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No ship had visited Ohotsk for nearly a year before our arrival, though half a dozen whalers had passed in sight. A steamer goes annually from the Amoor with a supply of flour and salt on government account. The mail comes once a year, so that the postmaster has very little to do for three hundred and sixty-four days.
"But true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, We'll trim our broad sail as before; And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, Nor ask how we look from the shore." On the Ohotsk Sea we had calms with light winds, and made very slow progress. One day while the men were exercising at the guns, the look out reported a sail.
Among the Chukchees a deer can be purchased for a pound of tobacco, but the price increases as one travels southward. With the Koriaks it is four or five roubles, at Ohotsk ten or fifteen, and on the banks of the Amoor not often less than fifty. South of the Amoor the reindeer is not a native. I am inclined to discredit marry stories of the wonderful swiftness of this animal.
He had in his store about half a cord of walrus teeth piled against a back entrance like stove wood. Phillipeus was a roving blade. He kept an agent at Petropavlovsk and came there in person once a year. In February he left St. Petersburg for London, whence he took the Red Sea route to Japan. There he chartered a brig to visit Kamchatka and land him at Ayan, on the Ohotsk Sea.
They row the pilot boat when needed, travel on courier or other service, guard the warehouses, and when not wanted by government labor and get drunk for themselves. The governor was a native of Poland, and it struck me as a curious fact that the ispravniks of Kamchatka, Ghijiga, and Ohotsk were Poles. Cows and dogs are the only stock maintained at Ohotsk.
Supplies for Kamchatka and Russian America were brought overland from Yakutsk and shipped to Petropavlovsk, Sitka, and other points under Russian control. Many ships for the Pacific Ocean and Ohotsk sea were built there. I was shown the spot where Bering's vessel was constructed, with its cordage and extra sails of deerskin, and its caulking of moss.
Approaching Ohotsk a fog bank shut out the land for an hour or two, and when it lifted we discovered the harbor. A small sand-bar intervened between the ocean and the town, but did not intercept the view. As at Petropavlovsk, the church was the most prominent object and formed an excellent landmark.
When at Ohotsk I went to the bank of the river as the tide was coming in, and watched the dogs at their work. Wading on the sand bars and mud flats till the water was almost over their backs, they stood like statues for several minutes. Waiting till a salmon was fairly within reach, a dog would snap at him with such accuracy of aim that he rarely missed.
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