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1. If you look at a map of Siberia, you will notice a peninsula jutting southward from its north-eastern corner. This is Kamtchatka. A great range of mountains runs through the entire length of the peninsula, and contains five or six active volcanoes. The central and southern parts of the country are broken up by the spurs
of the great mountain range into deep, picturesque
valleys, and the scenery is perhaps the most beautiful in all Northern Asia.
2. We sailed from America across the Pacific to thisnorthern land. The very name of Kamtchatka had always called up to our minds everything barren and inhospitable
. We did not think for a moment that such a country could have beautiful scenery and luxuriant
vegetation. But it was summer when we arrived, and to our surprise and delight we looked upon grassy hills covered with trees and green bushes, and valleys white with clover and having little groves of silver-barked birch. Even the rocks nodded with wild roses and columbine, which had taken root in their clefts.
KAMTCHADALS
3. The vegetation everywhere, untouched as yet by the autumn frosts, seemed to have an almost tropical luxuriance. High, wild grass, mingled with flowers, extended to the brinks of the rivers ; alpine roses grew in dense thickets along the banks, and dropped their pink and yellow petals like fairy boats upon the surface of the still, clear water; yellow columbine drooped low over the river; and strange black lilies, with downcast looks, stood here and there in sad loneliness.
4. Nor was animal life wanting to complete the picture. Wild ducks with long outstretched necks shot past us continually in their swift, level flight, utteringhoarse “quacks” of curiosity and alarm. The cries of geese came to us, softened by the distance, from the higher slopes of the mountains; and now and then a magnificent eagle, startled from his solitary watch on some jutting rock, expanded his broad-barred wings, launched himnone into the air, and soared upward in ever-widening circles, until he became a mere moving speck against the white, snowy crater of the nearest volcano.
5. The population of the country is made up of three distinct races—the Russians, the Kamtchadals or settled natives, and the wandering Koraks. The Kamtchadals, who are the most numerous, are principally occupied in fishing and trapping, and in the cultivation of rye, turnips, cabbages, and potatoes. They live in little log villages, which are built near the mouth of some river or stream, or inland among scattered clumps of poplar and yellow birch, and are protected by high hills from the cold northern winds. The houses, which are clustered irregularly together near the beach, are very low, and are made of logs squared and notched at the ends, and having the chinks stuffed with masses of dry moss.
6. Here and there between the houses stand a few curious buildings which are used as fish storehouses. They are simply conical log-tents raised from the ground to secure their contents from the dogs. They resemble small haystacks standing on four legs. High, square frames of horizontal poles stand beside every house, filled with thousands of drying salmon; and thesmell which fills the air all around betrays the nature of the Kamtchadals´ occupation, and of the food upon which they live. Half a dozen dug-out canoes lie bottom upward on the sandy beach, covered with large neatlytied nets; two or three long, narrow dog-sledges stand up on their ends against every house; and a hundred or more sharp-eared dogs, tied at intervals to long, heavy poles, lie panting in the sun, snapping viciously at the flies and mosquitoes which disturb their rest.
7. In the centre of the village, facing the west, in all the glory of red paint and glittering domes
, stands the Greek church, contrasting strangely with the rude log houses over which it lifts its shining golden cross. It is generally built of carefully-hewn logs, painted a deep brick-red, covered with a green sheet-iron roof, and surmounted
by two onion-shaped domes of tin, which are sometimes coloured sky-blue and spangled with golden stars.
8. The settled natives of Northern Kamtchatka have generally two different residences, in which they live at different seasons of the year—a winter settlemen and a summer fishing-station. In the former, which is generally situated under the shelter of timbered hills several miles from the sea-coast, they reside from September until June. The fishing-station is always built near the mouth of a river or stream, and consists of a few earth-covered huts, and a great number of wooden frames on which fish are hung to dry. To this fishin-station the inhabitants all remove early in June, leaving their winter settlement entirely deserted.
9. The wandering Koraks of Kamtchatka, who are divided into about forty different bands, roam over thegreat steppes
in the northern part of the peninsula. They wander almost constantly with their great herds of reindeer, and so unsettled and restless are they in their habits, that they seldom camp longer than a week in any one place.
10. This, however, is not altogether due to love of change. A herd of four or fi ve thousand reindeer will, ina few days, paw up the snow and eat all the moss within a radius of a mile from the encampment, and then, of course, the band must move to fresh ground. They must wander, or their deer will starve, and then their own starvation follows as a natural consequence.
11. The restless habits thus produced have now become part of the Korak´s very nature, so that he could hardly live in any other way. This wandering, free life has made the Koraks bold, impatient of restraint
, and perfectly none-reliant
. Give them a small herd of reindeer, and a moss steppe to wander over, and they ask nothing more from all the world.
WORD SPELLING
WORD EXERCISE
l. Explain the difference between the words luxuriant and luxurious, and give the abstract noun connected with each.
2. Analyze the words surmounted and encampment, and give the meaning of the various parts of each.
3. Explain the word nodded as applied to rocks in section 2.