rately. The eldest, who acted as hostess, was
in black, and her case in receiving visitors would have done credit to
a society dame in St. Petersburg. By way of commencement we had tea
and _nalifka_, the latter a kind of currant wine of local manufacture
and very well flavored. They gave us corned beef and bread, each
person taking his plate upon his knee as at an American pic-nic, and
after two or three courses of edibles we had coffee and cigarettes,
the latter from a manufactory at Yakutsk. According to Russian
etiquette each of us thanked the hostess for her courtesy.

Out in the broad street there were many dogs lying idle in the
sunshine or biting each other. A small wagon with a team of nine dogs
carried a quantity of tea and sugar from the Variag's boats to a
warehouse. When the work was finished I took a ride on the wagon, and
was carried at good speed. I enjoyed the excursion until the vehicle
upset and left me sprawling on the gravel with two or three bruises
and a prejudice against that kind of traveling. By the time I gained
my feet the dogs were disappearing in the distance, and fairly running
away from the driver. Possibly they are running yet.

An old weather beaten church and equally old barracks are near each
other, an appropriate arrangement in a country where church and state
are united. The military garrison includes thirty Cossacks, who are
under the orders of the Ispravnik. They row the pilot boat when
needed, travel on courier or other service, guard the warehouses, and
when not wanted by government labor and get drunk for themselves. The
governor was a native of Poland, and it struck me as a curious fact
that the ispravniks of Kamchatka, Ghijiga, and Ohotsk were Poles.

Cows and dogs are the only stock maintained at Ohotsk. The former live
on grass in summer, and on hay and fish in whiter. Though repeatedly
told that cows and horses in Northeastern Siberia would eat dried fish
with avidity, I was inclined to skepticism. Captain Mahood told me he
had seen them eating fish in winter and appearing to thrive on it.
What was more singular, he had seen a cow eating fresh salmon in
summer when the hills were covered with grass.

There is a story that Cuvier in a fit of illness, once imagined His
Satanic Majesty standing before him.

"Ah!" said the great naturalist, "horns, hoofs; graniverous; needn't
fear him."

I wonder if Cuvier knew the taste of the cows at Ohotsk? No ship had
visited Ohotsk