the flies and mosquitoes which disturb their rest. In the centre of the village, facing the west, stands, in all the glory of Kamchatko-Byzantine architecture, red paint, and glittering domes, the omnipresent Greek church, contrasting strangely with the rude log houses and conical balagáns over which it extends the spiritual protection of its resplendent golden cross. It is built generally of carefully hewn logs, painted a deep brick-red, covered with a green sheet-iron roof, and surmounted by two onion-shaped domes of tin which are sometimes coloured sky-blue and spangled with golden stars. Standing with all its glaring contrasts of colour among a few unpainted log houses in a primitive wilderness, it has a strange picturesque appearance not easily described. If you can imagine a rough American backwoods settlement of low log houses clustered round a gaily coloured Turkish mosque, half a dozen small haystacks mounted on high vertical posts, fifteen or twenty Titanic wooden gridirons similarly elevated and hung full of drying fish, a few dog-sledges and canoes lying carelessly around, and a hundred or more grey wolves tied here and there between the houses to long heavy poles, you will have a general but tolerably accurate idea of a Kamchadal settlement of the better class. They differ somewhat in respect to their size and their churches; but the grey log houses, conical balagáns drying fish, wolfish dogs, canoes, sledges, and fishy odours are all invariable features.
The inhabitants of these native settlements in southern Kamchatka are a dark swarthy race, considerably below the average stature of Siberian natives, and are very different in all their characteristics from the wandering tribes of Koraks and Chukchis who live farther north. The men average perhaps five feet three or four inches in height, have broad flat faces, prominent cheek bones, small and rather sunken eyes, no beards, long, lank, black hair, small hands and feet, very slender limbs, and a tendency to enlargement and protrusion of the abdomen. They are probably of central Asiatic origin, but they certainly have had no very recent connection with any other Siberian tribe with which I am acquainted, and are not at all like the Chukchis, Koraks, Yakuts (yah-koots'), or Tunguses (toon-goo'-ses). From the fact of their living a settled instead of a wandering life they were brought under Russian subjection much more easily than their nomadic neighbours, and have since experienced in a greater degree the civilising influences of Russian intercourse. They have adopted almost universally the religion, customs, and habits of their conquerors, and their own language, which is a very curious one, is already falling into disuse. It would be easy to describe their character by negatives. They are not independent, self-reliant, or of a combative disposition like the northern Chukchis and Koraks; they are not avaricious or dishonest, except where those traits are the results of Russian education; they are not suspicious or distrustful, but rather the contrary; and for generosity, hospitality, simple good faith, and easy, equable good-nature under all circumstances, I have never met their equals. As a race they are undoubtedly becoming extinct. Since 1780, they have diminished in numbers more than one half, and frequently recurring epidemics and famines will soon reduce them to a comparatively weak and unimportant tribe, which will finally be absorbed in the growing Russian population of the peninsula. They have already lost most of their distinctive customs and superstitions, and only an occasional sacrifice of a dog to some malignant spirit of storm or disease enables the modern traveller to catch a glimpse of their original paganism. They depend mainly for subsistence upon the salmon, which every summer run into these northern rivers in immense numbers to spawn, and are speared, caught in seines, and trapped in weirs by thousands. These fish, dried without salt in the open air, are the food of the Kamchadals and of their dogs throughout the long, cold northern winter. During the summer, however, their bill of fare is more varied. The climate and soil of the river bottoms in southern Kamchatka admit of the cultivation of rye, potatoes, and turnips, and the whole peninsula abounds in animal life. Reindeer and black and brown bears roam everywhere over the mossy plains and through the grassy valleys; wild sheep and a species of ibex are not unfrequently found in the mountains; and millions upon millions of ducks, geese, and swans, in almost endless variety, swarm about every river and little marshy lake throughout the country. These aquatic fowls are captured in great multitudes while moulting by organised "drives" of fifty or seventy-five men in canoes, who chase the birds in one great flock up some narrow stream, at the end of which a huge net is arranged for their reception. They are then killed with clubs, cleaned, and salted for winter use. Tea and sugar have been introduced by the Russians, and have been received with great favour, the annual consumption now being more than 20,000 pounds of each in the Kamchatkan peninsula alone. Bread is now made of rye, which the Kamchadals raise and grind for themselves; but previous to the settlement of the country by the Russians, the only native substitute for bread was a sort of baked paste, consisting chiefly of the grated tubers of the purple Kamchatkan lily. [Footnote: A species of fritillaria.] The only fruits in the country are berries and a species of wild cherry. Of the berries, however, there are fifteen or twenty different kinds, of which the most important are blueberries, "maróshkas" (mah-ro'-shkas), or yellow cloud-berries, and dwarf cranberries. These the natives pick late in the fall, and freeze for winter consumption. Cows are kept in nearly all the Kamchadal settlements, and milk is always plenty. A curious native dish of sour milk, baked curds, and sweet cream, covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon, is worthy of being placed upon a civilised table.
It will thus be seen that life in a Kamchatkan settlement, gastronomically considered, is not altogether so disagreeable as we have been led to believe. I have seen natives in the valley of the Kamchatka as pleasantly situated, and enjoying as much comfort and almost as many luxuries, as nine tenths of the settlers upon the frontiers of our western States and Territories.
[Illustration: Travelling Bag made of Reindeer skin]
CHAPTER VIII
BRIDLE PATHS OP SOUTHERN KAMCHATKA—HOUSES AND FOOD OF THE PEOPLE—REINDEER TONGUES AND WILD-ROSE PETALS—A KAMCHATKAN DRIVER'S CANTICLE
At Okuta we found our horses and men awaiting our arrival; and after eating a hasty lunch of bread, milk, and blueberries in a little native house, we clambered awkwardly into our saddles, and filed away in a long irregular line through the woods, Dodd and I taking the advance, singing Bonnie Dundee.
We kept continually near the group of mountains which had presented so beautiful an appearance in the morning; but, owing to the forest of birch and mountain ash which clothed the foot-hills, we caught only occasional glimpses between the tree-tops of their white snowy summits.
Just before sunset, we rode into another little native village, whose ingeniously constructed name defied all my inexperienced attempts to pronounce it or write it down. Dodd was good-natured enough to repeat it to me five or six times; but as it sounded worse and more unintelligible every time, I finally called it Jerusalem, and let it go at that. For the sake of geographical accuracy I have so marked it down on my map; but let no future commentator point to it triumphantly as a proof that the lost tribes of Israel emigrated to Kamchatka; I don't believe that they did, and I know that this unfortunate settlement, before I took pity on it and called it Jerusalem, was distinguished by a name so utterly barbarous that neither the Hebrew alphabet nor any other known to ancient literature could have begun to do it justice.
Tired by the unusual exercise of horseback riding, I entered Jerusalem at a walk, and throwing my bridle to a Kamchadal in blue nankeen shirt and buckskin trousers, who saluted me with a reverential bow, I wearily dismounted and entered the house which Viushin indicated as the one we were to occupy.
The best room, which had been prepared for our reception, was a low bare apartment about twelve feet square, whose walls, ceiling, and floor of unpainted birch planks were scoured to a smooth snowy purity which would have been creditable even to the neat housewives of the Dutch paradise of Broek. An immense clay oven, neatly painted red, occupied one side of the room; a bench, three or four rude chairs, and a table, were arranged with severe propriety against the other. Two windows of glass, shaded by flowery calico curtains, admitted the warm sunshine; a few
