e all other _settled_ inhabitants of Siberia and Kamchatka, they
depended for their subsistence principally upon fish; but as the
country abounded in game, and the climate and soil in the valley of
the Gizhiga River permitted the cultivation of the hardier kinds of
garden vegetables, their condition was undoubtedly much better than
it would have been in Russia proper. They were perfectly free, could
dispose of their time and services as they chose, and by hiring
themselves and their dog-sledges to Russian traders in the winter,
they earned money enough to keep themselves supplied with the simpler
luxuries, such as tea, sugar, and tobacco, throughout the year. Like
all the inhabitants of Siberia, and indeed like all Russians, they
were extremely hospitable, good-natured, and obliging, and they
contributed not a little to our comfort and amusement during the long
months which we were obliged to spend in their far-away isolated
settlement.

The presence of Americans in a village so little frequented by
strangers as Gizhiga had a very enlivening influence upon society,
and as soon as the inhabitants ascertained by experiment that these
distinguished sojourners did not consider it beneath their dignity to
associate with the _prostoi narod_, or common people, they overwhelmed
us with invitations to tea-parties and evening dances. Anxious to see
more of the life of the people, and glad to do anything which would
diversify our monotonous existence, we made it a point to accept every
such invitation which we received, and many were the dances which
Arnold and I attended during the absence of the Major and the Russian
governor at Anadyrsk. We had no occasion to ask our Cossack Yagor when
there was to be another dance. The question was rather, "Where is the
dance to be tonight?" because we knew to a certainty that there would
be one somewhere, and wished only to know whether the house in which
it was to be held had a ceiling high enough to insure the safety of
our heads. It would seem like a preposterous idea to invite people to
dance the Russian jig in a room which was too low to permit a man of
average stature to stand upright; but it did not seem at all so to
these enthusiastic pleasure-seekers in Gizhiga, and night after night
they would go hopping around a seven-by-nine room to the music of a
crazy fiddle and a two-stringed guitar, stepping on one another's toes
and bumping their heads against the ceiling with the most cheerf