The fisheries of Kamtschatka enjoy a well-deserved reputation. In spring the salmon ascend its rivers in such astonishingly numerous legions, that it you plunge a dart into the water you will surely strike a fish; and Steller asserts that the bears and dogs in this fortunate region catch on the banks with their paws and mouths more fish than in less favoured countries the most skilful anglers can ensnare by all the devices of piscatorial science. Hermann also refers to the teeming myriads of the Kamtschatka waters. In a stream only six inches deep he saw countless hosts of chackos (Slagocephalus), two or three feet in length, partly stranded on the grassy banks, partly attempting to force a passage through the shallows.
The coasts of Kamtschatka swarm in like manner with aquatic birds, which roost and breed on every crag and ledge, in every niche and hollow, and at the slightest alarm rise from their resting-places with a whirr of wings and a clamour of voices repeated by a thousand echoes.
The Kamtschatkans display in the pursuit of these birds and their eggs a skill and a daring not inferior to the intrepidity and dexterity of the inhabitants of the Faroe Isles or the Hebrides. Barefooted, and without even the aid of ropes, they venture to descend the most awful declivities, which the foaming waters render inaccessible from below. On the left arm hangs a basket, to be filled with eggs as they advance; in the right hand they carry a short iron hook, with which to drag the birds from their rocky roosts. When a bird is caught, the fowler wrings its neck, slings it to his girdle, and lowers himself still further down the rugged precipice.
The Kamtschatkans are of small stature, but strong-limbed and broad-shouldered. Their cheek-bones are high, their jaws massive, broad, and prominent, their eyes small and black, their noses small, their lips very full. The prevailing colour of the men is a dark brown, sometimes approaching to tawny; the complexion of the women is fairer; and to preserve it from the sun, they embellish it with bears’ guts, adhering to the face by means of fish-lime. They also paint their cheeks a brilliant red with a sea-weed.
KAMTSCHATKANS.
Kamtschatka boasts of a very valuable domestic animal in its dog. Mr. Hill is of opinion that he must be considered indigenous to the country, where he roves wild upon the hills, and obtains his existence in exactly the same manner as the wolf. In his nature, both physically and in respect to his temper and disposition, he seems about equally to resemble that tameless animal and the mastiff; yet not altogether in the same manner that might be supposed to arise from the cross breed of the two species, but rather as possessing some of the qualities of both, neither confounded nor modified, but distinctly marked, and perhaps in equal perfection to the same qualities possessed severally by those animals. He is about the size of the ordinary mastiff, and his colour is usually buff or silver-gray, with the several darker or lighter shades of these colours as an invariable basis. In the form of his body, too, he resembles the mastiff, but his head is more like that of the wolf. Still more do we recognize the wolfish character in the eye, which is cruel and furtive, as well as in his habits and disposition. Like his fellow-rover, he sleeps more by day than by night, and he sees better through the scanty light afforded by the stars or moon than in the full radiance of the sun: this has given rise to the same vulgar error concerning his vision which, in Britain, prevails respecting that of the cat,—that he can see in the dark.
If there be any exception, says Mr. Hill, to the distinct manner in which the dog of Kamtschatka possesses the character and qualities of both the wolf and mastiff, it is in regard to his voice, which is heard in loud cries and undistinguishable sounds, something between the bark of the one and the howl of the other.
In all things connected with the labour in which he is engaged, the Kamtschatka dog displays a more than ordinary intelligence. He is very eager to work, and obedient, like the canine species generally, to one master only; but he gives no indications of that attachment which, more or less, in all other species of the dog, enables man to sympathize with them, and sometimes even excites a degree of friendship which not every one of his own species is able to inspire. Thus, every pack or team of dogs must always be driven by the same hand and guided by the same voice, which the whip, and not caresses, has taught them to remember and obey.