_KAMCHATKA._
The Upper Primorsk.--History of north-eastern maritime
discovery.--Travellers in the Upper Primorsk.--The Sea of
Okhotsk and fisheries.--Bush’s journey.--Okhotsk and its
natives.--Kamchatka.--Its volcanoes, earthquakes, springs.--Garden
produce and animals.--Kamchatdales.--Their number and
character.--The Koriaks.--Their warlike spirit.--Houses of
settled and wandering Koriaks.--Food.--Herds of deer.--Marriage
customs.--Putting sick and aged to death.--The Chukchees.--Their
habitat.--Diminution of fur animals.--Vegetation.--Intoxicating
plants.--Nordenskiöld on the Chukchee coast.--Onkelon antiquities.
North-eastern Siberia, or the Upper Primorsk, is to be the subject
of this chapter, for which I have chosen the title of Kamchatka as
best recalling the locality. Unlike the Amur, of which we have been
treating, this portion of the Sea-coast province cannot be spoken of
as new; for its discovery dates back more than a century. Of late
years, all eyes have been turned in this direction by the maritime
achievements of Professor Nordenskiöld, who, having completed his
wonderful travel by water, was being fêted at Yokohama, whilst I was
lying weather-bound off the coast.[1]
During my stay at Nikolaefsk, I was further north than the capital
of Kamchatka, and Petropavlovsk was distant only a few days’ sail.
Intervening, however, was the Sea of Okhotsk, the mention of which so
often recurs in connection with the north-eastern parts of Siberia.[2]
Formerly it was much frequented by whales. The captain of the _Tunguse_
told me at Nikolaefsk that, as a young man, he used to go to the
Okhotsk Sea in a whaler; but so many of these animals had been killed,
he said, that during one season they caught only three of them, which
he thought poor. At Vladivostock, however, I met with Mr. Lindholm,
who has a steamer and a sailing-ship engaged in the whale trade, and
from him I gathered that at the present high price of whalebone, it
answers well if, during a season, a boat takes two large whales.[3]
The whales feed on the molluscs of the Okhotsk Sea, some of which
Erman mentions as being eaten by the Chinese.[4] Whether the molluscs
are less abundant than of yore, or whether so many whales have been
killed that few remain, the diminution of the trade was impressed on my
mind by meeting in the Primorsk several Finlanders who had left their
fatherland in the expectation of speedily making their fortunes by
whaling in the Okhotsk Sea; but their project proved a bubble.[5]
The only man, I believe, other than an aboriginal, who has travelled
round the Okhotsk Sea, starting from Nikolaefsk, by land, is Mr.
Bush, the author of “Reindeer, Dogs, and Snow-shoes,” all three of
which he certainly had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with.
Nothing, perhaps, in his journey would appear more remarkable to those
unacquainted with the records of Arctic travel than his sleeping,
night after night, in the open air of a Siberian winter, between a
couple of ordinary blankets, lined with deerskin, between which, on
awaking, he sometimes found himself buried, as were his dogs, beneath
recently-fallen snow. Proceeding round the coast, the first village we
approach after leaving the Amur is Udskoi, with 150 inhabitants. It is
situated on the river Ud, and was one of the earliest Cossack stations.
Further north is Port Ayan, to which, in 1844, the American Company
transferred their station for trading in fish and furs.
On the Okhota, further north, is the town of Okhotsk, which has given
its name to the adjoining sea. Its population was never large, though
it had a certain amount of activity before 1807, when the burdens of
many thousands of horses passed through to the Russian settlements on
the Pacific. It is a sorry-looking place of 200 inhabitants, though
many a traveller has been glad to reach it after a severe journey from
Yakutsk. The only animals kept at Okhotsk, says Mr. Knox, are cows
and dogs. In summer the dogs are shrewd enough to go into the water
and catch their own salmon, wading into the stream and standing, like
storks, till the fish appear. The natives living on this western coast
are the Lamuti, a seafaring Tunguse tribe, said to be uncorrupted
from their primitive simplicity, either by the tricks of the Russian
merchants or those of the aboriginal Yakutes. From Okhotsk to
Nikolaefsk is a voyage of 400 miles, but there is no road by land:
hence the remarkable nature of Bush’s journey.
