had been taught the Japanese language, by
two men belonging to a vessel of that nation, which had been
shipwrecked[90] on the coast of Kamtschatka, had been sent among those
islands.

The advantages that would accrue to the Russians by an immediate trade to
Japan, have been already adverted to, and are too many, and too obvious, to
need insisting upon.[91]

The Koreki country includes two distinct nations, called the Wandering and
Fixed Koriacs.

The former inhabit the northern part of the isthmus of Kamtschatka, and the
whole coast of the eastern ocean; from thence to the Anadir.

The country of the Wandering Koriacks stretches along the north-east of the
sea of Okotzk to the river Penskina, and westward toward the river Kovyma.

The Fixed Koriacks have a strong resemblance to the Kamtschadales; and,
like them, depend altogether on fishing for subsistence. Their dress and
habitations are of the same kind. They are tributary to the Russians, and
under the district of the Ingiga.

The Wandering Koriacs occupy themselves entirely in breeding and pasturing
deer, of which they are said to possess immense numbers; and that it is no
unusual thing for an individual chief to have a herd of four or five
thousand. They despise fish, and live entirely on deer. They have no
balagans; and their only habitations are like the Kamtschadale jourts, with
this difference, that they are covered with raw deer-skins in winter, and
tanned ones in summer. Their sledges are drawn by deer, and never by dogs;
which, like the latter, are likewise always spayed, in order to be trained
to this business. The draft-deer pasture in company with the others; and
when they are wanted, the huntsmen make use of a certain cry, which they
instantly obey, by coming out of the herd.

The priest of Paratounca informed me, that the two nations of the Koriacs,
and the Tschutski, speak different dialects of the same language; and that
it bears not the smallest resemblance to the Kamtschadale.

The country of the Tschutski is bounded on the south by the Anadir, and
extends along the coast to the Tschutskoi Noss. Like the Wandering
Koriacks, their attention is principally confined to their deer, of which
their country affords great numbers, both tame and wild. They are a stout,
well-made, bold, warlike race of people; redoubtable neighbours to both
nations of the Koriacs, who often feel the effects of their depredatory
incursions. The Russians have for many