minded me of the smells in
certain quarters of New York in summer, or of Cairo, Illinois, after
an unusual flood has subsided. One of our officers said he counted
three hundred and twenty distinct and different smells in walking half
a mile.

In 1865 one of the merchants started the enterprise of curing salmon
for the Sandwich Island market. He told me he paid three roubles,
(about three greenback dollars,) a hundred (in number) for the fresh
fish, delivered at his establishment. Evidently he found the
speculation profitable, as he repeated it the following year.

[Illustration: A SCALY BRIDGE.]

When the salmon ascend the rivers they furnish food to men and
animals. The natives catch them in nets and with spears, while dogs,
bears, and wolves use their teeth in fishing. Bears are expert in this
amusement, and where their game is plenty they eat only the heads and
backs. The fish are very abundant in the rivers, and no great skill
is required in their capture. Men with an air of veracity told me they
had seen streams in the interior of Kamchatka so filled with salmon
that one could cross on them as on a corduroy bridge! The story has a
piscatorial sound, but it _may_ be true.

House gardening on a limited scale is the principal agriculture of
Kamchatka. Fifty years ago, Admiral Ricord introduced the cultivation
of rye, wheat, and barley with considerable success, but the
inhabitants do not take kindly to it. The government brings rye flour
from the Amoor river and sells it to the people at cost, and in case
of distress it issues rations from its magazines.

When I asked why there was no culture of grain in Kamchatka, they
replied: "What is the necessity of it? We can buy it at cost of the
government, and need not trouble ourselves about making our own
flour."

There is not a sawmill on the peninsula. Boards and plank are cut by
hand or brought from California. I slept two nights in a room ceiled
with red-wood and pine from San Francisco.

On my second evening in Asia I passed several hours at the governor's
house. The party talked, smoked, and drank tea until midnight, and
then closed the entertainment with a substantial supper. An
interesting and novel feature of the affair was the Russian manner of
making tea. The infusion had a better flavor than any I had previously
drank. This is due partly to the superior quality of the leaf, and
partly to the manner of its preparation.

The "samovar" or tea-urn is an i