184 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
of a wash-bowl, and also warms the water without 
the expenditure of fuel. 
“ The harbour of Petropaulsky is on the east side 
of Avatcha Bay, and is formed by a narrow point of 
wooded bluff about half a mile in length, running 
out into the bay in a southerly direction. At the 
end of this point, on the harbour side, is a flat piece 
of low shingly ground, on which the Alaska Com¬ 
mercial Company have built three go-downs and a 
small wharf. The water being deep up to within a 
few feet of the beach, vessels can lie alongside this 
and discharge their cargoes. It is about half a mile 
to the shore on the opposite side of the harbour, 
where the hills rise with a gentle slope to a height 
of over 1,000 feet, with plenty of timber about their 
sides towards the summits. From the shore on the 
eastern side there runs out, almost at right angles, 
and very nearly across the middle of the harbour, a 
natural breakwater, a low, narrow, shingly spit with 
deep water close to it on both sides; the space 
between the end of this spit and the opposite beach 
is sufficiently wide and deep to allow a large ship to 
get into the inner harbour, as it is called, where she 
can lie as if in a dock. On the spit trees have been 
planted, and an iron monument erected to com¬ 
memorate the defeat of the British and French here 
in 1854. Beyond the village, under the northern 
end of the high bluffs which form the western side 
of the harbour, are two large mounds enclosed by 
a wooden fence. Beneath these mounds lie the 
remains of many of those who fell during the fighting 
here in August and September, 1854. (September 4 
is a red-letter day in Petropaulsky, a day given to 
much rejoicing and a vast consumption of vodki.) 
