The loghouses (isbas) are raised with long timbers piled horizontally, the ends being let into one another, and the seams calked 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 ceiling 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 log-houses, or isbas, nineteen balagans, and three jourts. Paratounca is of about the same size. Karatchin and Natchekin contain fewer log-houses, but full as many jourts and balagans as the former; from whence I conclude, that such is the usual size of the ostrogs.
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. Under this is a close jacket of nankeen, or other cotton stuffs; and beneath that a shirt of thin Persian silk, of a blue, red, or yellow colour. The remaining part of their dress consists of a pair of tight trowsers, or long breeches, of leather, reaching down to the calf of the leg; of a pair of dog or deer-skin boots, with the hair innermost; and of a fur cap, with two flaps, which are generally tied up close to the head, but in bad weather are let to fall round the shoulders.
The fur dress presented to me by a son of Major Behm (as already mentioned) is one of those worn by the Toions, on ceremonious occasions. The form exactly resembles that of the common exterior garment just described. It is made of small triangular pieces of fur, chequered brown and white, and joined so neatly as to appear to be one skin. A border of six inches breadth, wrought with threads of different coloured leather, and producing a rich effect, surrounds the bottom, to which is suspended a broad edging of the sea-otter skin. The sleeves are turned up with the same materials; and there is likewise an edging of it round the neck, and down the opening at the breast. The lining is of a smooth white skin. A cap, a pair of gloves, and boots, wrought with the utmost degree of neatness, and made of the same materials, constitute the remainder of this suit. The Russians in Kamtschatka wear the European dress; and the uniform of the troops quartered here is of a dark green, faced with red.
As the people situated to the north and south of this country are yet imperfectly known, I shall conclude the account of Kamtschatka with such information concerning the Kurile islands, and the Koreki and Tschutski, as I have been able to acquire.
The chain of islands, running in a south-west direction from the southern promontory of Kamtschatka to Japan, extending from latitude 51° to 45°, are called the Kuriles. They obtained this name from the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Lopatka, who being themselves called Kuriles, gave their own name to these islands, on first becoming acquainted with them. They are, according to Spanberg, twenty-two in number, without reckoning the very small ones. The northernmost, called Shoomska, is not more than three leagues from the promontory Lopatka, and its inhabitants are a mixture of natives and Kamtschadales. The next to the south, called Paramousir, is much larger than Shoomska, and inhabited by the true natives; their ancestors, according to a tradition among them, having come from an island a little farther to the south, called Onecutan. Those two islands were first visited by the Russians in 1713, and at the same time brought under their dominion.
The others in order, are at present made tributary down to Ooshesheer inclusive, as I am informed by the worthy pastor of Paratounca, who is their missionary, and visits them once in three years, and speaks of the islanders in terms of the highest commendation, representing them as a friendly, hospitable, generous, humane race of people, and excelling their Kamtschadale neighbours, not less in the formation of their bodies, than in docility and quickness of understanding. Though Ooshesheer is the southernmost island that the Russians have yet brought under their dominion, yet I understand that they trade to Ooroop, which is the eighteenth; and, according to their accounts, the only one where there is a good harbour for ships of burthen. Beyond this, to the south, lies Nadeegsda, which was represented to us by the Russians as inhabited by a race of men remarkably hairy, and who, like those of Ooroop, live in a state of entire independence.[[63]]
In the same direction, but inclining somewhat more to the westward, lie a group of islands, which the Japanese call Jeso; a name which they also give to the whole chain of islands between Kamtschatka and Japan. The southernmost, called Matmai, hath been long subject to the Japanese, and is fortified and garrisoned on the side toward the continent. The two islands to the north-east of Matmai, Kunashir, and Zellany, and likewise the three still farther to the north-east, called the Three Sisters, are perfectly independent.
A trade of barter is carried on between Matmai and the islands last-mentioned; and between those again and the Kuriles, to the northward; in which, for furs, dried fish, and oil, the latter get silk, cotton, iron, and Japanese articles of furniture.[[64]]