efore it returns. The palmy days of the fur trade are
over; the product has greatly diminished, and competition has reduced
the percentage of profit on the little that remains.

There was a time in the memory of man when furs formed the currency of
Kamchatka. Their employment as cash is not unknown at present,
although Russian money is in general circulation.

[Illustration: CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR]

There is a story of a traveler who paid his hotel bill in a country
town in Minnesota and received a beaver skin in change. The landlord
explained that it was legal tender for a dollar. Concealing this novel
cash under his coat, the traveler sauntered into a neighboring store.

"Is it true," he asked carelessly, "that a beaver skin is legal tender
for a dollar?" "Yes, sir," said the merchant; "anybody will take it."

"Will you be so kind, then," was the traveler's request, "as to give
me change for a dollar bill?"

"Certainly," answered the merchant, taking the beaver skin and
returning four muskrat skins, current at twenty-five cents each.

The sable is the principal fur sought by the merchants in Kamchatka,
or trapped by the natives. The animal is caught in a variety of ways,
man's ingenuity being taxed to capture him. The 'yessak,' or
'poll-tax' of the natives is payable in sable fur, at the rate of a
skin for every four persons. The governor makes a yearly journey
through the peninsula to collect the tax, and is supposed to visit all
the villages. The merchants go and do likewise for trading purposes.

Mr. George S. Cushing, who was long the agent of Mr. Boardman in
Kamchatka, estimated the product of sable fur at about six thousand
skins annually. Sometimes it exceeds and sometimes falls below that
figure. About a thousand foxes, a few sea otters and silver foxes, and
a good many bears, may be added, more for number than value. Silver
foxes and otters are scarce, while common foxes and bears are of
little account. A black fox is worth a great deal of money, but one
may find a white crow almost as readily.

Bears are abundant, but their skins are not articles of export. The
beasts are brown or black, and grow to a disagreeable size. Bear
hunting is an amusement of the country, very pleasant and exciting
until the bear turns and becomes the hunter. Then there is no fun in
it, if he succeeds in his pursuit. A gentleman in Kamchatka gave me a
bearskin more than six feet long, and declared that it was not
unusually la