The traveller who, from Okhotsk, wishes to visit Kamchatka may reach
Petropavlovsk by sea through the Kuriles, or continue round the coast
by road. The latter course takes him through Yamsk to Ghijiga, at the
north of the bay, a distance of 1,100 miles. He then descends along
the western coast of Kamchatka to Tigil, 760 miles further, at which
point he strikes inland to a valley lying below active volcanoes, and
so reaches Petropavlovsk, on the shore of the North Pacific, a land
journey from Okhotsk of 2,540 miles, accomplished by deer, horses, and
dogs.
Kamchatka is so called after the name of its principal river. The
peninsula is 800 miles long, and from 30 to 120 miles wide; its total
area being about 80,000 square miles, or five times the size of
Switzerland. The southern extremity, called Cape Lopatka, is a low,
narrow tongue of land, which, as it proceeds northwards, widens and
rises into rocky and barren hills, with small valleys timbered with
willow and stunted birch. Two degrees north the range divides, one
portion running nearly due north and the other taking a north-easterly
direction. In the fork formed by these two chains lies the valley of
the river Kamchatka. The western chain rarely rises above 3,000 feet,
but the eastern chain has many high volcanoes, among them Kluchevsky,
which is somewhat higher than Mont Blanc, and not far from the sea.[6]
Earthquakes are more frequent, perhaps, in Kamchatka than in any other
country. The number of shocks felt at Petropavlovsk averages eight
annually.[7]
The climate of Kamchatka is much milder than in the eastern parts of
the mainland. The frost sets in about the middle of October, but up to
December the temperature rarely falls 10° below the freezing point of
Fahrenheit, though in severe winters the thermometer sometimes sinks to
25° below zero. Snow-storms with wind, called _poorgas_, are prevalent
in February and March. They sometimes take up whole masses of snow, and
form drifts several feet deep in a few minutes, burying, it may be,
travellers, dogs, and sledges, who remain thus till the storm is over.
Dogs begin to howl at the approach of a poorga, and try to burrow in
the snow if the wind is cold or violent.
About 50 miles west of Petropavlovsk is a remarkable warm spring, into
which when you enter, says Mr. Collins, the sensation is as if the skin
would be removed, whilst the stones and mud on the bottom fairly burn
the feet, added to which the steam and gas, ascending from this natural
caldron, fairly take away the breath. In a short time, however, bathers
become red like lobsters, and find the temperature enjoyable. The water
is very buoyant. It is used by the natives for all sorts of diseases.
The valley watered by the Kamchatka is composed of fine mould, and
has abundant natural productions--fir, birch, larch, poplar, willow,
cedar, and juniper, and that of larger size than in the same latitude
elsewhere in Asia. Raspberries, strawberries, whortleberries, currants,
and cranberries abound; and flowers are seen in spring in almost
tropical luxuriance. There is much grass in the lower lands, and
Mr. Hill records an extraordinary phenomenon in a place he visited
respecting the growth and preservation of potatoes.[8] There grows,
likewise, a plant in the country called by the natives _krapeva_, from
which they make a coarse but very durable cloth. It resembles our
stinging-nettle, but is of larger growth and stronger fibre.
Among the animals of Kamchatka there is none with which the traveller
becomes more familiar than the dog, which is found wild on the hills.
The color is usually buff or silver-grey, and in nature and disposition
he resembles the mastiff and the wolf, sleeping, like the latter, more
by day than by night. He is intelligent as regards his work, but not
affectionate, as may be said of the steppe dogs, and has to be ruled
by the rod. It is not usually safe to leave these dogs loose, for they
kill fowls, deer, smaller dogs, and sometimes even children.[9] As
on the Amur, they are usually fed on fish, particularly the salmon,
besides which there are caught in Kamchatka, or off its coasts, the
cod, herring, smelt, as also whales, walruses, and seals. The country
abounds with geese, ducks, and a variety of wild fowl.
The southern part of the peninsula is inhabited by the Kamchatdales,
which is the name the Russians give them; but they are called
_Konchalo_ by their neighbours the Koriaks. They have large round
faces, prominent cheek-bones, small sunken eyes, flattened noses,
black hair, and tawny complexions. Their language, very guttural, is
largely inflexional, or composed of invariable root forms modified by
prefixes. The poverty of the language may be inferred from their having
but one word for the sun and moon (_khiht_), but still more from the
circumstance that it has scarcely any names for fish or birds, which
are merely distinguished by the moon in which they are most plentiful.
