Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
Another century may perhaps elapse without bringing any serious disaster upon the little village; but after hearing the Kluchefskoi volcano rumble at a distance of sixty miles, and seeing the dense volumes of black vapour which it occasionally emitted, I felt entirely satisfied to give its volcanic majesty a wide berth, and wondered at the boldness of the Kamchadals in selecting such a site for their settlement.
"You see," he explained soberly, "these poor Kamchadals haven't got but one river to fish in, and that isn't a very big one, so they have made it run past their settlement five times, and by this ingenious contrivance they catch five times as many salmon as they would if it only passed once!" The Major was surprised into silence, and seemed to be considering some abstruse problem.
It reminded me faintly of a Roman triumph the Major, Dodd, and I being the victorious heroes, and the Kamchadals the captives, whom we had compelled to go sub jugum, and who now graced our triumphal entry into the Seven-hilled City.
All the natives in north-eastern Siberia, except the Kamchadals, Chuances, and Yukagirs, who are partially Russianised, may be referred to one or another of three great classes.
I only knew that we were half frozen and in a perfect wilderness of mountains. I had noticed several times within half an hour that our guide was holding frequent and anxious consultations with the other Kamchadals about our road, and that he seemed to be confused and in doubt as to the direction in which we ought to go. He now came to me with a gloomy face, and confessed that we were lost.
Were it not for the Wandering Koraks, who come to the relief of the starving people with their immense herds of reindeer, I firmly believe that the settled population of Siberia, including the Russians, Chuances, Yukagirs, and Kamchadals, would become extinct in less than fifty years.
This did not weaken at all the faith of the Kamchadals in the efficacy of their atonement. If the storm did not abate, it was only because an unbelieving American with a diabolical brass box called a "come-pass'" had insisted upon crossing the mountains in defiance of the genius loci and all his tempestuous warnings.
In none of the Siberian tribes is this more marked than in the Kamchadals. They have evidently never been a warlike, combative people. They have no songs celebrating the heroic deeds of their ancestors, or their exploits in the chase or in battle, as have many tribes of our North American Indians.
There was no more meat, and the hardbread which remained was only a handful of water-soaked crumbs. He and all the Kamchadals, confidently expecting to meet the whale-boat at the Samanka River, had taken only three days' food. He had said nothing about it until the last moment, hoping that the whale-boat would arrive or something turn up; but it could no longer be concealed.
This wandering, isolated, independent existence has given to the Koraks all those characteristic traits of boldness, impatience of restraint, and perfect self-reliance, which distinguish them from the Kamchadals and the other settled inhabitants of Siberia. Give them a small herd of reindeer, and a moss steppe to wander over, and they ask nothing more from all the world.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking