BERING'S REPORT 17 



supply of iron and tar and join me in Kamchatka in 1728. At the 

 mouth of the Bolshaya River we had to discharge the cargo into small 

 boats and take it to Bolsheretsk. This post had only 14 Russian houses. 

 The heav'er materials and part of the supplies were loaded into small 

 boats and sent up the Bystra River, 31 a stream with a swift current, 

 to within 120 versts of the Upper Kamchatka Post. That same 

 winter we left Bolsheretsk on dog teams for the Upper and Lower Kam- 

 chatka Posts. Each evening we made a camp in the snow and covered 

 over the opening. This country has some bad blizzards, called purgas, 32 

 and if a person is hit by one of them in an open place without having 

 time to construct a shelter he is in danger of being snowed over and 

 freezing to death. In the upper ostrog there are 17 houses; in the lower, 

 50; and in the other place, where the church is, there are 15 more. In 

 all three places there lived, during our stay, not more than 150 persons 

 [Russian]; their chief occupation is collecting tribute. The natives 

 who drove the teams that brought us over from Bolsheretsk prepared 

 300 poods of whale blubber from a whale that had been washed ashore 

 in the fall. In place of money they [the natives] were given Chinese 

 tobacco. In southern Kamchatka live the Kurils, in the northern the 

 Kamchadals. They have a common language, but there are a few minor 

 differences. A small number of these people are idolaters. The others 

 do not believe in anything and are strangers to all good customs (i 

 chuzhdi vsiakykh dobrykh obychaev). Neither the natives of Kamchatka 

 nor the Russians who live there sow any grain. Of domestic animals they 

 have only the dog, which is used for driving, hauling, and for furnishing 

 clothing. The food of the natives consists of fish, roots, berries, wild birds, 

 and sea animals in season. In the neighborhood of the Yakutsk monas- 

 tery, which is about a verst from the Kamchatka church, there are raised 

 at the present time oats, hemp, and radishes. Turnips are cultivated 

 in all three ostrogs, and they reach such a size as is seldom seen in Russia, 

 four of them making a pood. I took over to the monastery above 

 mentioned some rye and barley and had it sown, but whether it matured 

 or not I cannot tell, for sometimes early frosts kill the crop. In culti- 

 vating the soil the people are handicapped by lack of draft animals. 



From all aborigines under Russian jurisdiction tribute in fur is col- 

 lected. The natives have many evil practices. If a woman or a beast 

 gives birth to twins one of them must be killed at once. Not to do so 



31 The Bystra (Swift), a branch of the Bojshaya, is full of rapids and shoals and 

 is difficult to navigate. From Bolsheretsk to Lower Kamchatka Post the distance 

 is 883 versts. 



32 "The poorga raged with redoubled fury; the clouds of sleet rolled like a dark 

 smoke over the moor, and we were all so benumbed with cold that our teeth chat- 

 tered in our heads. The sleet, driven with such violence, had got into our clothes 

 and penetrated even under our parkas, and into our baggage." (Peter Dobell: 

 Travels in Kamchatka and Siberia, 2 vols., London, 1830; reference in Vol. I, p. 102.) 



