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The table d'hôte of the Hôtel de Moscou at Tver was no exception to the general rule. In Russia, by the way, there are no exceptions to general rules. The personal habits of the native of Cronstadt differ in no way from those of the Czar's subject living in Petropavlovsk, eight thousand miles away.
Commander Bering died on the 8th of December, and was buried in the trench where he lay. The island where he perished bears his name, but his grave is unmarked. An iron monument to his memory was recently erected at Petropavlovsk. No human dwellers were found on the island. Foxes were numerous and had no fear of the shipwrecked mariners.
The courtly Chamberlain of the Tsar, Nicholas P. Resanof, son-in-law of Shelikof who was the founder of the first Russian colony in America, came to Sitka in 1805, via Petropavlovsk, Siberia, on the "Nadeshda," one of the first Russian ships to circumnavigate the world, and was a special representative of the Russian American Company, of which organization he was one of the founders.
Captain Sutton replied that all of the Company's vessels had been late in leaving San Francisco, and that he had also been detained some time in Petropavlovsk by circumstances explained in his letters. "What steamer is that lying at anchor beyond the Clara Bell?" inquired the Major. "That is the Russian corvette Varag, from Japan." "But what is she doing up here?"
On arriving, we were disappointed to find less than a hundred dogs at Petropavlovsk, as the rest of the canines belonging there were spending vacation in the country. About fifteen hundred were owned in the town. Very few Kamchadale dogs can bark, but they will howl oftener, longer, and louder than any 'yaller dog' that ever went to a cur pound or became sausage meat.
With the assistance of the Russian governor I succeeded in getting two Cossacks to go to Petropavlovsk after the Americans who were presumed to have been left there by the Onward, and half a dozen Koraks to carry provisions to Yamsk, while Lieutenant Arnold himself sent sledges for the six hundred rations.
During the night the monument was hastily constructed of wood and sheet iron, and fixed in the position to which the governor led his delighted guest. Captain Clerke, successor to Captain Cook, of Sandwich Island memory, died while his ships were in Avatcha Bay, and was buried at Petropavlovsk. A monument that formerly marked his grave has disappeared.
Next to Petropavlovsk, however, it is the most important settlement in the peninsula, and is the trading centre of the whole western coast. A Russian supply steamer and an American trading vessel touch at the mouth of the Tigil River every summer, and leave large quantities of rye flour, tea, sugar, cloth, copper kettles, tobacco, and strong Russian vodka, for distribution through the peninsula.
One day, about two years before my visit, a cow suddenly entered Petropavlovsk with a live bear on her back. The bear escaped unhurt, leaving the cow pretty well scratched. After that event she preferred to graze in or near the town, and never brought home another bear. Kamchatka without dogs would be like Hamlet without Hamlet.
Dodd and I went off in another roar of laughter, which puzzled poor Andrei more and more. "Where did you learn?" Dodd asked. "The sailors of a whaling-ship learned it to me when I was in Petropavlovsk, two years ago; isn't it a good song?" he said, evidently fearing that there might be something improper in the sentiment.
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