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I have very sincere and hearty admiration for many Wandering Koraks whom I met on the great Siberian tundras but their settled relatives are the worst specimens of men that I ever saw in all northern Asia, from Bering Strait to the Ural Mountains.
We found it to be true, as we had been told by the Russians and the Kamchadals, that the Koraks murdered all their old people as soon as sickness or the infirmities of age unfitted them for the hardships of a nomadic life.
We were treated by many bands with as much kindness and generous hospitality as I ever experienced in a civilised country and among Christian people; and if I had no money or friends, I would appeal to a band of Wandering Koraks for help with much more confidence than I should ask the same favour of many an American family.
Under the shelter of their snowy slopes we camped for the last time in the smoky tents of the Kamchatkan Koraks, ate for the last time from their wooden troughs, and bade good-by with little regret to the desolate steppes of the peninsula and to tent life with its wandering people.
At Kuil, on the coast of Penzhinsk Gulf, I was compelled to leave my good-humoured Cossacks and take for drivers half a dozen stupid, sullen, shaven-headed Koraks, and from that time I was more lonesome than ever.
The marriage ceremony of the Koraks is especially remarkable for its entire originality, and for the indifference which it manifests to the sensibilities of the bridegroom.
We had hoped to get some valuable hints from the Koraks as to the best method which their experience suggested for the successful accomplishment of this delicate task; but we could learn nothing that would be applicable to the more artificial relations of civilised society.
Notwithstanding this democratic independence of the Koraks, they are almost invariably hospitable, obliging, and kind-hearted; and we were assured at the first encampment where we stopped, that we should have no difficulty in getting the different bands to carry us on deer-sledges from one encampment to another until we should reach the head of Penzhinsk Gulf.
Aside from the sacrifices which are ordered by the shamans, the Koraks offer general oblations at least twice a year, to assure a good catch of fish and seal and a prosperous season. We frequently saw twenty or thirty dogs suspended by the necks on long poles over a single encampment.
Our party now numbered nine men two Americans, three Russians, and four Koraks and a wild-looking crowd it was, as it squatted around the fire in that low smoke-blackened hut, drinking tea and listening to the howling wind. As there was not room enough for all to sleep inside the yurt, the Koraks camped out-doors on the snow, and before morning were half buried in a drift.
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