74 KAMSGHATKA. [chap. 



between the hills, rises the snowy cone of Koriatska ; and the store- 

 house of the Alaska Commercial Company, painted the dull Indian 

 red that is so favourite a shade throughout Sw^eden, forms a 

 pleasing patch of colour in the foreground. It did not take us long 

 to make acquaintance with Petropaulovsky, in spite of its imposing 

 name. The inhabitants, we found, called it Petropaulsk, and, in 

 short, showed every disposition to make things easy for their 

 visitors. Salmon and bilberries were sent off to us, and, on our 

 remarking upon the presence of cows, a supply of cream and 

 iDutter was not long in following. Society here is limited, the 

 Europeans being but eight or ten in number. Mr, Lugobil, the 

 local head of the Alaska Commercial Company, resides here, and 

 superintends the shipping of the sealskins from Bermg and Copper 

 Islands ; as does Captain Hunter, the cheery agent of Phillippeus 

 and Company, another firm of fur-traders. Of stores (the American 

 term is in use here) there are but two. One of them was ow^ned 

 by a kindly old Swede, who also acted in the capacity of Mayor, 

 He had not visited his native land for thirty years, and it was 

 evidently a source of the keenest pleasure to him to talk of it to 

 one of us who knew it, and loved it almost as much as he did him- 

 self. The town is now no longer a military post, and the barracks 

 and fortifications, razed to the ground by the English in 1855, have 

 never been rebuilt. The entire authority is vested in the Ispravnik, 

 whom, in spite of the exigencies of his profession, we did not find 

 averse to the seductions of trade. A Russo- American Jew, better 

 known as the King of Kamschatka, of whom the Russian Govern- 

 ment was extremely anxious to get rid, completed, with Dr, 

 Dybowski, the list of Europeans of the sterner sex. The ladies 

 were only four in number. 



With Dr, Dybowski, who has acquired a European fame as a 

 naturalist, it was a pleasure to make acquaintance. His life had 

 been an eventful one. Imprisoned in Siberia for some time for taking 

 part in the Polish insurrection, he had eventually been pardoned 

 and made government doctor of Kamschatka, in which capacity he 



