KAMCHATKAN DOGS 219 



despatched for boats to convey us across the bay. 

 We found the water in the river had considerably 

 subsided, and, according to the General, it would be 

 no easy matter to negotiate the bar outside. There 

 we paid off the men, and bade farewell to those useful 

 companions of our short incursion ; I was less sorry 

 to leave the ponies, the most vicious of their kind. 

 Our host took us round his " kennels," where about 

 sixty dogs of the pure Kamchatka breed greeted us 

 from their holes with a deafening concert of whines. 

 One of them specially struck me by his good looks, 

 and I inquired of his master if he would consent to 

 part with him, upon which I was asked twenty-five 

 roubles for the dosf, and obtained him for fifteen. It 

 was a fine specimen of a native sable-hunting dog, 

 with a thick snow-white coat and pricked ears. We 

 named him " Kam," and brought him eventually back 

 to England, where he lost his good nature, and became 

 so fierce that no one dared approach him. Having 

 been constantly fed on salmon, he refused for a long- 

 time any other food, and the change of climate and 

 habits produced a disastrous effect upon him. 



The neighbouring hamlet, Stary-Ostrog, only four 

 versts distant, so I was informed, was never visited 

 by mosquitoes, whilst they swarmed at Khutor. This 

 curious fact, like manv others in nature, remains as 



