Kamchatka

“ The chief complaint among military men at this dreary outpost is that they have nothing to do in the way of fighting to keep their hands in.
The aboriginal inhabitants of Kamchatka are divided into three distinct races: the Koriaks, in the north, the Kamchatdales, in the south, and the Kuriles, a tribe inhabiting the islands of that name, which, lying to the southward of Kamchatka, were lately ceded by Russia to Japan in exchange for the island of Sakhalien. ”

“ The population of Kamchatka is roughly estimated at four thousand souls, about five hundred of whom reside at the capital, Petropaulosk, on the eastern coast, which is said to possess the finest harbour in the world, and where the allied French and English fleets were repulsed by the Russians during the Crimean war. The aboriginal tribes, however, are seldom met with in or near the capital, where society consists almost entirely of Government officers and Cossacks, stationed here to preserve law and order among these remote subjects of the Czar, who, however, give them little or no trouble. ”

“ Quite unconscious of the worth of the fur, the castaway sailors fell on these visitors to the kelp-beds and clubbed right and left, for skins to protect their nakedness from the biting winter winds.
It was the news of the sea wealth brought to Kamchatka by Bering's men that sent traders scurrying to the Aleutian Islands and Alaskan shores. Henceforth Siberian merchants were to vie with each other in outfitting hunters—criminals, political exiles, refugees, destitute sailors—to scour the coasts of America for sea-otter. ”

“ This vessel ought to be built at Kamchatka, as at this place more available timber is found than at other places [on the east coast] ; moreover, provisions for the crew, fish and other animals are easily obtained. Besides, greater assistance can be obtained from the Kamchadales than from the inhabitants of Okhotsk. (3) It would not be without advantage to find out the sea-route from Okhotsk or Kamchatka to the mouth of the Amoor and farther on to the Japan Islands, as we there have hopes of finding inhabited regions. ”

“ Bering’s name has ever since been attached to the island where he died.
There is no doubt that Kamchatka would repay a detailed exploration, which it [pg 137] has never yet received. It is a partially settled country. The Kamchatdales are a good-humoured, harmless, and semi-civilised race, and the Russian officials and settlers at the few little towns would gladly welcome the traveller. The dogs used for sledging in winter are noble animals, infinitely stronger than those of Alaska or even Greenland. The attractions for the Alpine climber cannot be overstated. ”

“ Under the greatest difficulties, the expedition now followed the course of the Kamchatka River, camping at night in the snow, and enduring many a fierce struggle with the inclement weather. The natives were summoned from far and near to assist in transporting their goods, but the undertaking proved fatal to many of them. Finally on March 11, 1728, Bering reached his destination, the lower Kamchatka Ostrog, [11] where he found forty huts scattered along the banks of the river, a fort, and a church. A handful of Cossacks lived here. They occupied huts built above the surface of the ground. ”

“ The men set to work cutting the timber for the ships that were to cross from Okhotsk to the east shore of Kamchatka; for Bering's ships of the first voyage could now be used only as packet boats.
Not till the fourth of June, 1741, had all preparations ripened for the fulfilment of Czar Peter's dying wishes to extend his empire into America. Two vessels, the St. Peter and the St. Paul, rode at anchor at Petropaulovsk in the Bay of Avacha on the east coast of Kamchatka. On the shore was a little palisaded fort of some fifty huts, a barrack, a chapel, a powder magazine. ”

“ It will thus be seen that life in a Kamchatkan settlement, gastronomically considered, is not altogether so disagreeable as we have been led to believe. I have seen natives in the valley of the Kamchatka as pleasantly situated, and enjoying as much comfort and almost as many luxuries, as nine tenths of the settlers upon the frontiers of our western States and Territories. ”

“ Bering's next objective point was the mouth of the river Bolshoya in southwestern Kamchatka. From the mouth of this river, which is navigable for small vessels, he took the Cossack route to the interior, first up the Bolshoya to the tributary Byistraya, then up this to within forty versts of its source, thence across a portage to the Kamchatka, the mouth of which was his real objective point. ”

“ Trees not indigenous to Kamchatka had been seen floating near the shores, no heavy breakers ever proceeded from the eastward and it was even alleged that land or the loom of land might be seen to the east from the coast mountains in very clear weather. On account of these and other reasons14 which were urged by residents of the country, Bering determined to make a new trial. Instead of proceeding directly to Okhotsk across Kamchatka he fitted out the Gabriel for another voyage. ”

“ Always expanding along lines of least resistance; absorbing by comparatively petty conquests, decaying or scanty peoples; reaching Kamchatka in the Far East with more ease than she reached the shores of the Baltic; never flinging her legions far and wide victoriously as did Rome, Spain, France or Great Britain—Russia remains to-day, for the most part, humble, and, in reality, a conquered people, living, dreaming and preaching a morality born both of this humility and of the physical environment that has helped to foster it. ”

“ The Great Northern Expedition was ushered in by "the first expedition to Kamchatka". The commander of this expedition was the Dane VITUS BEHRING, who was accompanied by Lieutenant MORTON SPANGBERG, also a Dane by birth, and ALEXEI CHIRIKOV They left St. Petersburg in February 1725, and took the land route across Siberia, carrying with them the necessary materials with which in Kamchatka to build and equip the vessel with which they should make their voyage of exploration. ”

“ It is certain that the residents of Kamchatka and others more or less familiar with the reports of Cossack explorations in Chukchi-land were not altogether satisfied with the summary manner in which exploration had been given up by Bering, and his apparent assumption that there was no adjacent land to the eastward except small islands. ”

“ North of the village opens the long narrow valley of Genal—the most beautiful as well as the most fertile spot in all the Kamchatkan peninsula. It is about thirty miles in length, and averages three in breadth, and is bounded on both sides by chains of high snow-covered mountains, which stretch away from Malqua in a long vista of white ragged peaks and sharp cliffs, almost to the head-waters of the Kamchatka River. ”

