90 



TWO HUNDRED MILES IP TEE KUSKOKWJM 



following da} 7 they proceeded up a winding channel whose banks 

 were clad with pine trees forty feet high, and finally reached 

 Kikkhlagamute, where they counted fifty birch-bark canoes, 

 which here begin to replace skin ones. The village contained 

 216 people and was situated in a low,' marshy ground, with an 

 abundance of mosquitoes. On the 27th of June they stopped at 

 a small Eskimo fishing station, where they met a white mining 

 prospector coming down. The villages of Akiagamute, Iulukiak, 

 and Kivigalogamute were afterward successively passed, and the 

 following day found them at the fishing station of an enterpris- 

 ing half-breed, when rain began falling, the first of any conse- 

 quence since they left Unalaska on the 16th of May. Still 

 proceeding up river, more villages — Ugavik, Kalkhagamute, 

 Ookhogamute — were passed, all under the influence and civili- 

 zation of the Greek church, and at last, after a journey of 9 days, 

 the great focal trade center of this district, Kolmakovsky, was 

 reached. Ranges of snow-covered mountains were visible the day 

 previous, with foothills clacl with pine, up whose somber glens 

 favorable glimpses were had at times. Kolmakovsky consists of 

 7 log buildings, built in the form of a square, including a church 

 and a hexagonal block-house built 50 years ago. It stands on 



KOLMAKOVSKY 