The language is spoken in the south among the Kuriles, and in the
extreme north about Penjinsk. Otherwise it is fast dying out, as is
also the race. In certain parts the people are almost Russified. When
Captain Cochrane travelled in Siberia, he surprised his friends by
taking home a Kamchatdale wife, but this did not surprise me after
meeting at Nikolaefsk, at dinner, a Kamchatdale lady who had married a
Russian officer. I saw, too, at Khabarofka, and on the steamer, another
Kamchatdale, of less presentable appearance--a cleric, wearing his
hair in a queue, perhaps for convenience in travel. He was taken, as a
boy of 10 years old, to Irkutsk to be educated; afterwards sent to be
minister in a church in Russian America, and subsequently became priest
of Okhotsk. He is now near Blagovestchensk, and when I saw him was
sick. He looked a poor miserable creature, and was pointed out to me by
Baron Stackelberg, of whom he had openly asked an alms, as “_ce pauvre
diable_.” He appeared much pleased with some books I gave him, but was
altogether about the poorest specimen of a priest I saw in Russia.
The number of the Kamchatdales, strictly so called, is estimated at
3,000. Their capital is Petropavlovsk, the only town on the eastern
coast of the peninsula.[10] The little town points with pride to its
two monuments, erected, one to Behring and the other to La Perouse, and
its old fortifications, now covered with grass and flowers, serve to
recall the defeat of the English and French allies, who attacked this
village during the Crimean War.
The Kamchatdales are a people of much amiability and honesty. Their
houses are always open to the stranger, whom they never weary of
waiting upon, and from whom they soon forget an injury.[11] They have
given up, to a large extent, their Shamanism, though they still take
care, when hunting an animal, not to pronounce its name, lest they
should be visited by ill luck. The Kamchatdales have not the heroic
character of their neighbours the Koriaks. Their plaintive songs do not
celebrate battles, but love, sledge travels, fishing, and hunting. In
their dances they mimic admirably the movements of animals, bounding
like the deer, running like the fox, and even entering the water to
swim like the seal.
The northern half of the peninsula, and the mainland up to the 65th
parallel, are inhabited by the Koriaks, their district extending
laterally from the 130th meridian to Behring’s Sea, and north of this
region to the Frozen Ocean live the Chukchees.[12]
The Anadir is the one river of this region worth mentioning; but
flowing as it does on the polar circle, and near the limit where
trees cease to grow, it traverses only solitudes without towns. The
Russian garrison was obliged to abandon the small fort of Anadirsk,
constructed on its banks for a fur depôt, at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, and the Chukchees set it on fire. It is now
replaced by four little villages, with a united population of about
200, consisting of aborigines and Cossacks living a half-savage life,
though speaking Russ. The Anadir, like the rest of the rivers in the
Chukchee and Kamchatdale countries, is so full of fish at the breeding
season that the water seems alive with them. When the shoals of salmon
mount the river, the water rises like a bank, and the fish are so
pressed together that they can be taken by hand. The water ceases to be
drinkable, and its smell and taste become intolerable, by reason of the
millions of its inhabitants in a state of decomposition.
The Koriaks seem to be related to the Chukchees, and speak a dialect
approaching theirs. They are divided into settled and wandering
Koriaks, the former occupying themselves in fishing, the latter as
reindeer keepers and hunters. Their southern limit in Kamchatka is
the village of Tigil, whither they go once a year to exchange their
commodities. Travellers do not speak well of the settled Koriaks.
Deprived of their herds of reindeer, they have no resource but fishing
and traffic with foreign sailors and Russian dealers. The first are
said to have taught them drinking and debauchery, and the second lying
and stealing. They are eaten up with misery and vice, and are the most
degraded of the Siberian tribes. Only the women tattoo their faces,
thinking thereby to arrest the ravages of time. Their winter yourts
may be classed among the most extraordinary of human habitations.
