We left Karagui at one o'clock in the morning of 2 March. The weather was tolerably calm, and continued so during the whole day. The only inconvenience we met with, was the not being able to cross, as we had hoped to do, a bay which the tempest of the preceding evening had cleared of its ice: we were obliged to go round it. This bay has considerable depth, is eight or ten wersts wide, and appeared to run in the direction of north-east and south-west. The ice was only broken up as far as the mouth, where it became solid again, and extended into the sea. With the circuit which we were obliged to make, we travelled this day about fifty wersts.
Upon the approach of night, we stopped in the open country and erected our tents. Under the largest, belonging to M. Kasloff, were placed his vezock and mine, the door of the one against the door of the other, so that by letting down the windows, we were able to converse together. The other sledges were ranged two abreast round our tents, and the spaces between, being covered with linen or skins, served our guides and our suite as places where they might shelter themselves, and prepare their beds. Such was the disposition of our halt.
As soon as our kettle boiled we took tea, and then prepared for our supper, which was our only meal every day. A corporal presided as maitre d'hotel and as cook. The meats which were prepared by him were neither numerous nor delicate, but his quickness and our appetites rendered us indulgent. He commonly served us up a kind of soup made of a biscuit of black bread, and mixed with rice or oatmeal. It was prepared in half an hour, and in the following manner. He took a piece of beef, or flesh of rein deer, and put it into boiling water, having first cut it into very thin slices, which were ready in an instant.
The evening previous to our departure from Karagui, we had killed and begun upon our second deer. We regaled ourselves with the marrow: raw or dressed, I thought it excellent. We had the tongue also boiled, and I conceived that I had never eaten any thing more delicious.
We pursued our journey early in the morning, but it was impossible to travel more than thirty-five wersts. The wind had changed to the west and south-west; it blew with extreme violence, and beat the snow in our faces. Our guides suffered extremely, less however than our dogs, some of whom, exhausted with fatigue, died on the road, and others were incapable of drawing us for want of nourishment. We could only give them a fourth part of their common allowance, and had scarcely enough left to last two days.
In this extremity we dispatched a soldier to the ostrog of Kaminoi, to procure us succour, and to send the escort to meet us that was to have waited there till M. Kasloff arrived. It was a guard of forty men, sent from Ingiga upon the first intelligence of the revolt of the Koriacs.
We were only fifteen wersts from the village or hamlet of Gavenki, where we hoped to find a supply of fish for our dogs; and our confidence was so great that we ventured to give them a double portion, that they might be the better able to convey us thither. Having passed the night in the same manner as the preceding, we pursued our journey at three o'clock in the morning. We quitted not the sea coast till we came to Gavenki, which was about ten o'clock. The name of the village is derived from the word gavna, which signifies excrement; and it is so called on account of its deformity and wretched state. There are in reality but two isbas falling to ruin, and six balagans very ill constructed of bad and crooked wood, which the sea leaves sometimes upon the shore; for there is not a tree in the whole neighbourhood, and nothing to be seen but a few paltry shrubs scattered here and there at a considerable distance from one another. I was not astonished to learn, that not along ago, more than twenty of the inhabitants voluntarily abandoned their country to seek out a better abode. At present the population of this hamlet does not exceed five families, including that of the toyon, and two Kamtschadales from the island of Karagui, who are settled there. No reason was assigned for this removal, and I doubt whether they have gained by the change.
We had not been an hour at Gavenki, when a dispute arose between a sergeant of our company, and two peasants of the village, to whom he had applied for wood. They answered bluntly that they would not give him any. From one thing to another the quarrel became violent. The Kamtschadales, little intimidated by the threats of the sergeant, drew their knives[81] and fell upon him; but they were immediately disarmed by two of our soldiers. As soon as M. Kasloff was informed of this violence, he ordered that the guilty should be punished as an example. They were brought before the yourt in which we were, and in order to awe the rest of the inhabitants, M. Kasloff went out himself to hasten the punishment. I was left with the toyon, who began to complain to me of the rigour with which his two countrymen were treated. The family surrounded me and murmured still louder. I was alone; meanwhile I was endeavouring to pacify them, when I perceived that the governor had left his arms behind him. I hastily caught up our sabres, upon a motion which the toyon made to go out, and followed him. He had already joined M. Kasloff, and stirring up all his neighbours, he demanded in a high tone that the delinquents should be released. He was himself, he said, their sole judge, and it belonged to him only to punish them. To these seditious clamours M. Kasloff answered only by a stern look, which disconcerted the effrontery both of the peasants and their chiefs. The toyon still muttered some words, but he was seized and forced to assist in the chastisement that he had been so desirous of preventing. One of the culprits was a young man about eighteen years of age, and the other from twenty eight to thirty. They were stripped and laid prostrate on the ground; two soldiers held their hands and their feet, while four others bestowed upon their shoulders a copious distribution of lashes. They were whipped in this manner one after another with rods of dried fir, till their bodies were covered with blood. At the entreaties of the women, whom the weakness of the sex renders every where compassionate, the intended punishment was lessened, and the young man given up to them. They immediately gave him a fine lecture on the folly of his conduct, which they might as well have spared, as he was scarcely in a situation to attend to it, and still less to think of repeating his crime.
The severity which M. Kasloff observed upon this occasion, was so much the more necessary, as we began to perceive in this village some symptoms of the contagious turbulent disposition of the Koriacs. Contrasted with the Kamtschadales whom we had just quitted, the manners of the inhabitants of Gavenki led us to doubt whether it were really the same people. We had as much reason to complain of the moroseness and deceit of the latter, as we had to boast of the zeal and kindness of the former. In spite of all our importunities we could get no provision for our dogs. They coldly informed us that they had none; but their equivocal answers betrayed them, and our people soon satisfied themselves of its falsehood. By means of our dogs, whose nose and hunger were infallible guides, they quickly discovered the subterraneous reservoirs, where the inhabitants had, upon our approach, buried their provisions, though the utmost care had been taken to conceal all vestiges of them, by artfully covering them with earth and snow. At the sight of these caves, and the fish that were drawn from them, these peasants began to alledge the most paltry reasons to justify their conduct, and which only tended to increase our indignation. We had some sentiments of humanity, or we should have taken their whole stock; we contented ourselves with a small part. From the nature of the provisions it appeared that these coasts afforded them salmon, herring, cod, morse and other amphibious animals.