pen; and
within it they dry their fish, roots, vegetables, and other articles of
winter consumption. The proportion of _jourts_ and _balagans_, is as one to
six; so that six families generally live together in one _jourt_.

The loghouses (_isbas_) are raised with long timbers piled horizontally,
the ends being let into one another, and the seams caulked with moss. The
roof is sloping like that of our common cottage-houses, and thatched with
coarse grass or rushes. The inside consists of three apartments. At one end
is what may be called the entry, which runs the whole width and height of
the house, and is the receptacle of their sledges, harness, and other more
bulky gears and household stuff. This communicates with the middle and best
apartment, furnished with broad benches, for the purpose, as hath been
above-mentioned, of both eating and sleeping upon. Out of this is a door
into the kitchen; one half of which is taken up by the oven or fire-place,
so contrived, by being let into the wall that separates the kitchen and the
middle apartment, as to warm both at the same time. Over the middle
apartment and kitchen are two lofts, to which they ascend by a ladder
placed in the entry. There are two small windows in each apartment, made of
talc, and in the houses of the poorer sort of fish-skin. The beams and
boards of the cieling are dubbed smooth with a hatchet (for they are
unacquainted with the plane), and from the effects of the smoke are as
black and shining as jet.

A town of Kamtschatka is called an _ostrog_, and consists of several of the
three sorts of houses above described; but of which _balagans_ are much the
most numerous; and I must observe, that I never met with a house of any
kind detached from an _ostrog_. Saint Peter and Saint Paul consists of
seven loghouses, or _isbas_, nineteen _balagans_, and three _jourts_.
Paratounca is of about the same size. Karatchin and Natcheekin contain
fewer loghouses, but full as many _jourts_ and _balagans_ as the former;
from whence I conclude, that such is the usual size of the _ostrogs_.[87]

Having already had occasion to mention the dress of the Kamtschadale women,
I shall here confine myself to a description of that of the men.

The outermost garment is of the shape of a carter's frock. Those worn in
summer are of nankeen; in winter they are made of skins, most commonly of
the deer or dog, tanned on one side, the hair being left on the other,
which is worn innermost.