They are built somewhat like a huge wooden hour-glass, 20 feet high,
in the shape of the letter X, and are entered by climbing a pole on
the outside, and then sliding down another through the “waist” of the
hour-glass, which waist serves for door, window, and chimney. Holes
are cut in the logs for climbing, but they are too small for the
heavily-clad fur boots of a novice, who has, therefore, amid sparks
and smoke, to hug the pole, slide down, and as best he can avoid
the fire at the bottom. The interior presents a strange appearance,
lighted only from above. The beams, rafters, and logs are smoked to
a glossy blackness. A wooden platform, raised about a foot from the
earth, extends out from the walls on three sides, to a width of six
feet, leaving an open spot 8 or 10 feet in diameter in the centre
for the fire, and a huge copper kettle of melting snow, in which is
usually simmering fish, reindeer meat, dried salmon, or seals’ blubber
with rancid oil; these make up the Koriaks’ bill of fare. When any
one enters the yourt, the inmates are apprised of the fact by a total
eclipse of the chimney hole. Among the wandering Koriaks an entrance
to the tent is effected by creeping on the ground through a hole into
a large open circle, which forms the interior. A fire burns upon the
ground in the centre, and round the inner circumference of the yourt
are constructed apartments called _pologs_, which are separated one
from another by skin curtains, and combine the advantages of privacy
with warmth and fugginess! These pologs are about four feet high and
eight feet square. They are warmed and lighted by a burning fragment of
moss floating in a wooden bowl of seal oil, which vitiates the air and
creates an intolerable stench.
Mr. Kennan gives a humorous description of his first supper among the
wandering Koriaks, and their substitute for bread, called _manyalla_,
of which the original elements are clotted blood, tallow, and
half-digested moss taken from the stomach of the reindeer, where it
is supposed to have undergone some change fitting it for second-hand
consumption. These curious ingredients are boiled with a few handfuls
of dried grass, and the dark mass is then moulded into small loaves and
frozen for future use. As a mark of special attention, the host bites
off a choice morsel from a large cube of venison in his greasy hand,
and then, taking it from his mouth, offers it to his guest.
The wandering Koriaks necessarily move their habitation frequently;
for a herd of 4,000 or 5,000 deer (Mr. Bush mentions one Koriak as
possessing 15,000 of them) paw up the snow, and in a very few days eat
all the moss within a mile of the encampment. This independent kind of
life has given to the Koriaks the impatience of restraint, independence
of civilization, and perfect self-reliance, which distinguish them
from the Kamchatdales and other settled inhabitants of Siberia. They
are most hospitable, and the best of husbands and fathers. Mr. Kennan,
during his sojourn of 2½ years among them, never saw a Koriak strike
any of his belongings. They treat their animals with kindness, and will
on no account sell a deer alive. A slain deer may be had for a pound
of tobacco. Among the Koriaks the animal costs 10_s._, at Okhotsk from
20_s._ to 30_s._, and on the Amur £5.
Like the Kamchatdales, the Chukchees are obliged to earn their
wives by working a year or more in the service of the prospective
father-in-law, and even then the lover may be refused. In any case,
at the wedding ceremony he has to pursue the object of his devotion
through the pologs of a tent, the bridesmaids doing all they can
to facilitate the passage of the bride, and, by keeping down the
curtains and whipping him with switches, to hinder the progress of the
bridegroom. The lover usually overtakes the maiden, however, in the
last polog but one, and there they remain together for seven days and
seven nights.
The treatment of the sick and aged in these regions is remarkable,
for they put them to death to avoid protracted suffering. I heard the
same alleged of the Gilyaks, but it was afterwards contradicted. The
Koriaks look upon this as the natural end of their existence; and when
they think the time come, they choose in what manner the last office
of affection shall be rendered. Some ask to be stoned, and some to be
killed by the hatchet or knife. All the young Koriaks learn the art of
giving the fatal _coup de grace_ as painlessly as possible.
Sometimes the younger request the old to wait a bit; but in any case
immediately after death the corpse is burnt, to allow the spirit to
escape into the air. Formerly, infanticide was common among them, and
of twins one was always sacrificed. None of the Siberian tribes have
shown such bravery in resisting the Russians as have the Koriaks and
Chukchees, and some of these still retain their independence.
