[58] All of whom, as well as the different naval officers, are brought hither from Russia. To complete however their complement of sailors, M. Hall was obliged to raise recruits in the country; and the orders he brought were so precise, that the governor supplied him both with men and materials at his first requisition.
[59] We have seen in the description of Okotsk, that these buildings constituted the part of the town appropriated to trade. Alarmed at this incident, they immediately unfurnished their shops, determined to remove into the government square, of consequence they undertook to rebuild the barracks, and considerably augmented the number of them.
[60] The mode of preparing salmon is the same as at Kamtschatka.
[61] I have already given an account of this sport, which takes place in the moulting season, and observed that a stick is the only weapon used on the occasion.
[62] They consisted of leathern bags and portmanteaux; with this advantage, that they never gall the sides of the horses. The usual weight is five pouds, or two hundred pounds, and it never exceeds six pouds; that is, two hundred and forty. These loads they call viouki, and the horses that carry them viouschni-loschadei. If the baggage to be carried be lighter or less cumbrous, they place it upon the back of the animal, and fasten it with a cord of hair that passes under his belly.
[63] The Yakouts seemed not to be much concerned at the loss of these animals, and have no idea of affording them any assistance. When they refuse to go on, or fall down from weakness or fatigue, they are abandoned to their deplorable fate, and their carcasses are left to be devoured by bears, who never relinquish their prey while any thing remains but the bones. Every ten steps we see skeletons of these horses, and from Okotsk to the cross of Yudoma, I imagine that I passed more than two thousand. My conductors informed me that the majority had perished the preceding year, in conveying from Okotsk to Yakoutsk the different materials required for M. Billings’s expedition, in consequence of having been surprised by the floods, which had been so sudden that the guides saved themselves with difficulty. A part of their loads were still under a kind of labazis, of which I have already spoken, where travellers place their effects till the waters subside. It was added, that the Yakouts lose in this manner every year four or five thousand horses, in transporting the different objects of the commerce which they undertake.
[64] The Yakouts are so habituated to this exercise, that they might defy the most expeditious groom. They tie the horses three and three to each others tails, and a single rope serves to lead them all.
[65] I was a witness on this day of a circumstance that deserves to be related. My Yakouts skilfully peeled off large pieces of bark from the pine tree, of which they formed a sort of tent or parapluie, under which they took up their abode during the night.
[66] Beside various sorts of aquatic birds, we frequently met with the heath-cock and the white partridge; we also appropriated their eggs to our use, wherever we could find them.
[67] They were chiefly willows and alders; but deeper in the forests we perceived some firs and birch trees of a good height.