X.] THE PEOPLES OF THE PENINSULA. 22V 



the roubles would no doubt start for Petropaulovsky, and turn 

 them into vodky without loss of time. 



We could make out nothing about the nationality of the people 

 of this village. We had been told that some Aleuts from the Berinsj 

 group had settled in this neighbourhood, but it seems that the 

 Kurile islanders have also passed northward, and established them- 

 selves on the coast near Cape Lopatka. To us it appeared that 

 they did not differ appreciably from the Kamschatdale type, but 

 the opinion of a mere passer-by on these matters is usually 

 valueless. Nothing certain is at present known of the origin of the 

 Kamschatdales and Koriaks — the aboriginal tribes of the peninsula. 

 Both appear to have become greatly reduced in numbers since the 

 Eussian conquest. As a pure race the Kamschatdales are now rare, 

 except on the western side of the country. The Koriaks rarely or 

 never come south of the Tigil Eiver. They are a nomad race like 

 the Lapps, owning reindeer and living in movable tents, and, like 

 them, coming down to the lower ground in winter. Both these 

 tribes belong to the "Hyperborean" unclassified group, and Mr. 

 Keane^ considers the Koriak as probably the parent stock of the 

 sub-arctic races of this part of the globe. Their language as shown 

 by the vocabulary of M. de Lesseps, although bearing but a faint 

 resemblance to the Kamschatdale, is closely allied to that of the 

 Tchuktchi tribe in the region of the Anadyr, and it is possible that, 

 ethnically as well as geographically, they form a connecting link 

 between these two latter peoples." 



I am not aware that the presence of Lamuts in Kamschatka 

 has ever been recorded by previous writers, but while on our 

 journey through the country we were told by Afanasi Waren 



^ "Asia." Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel. 



" The accidental immigration of Japanese must be regarded as a not unimportant 

 factor in the composition of the Kamschatdale race. Short as is the period that has 

 elapsed since the Russian conquest, it has furnished several instances, recorded by 

 Krasheninikov, of Japanese junks having been driven from their course and wrecked 

 on the shores of the peninsula. This chance peopling of the country has, no doubt, 

 been going on for centuries, and it is probable that but few of the immigrants ever 

 regained their native land. 



