2C4 AVOYAGETO 



»779- and forms the principal difficult v of their art. But it is 



May. i 



<. — s-~j indeed not furprifing, that they fhould labour to be fkil- 

 ful in a practice upon which their fafety fo materially de- 

 pends. For they fay, that if the driver fhould happen to lofe 

 his flick, the dogs will inflantly perceive it; and unlefs their 

 leader be of the mod fober and rcfolute kind, they will im- 

 mediately run a-hcad full fpecd, and never flop till they are 

 quite fpent. But as that will not be the cafe foon, it gene- 

 rally happens, that either the carriage is overturned, and 

 dafhed to pieces againfl the trees, or they hurry down fome 

 precipice, and are all buried in the mow. The accounts 

 that were given us of the fpeed of thefe dogs, and of their 

 extraordinary patience of hunger and fatigue, were fcarcely 

 credible, if they had not been fupported by the befl autho- 

 rity. We were indeed ourfclvcs witnefTes of the great 

 expedition with which the mefTenger, who had been dif- 

 patched to Bolchcretfk with the news of our arrival, re- 

 turned to the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul, though the 

 mow was, at this time, exceedingly foft. But I was in- 

 formed, by the Commander of Kamtfchatka, that this jour- 

 ney was generally performed in two days and a half; and 

 that he had once received an exprefs from the latter place in 

 twenty-three hours. 



The dogs are fed, during the winter, on the offals of 

 ied and finking fifh ; but are always deprived of this mi- 

 ferable food, a day before they fct out on a journey, and 

 never fuffered to eat bcrorc they reach the end of it. We 

 were alio told, that it was not unufual for them to continue 

 thus falling two entire days, in which time they would per- 

 form a journey of one hundred and twenty miles ; . Thefe 



dogs 



* Extraordinary as this may appear, Krafchininikofr", whofe account of Kamt- 

 | atka, from every thing that 1 f.iw, and had an opportunity of comparing it with, 



feems 



