106 KAMSCHATKA. [chap. 



pretentious type, but possessed, nevertheless, of a quiet beauty 

 so perfect in its kind that the most fastidious of critics would 

 have sought no alteration. Below our camp the river clattered 

 between its banks of yellowing birches towards some snow-capped 

 mountains that distance had painted a deep violet. The village, 

 grey, battered and weather-worn, as are all these northern hamlets, 

 nestled at the foot of the three peculiar peaks of the eastern range 

 of the valley. Not a human being was to be seen, and the smoke 

 of our evening camp-fire rose like a straight blue pillar into a 

 golden sky. Around us was a stillness that could be felt, — the 

 wondrous silence of the North ; and on the summit of the little 

 cross above the church a crow sat motionless in the evening sun, 

 — a speck of steely blue against the snow beyond. 



Gunal, with its enormous stores of sahnon, seemed, like all 

 these Kamschatkan villages, a place of considerable size. A 

 nearer acquaintance, however, soon dispelled the illusion, and we 

 noticed that a large proportion of balagans seemed to be used as 

 storehouses rather than dwellings. These buildings, which differ 

 from the fish-sheds only in having a living-room at the top, and 

 being consequently rather more solidly constructed, are rudely 

 made of white poplar or birch trunks, pines being comparatively 

 unknown in this part of the country. There ai'e rarely more than 

 two — at most three — tiers of fish drying beneath, for the sledge- 

 dog is an active and ever-hungTy animal, and six feet would be a 

 dangerous height at which to suspend a salmon. The roof is high- 

 pitched, and the thatch secured by means of light poles tied 

 transversely across it. The entrance, a low door in the gable, is 

 reached by a sort of ladder specially contrived for the humiliation 

 of the unwary. It is merely a notched pole, placed loosely against 

 the building, and not secured in any way ; and the incautious 

 European attempting the ascent is somewhat astonished to find 

 the pole rapidly revolving, lea^dng him clinging back downwards 

 and discomfited. This simple arrangement, if capable of being put 

 in action at will, might possibly be of considerable utility to those 



