In Yakutsk Kate Marsden met the Right Reverend Milety, Yakutsk’s bishop, who took active part in all the preparations for the mission and set up a committee, consisting of the deputy governor, some clergymen and local medical officials, to make further arrangements for Miss Marsden’s trip into the depth of Siberian taiga to visit lepers there. Inspector Smirnov, who had recently visited some of the Yakut settlements, reported some gloomy details about the current state of the lepers in the taiga. Similar to many other primitive civilizations, the Yakut people regarded leprosy as a punishment that had come from the Gods on sinful people. Being scared of any contacts with lepers, the Yakuts would expel their relatives or neighbors with any suspicious manifestations of the disease far away into the taiga, where these miserable people soon turned into living corpses, doomed to spend the rest of their lives in a desolate place among similar wretched sufferers. Having been driven out from their families, the lepers were deprived of any rights and were banned from any communication with the outer world. They had to live alone or in small groups in primitive shelters away from the settlements, being exposed to terrible frosts of about minus 50 degrees in winters and tropical heat in summers, when billions of bloodthirsty insects attacked their festering wounds, torturing them until total exhaustion.

Miss Marsden was terrified with all the stories, but she was determined to continue the journey to see everything with her own eyes. The committee elaborated the route and equipped the expedition with horses, food, and other available supplies. The Right Reverend Milety gave Miss Marsden  a few copies of the New Testament translated into Yakut and blessed her, saying that her mission was the most needed action for the pitiable lepers. He also gave her some samples of the herb she was looking for, though he added that he had not known for sure about the curative effect of the herb.

On June 10, 1891, Miss Marsden set off to the Vilyuisk area accompanied with the convoy of abut 30 men, including two Cossacks and a local official who could speak some French. Even today, the Vilyuisk area is a vast territory of primeval forests and swamps where traveling by a four-wheel-drive truck is regarded as an overland challenge. More than 110 years ago there were no roads or paths at all and there was no other possibility of going through the thick forest than to plough through on horseback. In order to help the expedition to get to the farthest lepers’ yurts, the local Yakut people laid a path for more than a thousand miles, breaking through the thick forest and laying log roads across marshes. The convoy rode in a string, often changing direction, trying to avoid boggy places, where the horses might have mired down, which was rather wearisome, because the horses constantly stumbled over the roots and logs. Besides, the taiga around was inhabited by bears, and although the Cossacks were trying to scare them away by firing their guns into the air, the horses often jerked aside, being frightened by the slightest snap of twigs. Miss Marsden, who had never ridden a horse before, had to sit on a wooden saddle, equipped only with a small cushion, and to hold her bridle tightly, trying to keep the horse steady on the path. Very soon, she suffered from the saddle sore and her hands were covered with bleeding corns, as the thin gloves she had put on worn out the first day of the trip.

Apart from that, myriads of midges, mosquitoes, and gadflies attacked both riders and horses. It was impossible to drive all those blood-sucking insects away by waving a hand, as the riders had to keep horses on the path with both hands. Thus in a few hours after the beginning of the journey, her neck and face swelled up after countless mosquito bites. During the whole journey around the Vilyuisk settlements and back, which lasted for about two months, she hardly had a chance to change clothes or have a proper wash. It was quite often that the clothes were soaked wet during the rains and Miss Marsden might have caught cold easily, though, to her great luck, it did not happen. A couple of times her companions made her drink some vodka in order to recuperate after cold night spent on the ground. However, she felt very bad after drinking alcohol. Later Miss Marsden wrote that the most difficult ordeal in that trip was to be in a company of 30 men whose language she could not understand, though all of them demonstrated genuine concern and provided all possible care for the whole period of the journey. Sometimes Miss Marsden had such unbearable headaches and cramps in her legs that she could not stay in the saddle. At these occasions, her traveling companions cautiously took her off the horse and carried her to the ground, where she lay almost unconscious for a few hours just to stand up again and proceed with the journey. Having no accurate information about the exact locations of lepers’ shacks, the expedition made a much longer way around the Vilyuisk area than it had been expected, having found about 80 lepers altogether in the taiga. When the heat became absolutely unbearable, they started riding at nights, halting at dawn, pitching a small tent, and setting up a campfire to keep mosquitoes and bears away.

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