“ Since Bering would not and could not take upon himself to transport them to Kamchatka as comfortably as he had thus far conveyed them, especially not from Okhotsk, in private and conveniently equipped vessels, and since the Voivode likewise gave them but little hope of support, both Gmelin and Müller made application for a release from the expedition, and left to Krasheninnikoff and Steller their principal task—the description of Kamchatka. ”

“ Of these people some are idolaters, others believe in nothing and are strangers to all honesty. The Russians who live in Kamchatka and the indigenes grow no grain and have no domestic animals except draught dogs. They dress and subsist upon what they can get, principally fish, roots and berries, in summer time wild fowl and large marine animals. At present in the wilderness of Yakutsk, the convent, which is of the same age as the Kamchatka churches, cultivates barley, hemp and turnips. ”

“ For the ascent of the shallow river small boats had been built as I desired that the outfit and the most necessary part of the provisions should be transported to the upper Kamchatka post, a distance of 120 versts by water. The transportation between Bolsheretsk and Upper and Lower Kamchatka in winter was entirely carried on by the use of the native dogs. Every evening it is necessary to dig out the camp in the snow, in order to get shelter from whirlwinds of snow which in this region are called poorga. ”

“ The Russian hunters cast conscience and fear to the winds. Who could know? God did not seem to see; and it was two thousand miles to the home fort in Kamchatka. When the hunt was poor, children were brained with clubbed rifles, women knouted to death before the eyes of husbands and fathers. In 1745 a whole village of Aleuts had poison put in their food by the Russians. ”

“ Strahlenberg must have collected the main details of this voyage by oral communications from Russian hunters and traders.
[303] According to Müller Krascheninnikov (Histoire et description du Kamtschatka, Amsterdam, 1770, ii. p. 292) states, evidently from information obtained in Kamchatka, that the river Nikul is called Feodotovchina after Feodot Alexejev, who not only penetrated thither, but also sailed round the southern promontory of Kamchatka to the River Tigil where he and his followers perished in the way described by Müller. ”

“ From the fort on the Anadyr, Kamchatka was conquered in the first years of the eighteenth century, and from here came the first information concerning America. In 1711 the Cossack Popoff visited the Chukchee peninsula, and here he heard that from either side of the peninsula, both from the "Kolymaic" Sea and the Gulf of Anadyr, an island could be seen in the distance, which the Chukchees called "the great land." This land they said they could reach in baidars (boats rowed by women) in one day. ”

“ Half way between the Kamchatka River and the coast the variation was observed to be one point easterly, and off Avatcha Bay three-quarters of a point easterly.
[15 Lauridsen says July, which is erroneous.]
In the American translation of Lauridsen it is said (p. 51) that Bering fixed the difference of latitude (for which one should read longitude) between Bolsheretsk and Lower Kamchatka Ostrog at 6° 29'. But on Bering's maps the difference is only 3° 50', while in his list of positions no longitude is assigned to Lower Kamchatka post. ”

“ Neither from the Chukchi coast nor to the eastward could any extension of the land be observed. If we should continue on our course and happen to have contrary winds we could not get back to Kamchatka before the close of navigation and might be obliged to winter in that region, not only without a harbor, but where no fuel could anywhere be obtained, where the native people do not acknowledge the authority of the Russian government, but are wholly independent and united against us in refusing to pay tribute. ”

“ Leaders bring high prices on account of their superior docility and the labor of training them. Epidemics are frequent among dogs and carry off great numbers of them. Hydrophobia is a common occurrence.
The Russian inhabitants of Kamchatka are mostly descended from Cossacks and exiles. There is a fair but not undue proportion of half breeds, the natural result of marriage between natives and immigrants. There are about four hundred Russians at Petropavlovsk, and the same number at each of two other points. ”

“ Spanberg was ordered to Bolsheretsk "on account of illness" (L.) , and it is possible he took the Fortuna back there since she had already returned to Bolsheretsk when Bering reached that port, on his way to Okhotsk.
[14 The natives even claimed that a man had been stranded on the coast of Kamchatka in 1715, who stated that his own country lay to the eastward and contained forests with high trees and large rivers. (Lauridsen, op. cit. Am. ed. p. 51) . Bering himself states that he made the search of 1729 at the instance of the Kamchatkan residents.] ”

“ The price paid to the Kamchadals for an average sable skin in 1867 was nominally fifteen rubles silver, or about eleven dollars gold; but payment was made in tea, sugar, tobacco, and sundry other articles of merchandise, at the trader's own valuation, so that the natives actually realised only a little more than half the nominal price. Nearly all the inhabitants of central Kamchatka are engaged directly or indirectly during the winter in the sable trade and many of them have acquired by it a comfortable independence. ”

“ The inhabitants of these native settlements in southern Kamchatka are a dark swarthy race, considerably below the average stature of Siberian natives, and are very different in all their characteristics from the wandering tribes of Koraks and Chukchis who live farther north. The men average perhaps five feet three or four inches in height, have broad flat faces, prominent cheek bones, small and rather sunken eyes, no beards, long, lank, black hair, small hands and feet, very slender limbs, and a tendency to enlargement and protrusion of the abdomen. ”

“ During the seventeenth century the Russians were gradually pushing towards China by way of Siberia. In 1581 a Cossack made himself master of the country round the lower course of the River Irtish; early in the next century the Sea of Okhotsk was reached by Russian hunters; in the middle of the century the River Amur was navigated to the sea; and by its end Kamchatka had been explored, and a treaty had been concluded with the rulers of China. In 1768 and the following years an organized exploration of the whole of the Russian Empire was undertaken. ”