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Their southern limit is the settlement of Tigil, on the west coast, where they come annually to trade, and they are rarely found north of the village of Penzhina, two hundred miles from the head of the Okhotsk Sea.
I remember that I was impressed with the inordinate quantities of champagne, cherry cordial, white rum, and "vodka" which its Russian inhabitants were capable of drinking, and thought that Tigil was a somewhat less ugly village than the generality of Kamchatkan towns, but nothing more.
I have once before, I believe, given the history of a bear hunt in which our party participated while crossing the Kamchatka tundra; but as that was a mere skirmish, which did not reflect any great credit upon the individuals concerned, I am tempted to relate one more bear adventure which befell us among the foot-hills of the Tigil mountains. It shall be positively the last.
Sometime during the same week, Dodd and Meranef returned from Tigil with a new supply of tea, sugar, rum, tobacco, and hardbread, and we began collecting dogs from the neighbouring settlements of Kinkil and Polan for another trip across the Samanka Mountains.
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.
He had been forty-two days on the road, and had travelled on dog-sledges nearly twelve hundred miles, with no companions except a few natives and a Cossack from Tigil. He seemed disposed to look upon this achievement very modestly, but in some respects it was one of the most remarkable journeys ever made by one of the Company's employés.
He determined, therefore, to push on at all hazards to the frontier of the Korak steppes, and then cross them on horses, if possible. A whale-boat was purchased at Tigil, and forwarded with a native crew to Lesnoi, so that in case we failed to get over the Korak steppes we might cross the head of the Okhotsk Sea to Gizhiga by water before the setting in of winter.
The scenery from this point in clear weather must be magnificent, as it overlooks the Tigil Valley and the Okhotsk Sea on one side, and the Pacific Ocean, the valleys of the Yolofka and the Kamchatka, and the grand peaks of Suveilich and Kluchefskoi on the other.
Sad is the lot of children born in such a place. Until they are old enough to climb up the chimney pole they never see the outside world. The weather on the day after our arrival at Shestakóva was much better, and our Cossack Meranef, who was on his way back to Tigil, bade us good-bye, and started with two or three natives for Kamenoi.
It would have been wiser, perhaps, for us to wait patiently at Tigil until the establishment of winter travel upon dog-sledges; but the Major feared that the chief engineer of the enterprise might have landed a party of men in the dangerous region around Bering Strait, and he was anxious to get where he could find out something about it as soon as possible.
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