The Chukchee coast extends from Chaunskaia Bay, round Behring’s
peninsula, to the Anadir river. The fauna of this part of Siberia is
richer than in the west. Probably some of the American animals have
crossed the ice of Behring’s Straits, and are mingled with those of
Asia. The Alpine hare, the bear, the marmot, the weasel, the otter,
are common, and wild deer roam in herds of thousands. Snakes, frogs,
and toads are not found in North-Eastern Siberia nor in Kamchatka. In
the latter country, however, are lizards, which are regarded as of
evil omen, and when found are cut up in pieces, that they may tell
no one who killed them. The country teems with lemmings, which from
time to time migrate in myriads, crossing in a straight line rivers,
lakes, even arms of the sea, though decimated on the way by shoals of
hungry fish. Travellers are sometimes stayed for hours, waiting the
marching-past of these huge armies.[13]
Many fur-bearing animals in Kamchatka and the Chukchee country have
greatly diminished in number since the advent of the Russian hunters,
as is the case in the neighbouring seas, where some of the species have
altogether disappeared.[14]
The aspect on the two sides of Behring’s Straits is very different.
America is wooded, whilst the Chukchee country has no vegetation but
lichens and mosses, and from a distance looks completely bare. Among
the flora, however, of North-Eastern Siberia is a peculiar mushroom
spotted like a leopard, and surmounted with a small hood--the fly
agaric, which here has the top scarlet, flecked with white points.
In other parts of Russia it is poisonous. Among the Koriaks it is
intoxicating, and a mushroom of this kind sells for three or four
reindeer. So powerful is the fungus that the native who eats it
remains drunk for several days, and by a process too disgusting to be
described, half-a-dozen individuals may be successively intoxicated
by the effects of a single mushroom, each in a less degree than his
predecessor. The natives dig for roots and tubers, which serve for food
or making intoxicating drinks. They eat also the green bark of the
birch mixed with caviar.
In certain valleys, especially in those of Kamchatka, the grass exceeds
the height of a man, and the Russian settlers make hay three times a
year. The culture of cereals is of little profit; oats thrive best.
Hemp has been grown, but not in sufficient quantities to replace the
nettle as a textile thread. In fact, gardening has succeeded better
than agriculture, and now the natives cultivate in hundreds of gardens
cabbages, potatoes, beetroot, turnips, carrots, and other vegetables
introduced by the Russians in the last century. All these, however,
added to their other kinds of food, barely give sustenance enough to
the Kamchatdales and their dogs, without which it would be almost
impossible for them to leave their huts at certain times of the year.
During the four months of summer they must lay up dry fish to provide
for eight months of winter, and the normal amount of winter food for
a pack of half-a-dozen Kamchatdale dogs is 100,000 herrings. Besides
this the owner’s family must be nourished, and hence, if a bad season
comes, and the fishing or hunting fails, death is certain; for to the
greater part of the natives who have no deer, winter and want are
synonymous terms.
It was on the Chukchee coast that the vessel of Professor
Nordenskiöld--the _Vega_--was frozen in. The ship had continued her
eastward course to the 28th September, and had arrived to within a few
miles of the open water of Behring’s Straits. New ice had, however,
begun to form, and the ship had passed into a narrow and shallow
channel, where the crew made fast for the night, hoping to disentangle
themselves in the morning without difficulty, especially as whalers
had sometimes remained in these parts till the middle of October.
They were disappointed, however. For at least a month the wind blew
from the north, and by the 25th of November the new ice was two feet
thick, so that there was no hope of getting free till the following
summer. The _Vega’s_ winter harbour was at the northernmost part of
Behring’s Straits, a mile from land, and only about two miles from
the point where the straits open into the Pacific, for the passage of
which a single hour’s steam at full speed would have sufficed. This
was disappointing to the professor’s party, but they built a magnetic
observatory, made what discoveries they could in the interest of
science, and formed acquaintance with the Chukchees. They describe
the natives’ tents as kept at so great a heat that the children were
usually naked. The women wore only a girdle, and the children sometimes
ran from one tent to another without shoes or clothing in a temperature
below freezing point.
Some of the party made excavations in the neighbourhood of
dwelling-places of a race that was driven by the Chukchees hundreds of
years ago to islands in the Polar Sea. The people were called Onkelon.
Their houses were in groups, and built, or at least partly so, of
whale-bones and driftwood, covered with earth, and connected by long
passages with the open air and with one another. The kitchen middens
contained bones of whale, walrus, seal, reindeer, etc., together with
stone and bone implements, fastened by leather thongs to wooden handles.
