IV.] AGRICULTURE OF THE PENINSULA. 77 



Eussian cruiser, and, if her officers should chance to be as excellent 

 companions as I have on every occasion found those with whom I 

 have been brought into contact, a traveller might possibly get 

 the offer of a passage, which, if he has command of the French 

 language, a strong head, and an unlimited capacity for sweet 

 champagne, should be enjoyable enough. A steamer, or steamers, 

 belonging to the Alaska Commercial Company make two voyages 

 annually to the port, to ship the furs awaiting them there and at 

 Bering Island. They start from Yokohama, and it would no doubt 

 be possible to obtain a passage. On leaving Kamschatka for the 

 second time, however, these ships do not return south, but proceed 

 direct to San Francisco. 



The weather upon our arrival was pleasant and invigorating 

 to a degree ; the days absolutely hot, with a brilliant sun and 

 wonderfully clear atmosphere, and the nights cold, but bright. 

 But for the mosquitoes nothing could have been more enjoyable. 

 These pests, which render life in a northern climate almost unbear- 

 able during the summer, were not very numerous in Petropaulovsky 

 itself, but in some parts of Avatcha Bay we found them abundant, 

 while in others not one was to be seen. As every one knows, 

 the presence of these insects is almost always dependent on the 

 existence of marsh, low-lying ground, or clumps of birches and 

 other trees in the neighbourhood ; but here, oddly enough, we found 

 no such reasons to account for their erratic distribution. The little 

 gardens of the settlement were aglow with bright flowers, though 

 choked with weeds and coarse grass. But little cultivation was to 

 be seen ; a few patches of potatoes, cabbages, and such like garden 

 produce, surround the cottages here and there, but there are no 

 cereals. Eye ripens in some parts of the valley of the Kamschatka 

 Eiver, and would probably do so here, according to Dr. Dybow\ski, 

 but its growth is not attempted. To the Kamschatkan the harvest 

 of the river and the sea is an affair of such supreme importance, 

 and demands so much of his time, that he has but little leisure for 

 amculture even if he had the inclination. 



