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19

to walk on snowshoes.  The travelling to the Geram river was very good, the snow a few inches in some places a foot deep.  The country generally level and not heavily wooded, the range being back from the Coast 20 to 30 [[?]].

Reached the Gerarn on the evening Dec. 12/22, 1865, Christmas Eve.

Capt. Swarts had been here from Merngar on snowshoes a year or two previously and up to the Coast to Northeast harbor, but could not say whether there was a [[?]] near the Coast or the Kelowna Hills + the Neema River, but knew that it was impossible to proceed along the Coast or near it, except on the ice.

From information which I have since received, from different Turguse, I am satisfied that there is no practicability [[?]] in these hills short of thirty [[?]] from the Sea, and where I afterwards went.

The trail to Nilkan leads up the German river across the Yahfur range to the head of Mumaken and thence down its valley.    There was no alternative but to go that way, if we could not succeed in finding a passage through from some of the branches of the Gararn and the Neina.  At least in the Mimaken valley we could find Turguse, perhaps procure a guide, whereas on the eastside there are but two families of Turguse living and that I knew, over on the Nerma somewhere and the other on the Nanten.  Started the next morning of the Gera, which is a wild rapid stream, narrow valley between very high rugged mountains, & it snowed which is in the heart of the Juffer mountains.