The language of the Chukchees and Koriaks has not been reduced to
writing, nor do these people attempt to express ideas by signs or
pictures. The Russians, however, have attempted something towards
Christianizing them, and the first missionary arrived so far back as
1704, though baptism did not become general among them till 1800.
Some of the Chukchees, notwithstanding their savage and independent
spirit (which has become somewhat softened in the few who have received
baptism), are just and honest; and though implacable to an enemy, are
staunch and true to a friend. They are only nominal subjects of Russia,
and it will apparently take long before the Russian Government can hope
to Christianize and civilize them.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Among early sources of information concerning voyages to the
north-eastern seas, we have the “History of Kamchatka and the Kurile
Islands,” translated from the Russian by Dr. Grieve in 1764. In 1802
Martin Sauer wrote an account of a geographical and astronomical
expedition to the north parts of Russia, the mouth of the Kolima, to
East Cape, and islands in the Eastern Ocean, performed by Commodore
Joseph Billings from 1785 to 1794; and within 20 years afterwards
Captain Burney published a chronological history of north-eastern
voyages of discovery, and of the early eastern navigation of the
Russians; but these brought us no further than 1819. The admirable
“Géographie Universelle” of M. Réclus (by far the best geographical
work on Siberia I have met with) gives a map showing the routes not
only of the principal travellers by land, but also furnishes an
excellent account of Siberian maritime discoveries down to the present
day.
To confine ourselves more particularly to Kamchatka, we have the
travels in 1787-8 of M. de Lesseps, Consul of France, and interpreter
to the Count de la Perouse, who landed in the peninsula, and thence
made his way by land round the northern coast of the Okhotsk Sea,
and crossed Asia and Europe to Paris. A quarter of a century later,
Peter Dobell followed the same route, and was deserted by his Tunguse
guides in the vicinity of Okhotsk, which town, however, he at length
reached, and crossed Siberia to Europe. Accounts of remarkable travels
in this part of the country have been written by two Americans--Messrs.
Bush and Kennan--who went, in 1865, to make preliminary surveys for
a proposed route for telegraph wires intended to traverse Behring’s
Straits from America, continue across the peninsula, and round the
Sea of Okhotsk to Nikolaefsk, and thence to the Chinese frontier. The
enterprise was ultimately abandoned, but not till the country had
been surveyed from the straits to the mouth of the Amur, in doing
which these authors passed through portions of country untravelled by
foreigners before.
For a short account of the early exploration of Siberia by sea and
land, _see_ Appendix E.
[2] It is a great gulf shut in from the North Pacific Ocean by the
promontory of Kamchatka, and a chain of islands reaching down to Japan
It measures from 1,200 to 1,400 miles from north to south, and from 700
to 800 miles from east to west, the greatest depth being 700 yards.
[3] It was curious to hear that whales are now more shy than formerly,
and that the whalers dare not row their boats, but must sail them to
the monsters, who are then sometimes frightened away even by the baling
out of water. I learned, too, that in the Sea-coast province they have
great difficulty in procuring a sufficiency of suitable sailors for the
trade; for although ordinary seamen will do for a part of the crew,
there ought to be about eight of the officers and men who are experts.
[4] I saw a considerable number of dried _trepangs_, or sea-snails, at
Vladivostock, worth in China 30 dollars the pickle of 133 lbs., say
1_s._ a lb. The Chinese employ them in the preparation of a nutritious
soup in common with sharks’ fins, edible birds’ nests, and an esculent
seaweed, or cabbage, of which last 3,000 tons are taken yearly from the
bays of the Sea-coast province.
[5] They sailed round Cape Horn to Siberia, but met with foul weather,
which delayed them for a whole season, and initiated their failure. Not
having the means to return to Finland, they were getting their living
as best they could. The commander of the _Onon_, Captain Stjerncreutz,
was one of them. I discovered that he was a cousin of Miss Heijkel,
my fellow-passenger in Finland in 1876, who, to help me in procuring
a horse, introduced me to the family I have mentioned at Wasa. This
was the third Finlander I chanced to meet in Siberia with whom I could
claim a sort of acquaintance.
