VIII.] THE POPE OF KLUCHI. 173 



flood at one of theii- ancient burial-places,- — a treasure that 1 

 joyfully accepted.^ 



We had taken up our quarters at the house of the head-man, 

 and on my return thither I found that the pope had arrived to 

 pay us a %dsit. His appearance was not prepossessing, and un- 

 kempt hair, a very fully-developed squint, and a total absence of 

 conversation rendered him decidedly uninteresting as a companion. 

 But he brought us two remarkably fine cabbages as a present, for 

 which unaccustomed luxury we felt very grateful. We learnt 

 that there were only nine priests or popes in the whole of 

 Kamschatka. Like the doctors, they are paid by the Government, 

 but they also receive tithes in kind from the people. They come 

 for the most part from Siberia, and socially rank little, if at all, 

 above the peasantry. This gentleman, for example, had married 

 the sister of one of the horse-boys we had brought with us from 

 Petropaulovsky to Sherowmy, who had been sable-hunting with 

 Jacof Ivanovitch at the Kronotsky Lake during the preceding 

 winter. We called on her to thank her for the present, and found 

 her a homely litttle woman with a much larger fund of conversation 

 than her husband. On leaving the house a grey -bearded old 

 man rushed out upon me, seized and kissed my hand, em- 

 braced me, patted me on the back, and poured out a torrent 

 of unintelligibility which led me to the extremely English 

 conclusion that he was drunk. I had wronged him. Afanasi 

 was at hand, and gave me a 2^'^^^^'^^ rendering of his speech. 

 He was merely expressing his delight at meeting with a Euro- 

 pean traveller ! 



The doctor had arrived to pay us another farewell visit when I 

 again reached our house. We had many attractions for him ; 

 some of them in bottle. Poor old fellow ; his sorrow at parting 

 with us was too much for him, and when we turned round and 

 discovered the Hennessey at the lowest ebb, it gave us almost pain 

 to have to sign to Louis to remove it. 



^ Vide "Journal Authrop. lust," Vol. xvi., No. 1, p. 21. 



