SARYTSCHEW’s TRAVELS, 
%6 
slightest suspicion of what was passing. The thief changed his 
dress, besmeared his head and face with a red dye, and came 
with his companions to us again as usual; but his knavery did 
not remain long undetected : for no sooner was the affair made 
known to the Troies, than the perpetrator was discovered, and 
obliged to deliver up the stolen article. He brought it himself, 
and giving it to the lad, advised him with a smile, to take more 
care of his things in future. 
My sailors observing to me, that they had noticed a smoke 
rising at a distance, I enquired of the inhabitants the cause, 
and learned, that it issued from their dwellings. Upon this, 1 
felt a desire of visiting what I supposed to be their winter-ha¬ 
bitations, and requested them to conduct me thither. They 
willingly complied with uiy request, and 1 set off in their 
baidar, accompanied by my interpreter. Running first up a 
rivulet, we crossed a lake that was about five versts in ex¬ 
tent, not very deep, and overgrown with sea-weed. We landed 
on the other side, not far from the mouth of the brook ; but in¬ 
stead of winter habitations, we only found a few inverted 
baidars, and a hut made of planks set together, in which some 
women were living with their children. They had taken up 
their abode here, for the purpose >f fishing: the mouth of the 
brook abounding with all sorts of fish, particularly one called the 
hump-backed salmon. This is a fish of the salmon species, 
about a foot and half long, having a small head, a sharp nose, 
and from whence a hook projects, small teeth in the jaw, 
a bluish back full of round blackish spots, a blue tail, singularly 
turned up, and white flesh. It receives its name from a large 
hump which grows on the back of the males, when they are 
lean. They abound in the lakes and rivers of Kamtschatka, 
from July to the middle of October. 
This brook is so shallow, that the dorsal fins of the fish 
going against the stream, almost perpetually rise above the 
water; and we witnessed a dog seizing the fish with the greatest 
facility, and dragging them with his teeth to the shore. 
The women had on old vests of otters’ skins, and their hair 
was tied up in a knot on the crown of their heads ; but their 
faces were not so disfigured as among the Aleutians. After 
making them some presents of enamelled articles, beads, and 
needles, I returned to mv bark. 
At noon, I took my leave of the Troies, with thanks for 
their civility and assurances of our friendship; after which, I 
departed, and reached Slawa in the evening. 
During the whole of our voyage, I had great apprehensions 
of an attack from the Americans, and for that reason had uni¬ 
formly adopted the precaution before-mentioned, of sleeping at 