[6] Many ranges of terraces and secondary summits surround the mountain
as with an enormous pedestal, so that its base has a circumference
of not less than 200 miles. The fissured summit constantly smokes,
and twice or thrice a year throws out cinders. Ashes and dust have
sometimes been carried to a distance of 180 miles, and covered the
ground many inches deep, preventing the Kamchatdales from sledging. An
eruption in 1737 ejected much lava, and this, dissolving the glaciers,
poured into the neighbouring valleys a deluge of waters. In 1854
another stream of fire descended from Mount Kluchevsky. From the crater
of the Avasha, immediately behind Petropavlovsk, have been thrown at
the same time stones, lava, and water. The following are some of the
active volcanoes: Korakovsky, 11,200 feet; Chevelutch, 10,529; Jupanof,
8,478; Avatcha, 8,344; and the Great Tolbach, 7,618; whilst, of the
extinct volcanoes, Uchkin is the highest, with an elevation of 10,977
feet.
[7] Mr. Hill describes one lasting no less than eight minutes. During
the whole of this time rumbling and loud noises were heard beneath the
ground, and the earth trembled violently. Some of those who experienced
it said they thought at one moment that the earth was sinking beneath
them, and the sea about to rush in upon the land, and the next that
they were rising upon the crust of the crater of a volcano in terrible
eruption beneath the ground.
[8] Admiral Ricord, a former governor of Kamchatka, imported potatoes
for seed, and they were planted, but not taken up the following autumn.
The next year, being found abundant and good, they were allowed to
remain, where, dying and propagating continually, they yielded more
than were locally required. Mr. Hill accounts for the phenomenon by the
fact that neither damp nor frost could reach the potatoes; for though
in winter the snow covers the surface of the frozen ground, yet so
great in this vicinity is the internal volcanic heat that the earth is
quite dry, and never frozen below a few inches from the surface.
[9] They love sledging, and upon a journey of four or five days will
work from 14 to 16 hours out of the 24 without tasting food, the idea
of their masters being that, when travelling, the less food the dogs
receive, short of starvation, the better. The travelling sledge weighs
about 25 lbs. (a freight sledge is heavier), and a good team will
travel from 40 to 60 miles a day. When running, they must be paired
with dogs known to each other from puppies; and, should they happen
to cross the scent of a deer, so fond are they of its flesh that they
sometimes become utterly unmanageable, upset the sledge (or _nartee_,
as it is called), and leave the driver, it may be, to perish in the
snow.
[10] It is situated on the right shore of the splendid Bay of Avatcha,
which may claim with Rio Janeiro and San Francisco to be one of the
finest harbours in the world. It is perfectly protected from the winds,
and, transplanted to a more favourable position, it might be one of
the greatest of markets; but since the fishery of the whale in the
surrounding seas has lost its importance, Petropavlovsk has sunk from a
place of 1,000 inhabitants to one of 500. Mr. Dobell, who lived in the
peninsula five years, says that he found there many dykes and mounds,
from the existence of which he argues that the country was once thickly
populated.
[11] Their hospitality is carried even to excess. They visit one
another, for instance, during a month or six weeks, until the generous
host, finding his stock exhausted, gives the hint by serving up a
dish called “_tolkootha_,” a hodge-podge, composed of meat, fish, and
vegetables; upon which the guests depart the following day.
[12] The Russian calendar gives the following numbers to these peoples:
Kamchatdales, 4,360; Koriaks, 5,250; and Chukchees, 12,000. Mr.
Kennan, however, doubts this, and thinks that they do not exceed 5,000
altogether.
[13] The industrious little creatures store up their grain and roots
underground, covering them, _it is said_, before their migration,
with poisonous plants, to hinder other animals from eating them. The
Kamchatdales, in times of necessity, help themselves to these stores,
but do not fail to replace what they take by _caviar_, or remains of
fish, that they may not alarm such benevolent purveyors.
[14] Whalers have now to go much further north for their prey; the
sea-otter, with its precious skin, and the sea-lion are rarely seen on
the strand and rocks of Behring’s isle, and the sea-cow is completely
exterminated. The sea-bear, as Réclus calls it, but which I suspect
is that we know as the seal, was threatened also with extermination,
until the Americans purchased the monopoly of taking them on Russian
territory.