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Updated: July 5, 2025
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. 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.
Only seven more Kamchadal towns lay between us and the steppes of the Wandering Koraks, and we had not yet been able to think of any plan of crossing these inhospitable wastes before the winter's snows should make them passable on reindeer-sledges.
It was one o'clock in the morning dark, rainy, and dismal but the moon was supposed to have risen, and our Kamchadal boatmen said that it was light enough to start. I didn't believe that it was, but my sleepily expressed opinions had no weight with the Major, and my protests were utterly ignored.
The most noticeable peculiarity of this, as of all the other Kamchadal houses which we saw in southern Kamchatka, was the lowness of its doors.
I learned during these Kamchatkan Nights' Entertainments many interesting particulars of Kamchadal life, customs, and peculiarities of which I had before known nothing; and, as I shall have no occasion hereafter to speak of this curious little-known people, I may as well give here what account I can of their language, music, amusements, superstitions, and mode of life.
The language, music, amusements, and superstitions of a people are much more valuable as illustrations of their real character than are their regular occupations. The Kamchadal language is to me one of the most curious of all the wild tongues of Asia; not on account of its construction, but simply from the strange, uncouth sounds with which it abounds, and its strangling, gurgling articulation.
The excitement which this alarming announcement created can better be imagined than described. The all-absorbing topic of conversation was, how could Milkova best show its loyalty and admiration for the Head of the Imperial Family, the Right Arm of the Holy Orthodox Church, and the Mighty Monarch of seventy millions of devoted souls? Kamchadal ingenuity gave it up in despair!
Fishing and sable-hunting, therefore, are the serious occupations of the Kamchadals throughout the year; but as these are indications of the nature of the country rather than of the characteristics of its inhabitants, they give only an imperfect idea of the distinctive peculiarities of Kamchadals and Kamchadal life.
Our native crew, sharing in the universal dissipation which had attended our departure, and wholly unaccustomed to such reckless drinking, were reduced by this time to a comical state of happy imbecility, in which they sang Kamchadal songs, blessed the Americans, and fell overboard alternately, without contributing in any marked degree to the successful navigation of our heavy whale-boat.
Two natives, dressed in fur coats and trousers, approached us with violent gesticulations, shouting to us in Russian not to shoot, and holding up something white, like a flag of truce. As soon as they came near enough one of them handed me a wet, dirty piece of paper, with a low bow, and I recognised him as a Kamchadal from Lesnoi. They were messengers from the Major!
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