over this entire line, starting from London, would, before reaching New York, traverse a distance greater than the circumference of the globe. August 20.-After a voyage of forty-seven days we are at Petropaulovski. Yesterday we caught sight of a lofty snow-clad peak looming up above the fog. This could be nothing else than Avatcha, 11,554 feet high, the landmark of Petropaulovski. We make the port and land. We are met by Mr. Flenger, a fur merchant, and others. After courteous greetings they ask for the news; and no wonder, for it is now three years since they have had a regular mail, and all they know of the world outside is what they can learn from an occasional whaler that has dropped in upon them, whose latest news is, perhaps, six months old. August 25.-A week at Petropaulovski, of which much might be said; but since getting back to Christendom I find that Harper's Magazine for August, 1868, has anticipated me. We have been making diligent inquiries about the region to be explored by us. The nearest point is 1000 miles away in a straight line. This is Ghijigha, at the head of the Sea of Okhotsk. Had we been earlier in the season we should have gone there by water, rounding the southern point of Kamtchatka, and then sailing To explore the long space of 7000 miles between the Russian extremity on the Amoor and the American extremity in California, through Northeastern Siberia, and what was then Russian America-now Alaska-and British Columbia, the telegraphic company early in 1865 fitted out an expedition. The whole survey was under the general charge of Colonel Bulkeley, of the United States army. The expedition was soon divided into several distinct parties for different portions of the route. The re-northward; but now it will not be safe to vensults of the explorations of two of these parties have for some time been given to the world.* To these has recently been added the much more valuable work of Mr. Richard J. Bush, some of the salient points of which will be presented in this paper, the writer of which constitutes himself for the occasion an imaginary member of the party of two-Bush and Mahood -by whom mainly the explorations narrated were accomplished. These explorations cover a period of about two years and three monthsfrom July 3, 1865, to September 28, 1867the scene being almost wholly in Northeastern Siberia. ture far in that way. Major Abasa does not like the idea of losing six months. So he has decided to divide our party of four, all of us to make land journeys. The work is divided as fairly as may be between the two parties of two men each. Abasa and Kennan are to go up the whole length of Kamtchatka, and so reach Ghijigha. Mahood and Bush are to go in the Olga to Nikolayefsk; thence by land around the head of the Sea of Okhotsk. We hope some day to meet at the town of Okhotsk, halfway between Nikolayefsk and Ghijigha, 1200 miles from either. Abasa can get there before us, and in the mean while he will explore the space of another 1200 miles northeastward from July 3, 1865.-The brig Olga, which was to Ghijigha to Anadyrsk, whither Macrae has gone convey us to Kamtchatka, sailed from Sana route known to fur-hunters only. WestFrancisco. Other parties of the general expedition are to go different ways-one through Russian America; another, under Lieutenant Macrae, is bound for Anadyrsk, on the Asiatic side. We expect some months hence to meet Macrae somewhere in Siberia. Our party of four on the Olga consists of Major Abasa, of the Russian army, in charge of the Asiatic division, James A. Mahood, George Kennan, and Richard J. Bush. We are bound first for Petropaulovski (Peter-and-Paul's-town), in Kamtchatka-thence, who knows whither? Of the region which we are to explore we can learn little; but we know that it is arctic, and the narratives of other arctic travelers forewarn us of peril and privation. But we are all young, ward also, from Ghijigha to Okhotsk, his route is pretty well known to the Russians. Our route from Nikolayefsk to Okhotsk is absolutely unexplored. All that we can here learn is that we have nothing to fear from the natives until we come to the Koraks, who are described as a pagan tribe, fearing neither God nor man, who will not hesitate to kill us for the sake of plunder. We have been busy also in purchasing fur garments for our journey; for furs are here more abundant and cheaper than in Siberia. Meanwhile we have varied our daily routine by a pony ride to a little settlement called Avatcha, seven miles from Petropaulovski. Our steeds were tough, shaggy little fellows, about four and a half feet high. A pleasanter ride it would be hard to conceive. We had supposed Kamtchatka to be a bleak, desolate region-the abode of ravenous wolves and shivering exiles, producing only frozen lichens, swept over by the land slopes gently upward for miles, gradually swelling into REINDEER, DOGS, AND SNOW-SHOES. To-morrow September 10.-We have sailed along the AVATCHA. dred miles to Nikolayefsk. The captain of the |