IB 
SARYTSCIIEw’s TRAVELS. 
long, narrow, and plain, for the hard snow. From our inex¬ 
perience in this mode of travelling, we often sprained our 
ancles, got entangled in the shrubs, or fell into heaps of snow 
so very deep, that neither of us could have been saved without 
the assistance of our attendants. 
After my return, my first concern was to procure men to fetch 
the wood; but in this respect the commander was unable to af¬ 
ford me any great assistance; the few men he gave me being so 
afflicted with the scurvy that they could scarcely walk, much less 
do any labour. The poorer classes here are very subject to 
this disorder, owing partly to the damp and cold weather, and 
partly to their diet, which consists of salt fish and a sour liquid, 
called burduck. Meat and fresh fish are scarcely to be pro¬ 
cured for money ; every other kind of provision is to be purchased 
only at an immoderate price, a pound of butter costing three 
shillings; the same quantity of flower one shilling ; oatmeal nine- 
pence, and other things in proportion. People in any tolerable 
situation usually lay in their stock for the year at the summer fair, 
or procure it from Irkutsk; and those who cannot afford to do 
this must submit to all the hardships of want and bad food. 
On my arrival here, I might have experienced a similar fate if 
I had not met with so friendly a reception from the principal per¬ 
sons of the place, who not only invited me to their tables, but? 
exerted their utmost to lessen the difficulties 1 had to encounter. 
At the close of April, the Ochota was cleared from the ice; 
and the -water swelling to an astonishing height, occupied all 
the lowlands with rapidity, but returned to its boundaries again 
in the space of ten days, when several sorts of fish, such as 
malmes # , kunsches, and kambales, began to make their appear¬ 
ance; which were succeeded by shoals of smelts and herrings, 
and afterwards by sturgeon and sea-calves. My people now 
beginning to collect strength from the return of spring and fresh 
fish, I sent them out after timber, a great quantity of which they 
felled for me in the summer months. 
* The names of keta and malma are no where to be found, but the others., 
are described as follows in the dictionary of the Russian Academy:— 
Kunsha, Salmo Cundsha, a sort of salmon. Its usual length is two feet ; 
its tail forked; its scales silver-coloured, with a shade of blue on the side 
and white at the ends. It is found in the bay of the Northern Ocean, and 
the White Sea. Kambala Pleuronectes. Under this appellation is com¬ 
prehended many sorts of scaleless fish, with eyes on each side their longish 
round bodies.—Narka Salmo is a species of salmon about a yard long, 
and the fifth of a yard broad, with a red body, small head, five small red¬ 
dish teeth on both sides, blue tongue, yet white on the side, a bluish back, 
with dark spots, and the tail a little arched. Its scales are large and r»und, 
and come off the skin very easily. They collect in great shoals in the river 
from the eastern and Penschinkisch seas. 
