104 KAMSCHATKA. [chap. 



go along, an annoying habit of which it was impossible to break 

 them. Their ordinary load is from six to seven pood.'^ 



It was not long before the presence of some large poplars ahead, 

 combined with certain whiffs of decaying fish, to which no description 

 can do justice, warned us that we were in the neighbourhood of a 

 river; and the howls of sledge-dogs presently greeted us as we 

 arrived at the settlement of Gunal. We found some of the 

 mhabitants engaged in making a bridge, — really a very creditable 

 affair, as the river here is about twenty-five yards broad, with a 

 channel some six feet or more in depth. Above the village this 

 stream — the Bolchaia-reka, or Great Bolcheresk Elver — splits into 

 two or three branches, which reunite a quarter of a mile lower, 

 after having received two rapid, but shallow little afliuents from 

 the west. 



Gunal is a most picturesquely-situated little hamlet of about 

 twenty huts, and has a population of ninety-four souls, who are 

 all, without exception, the descendants of Eussians who established 

 themselves here with Kamschatdale wives in the last century. 

 The latter people are now rare as a pure race, excepting upon the 

 western side of the peninsula. The Gunalians are all Christians, 

 and have built themselves a church, — a small log-cabin surmounted 

 with a cross. "Within the same enclosure, but separate, just as in 

 Xorthern Sweden, is a little belfry with a single bell, time-worn 

 and defaced. Owmg to its inaccessibility, w^e were unable to read 

 the inscription with which it was adorned. The church is 

 j)arsonless. There are but three popes for the whole of the vast 

 district lying between Petropaulovsky and the mouth of the Kams- 

 chatka Eiver. Here the nearest is at Melcova, a hundred versts or 

 more away; and once in every four months he comes in, marries and 

 buries such of his parishioners as need it, holds service, and de- 

 parts. He has not much to do, for the people are both apathetic and 

 long-lived. In the little churchyard hard by there were scarcely 

 twenty graves. They were marked by Eussian crosses with a little 



1 A pood is equal to 36 lbs. Euglish. 



