Besides the Variag we found in port the Russian brig Poorga and the Prussian brig Danzig, the latter having an American captain, crew, hull, masts, and rigging. Two old hulks were rotting in the mud, and an unseaworthy schooner lay on the beach with one side turned upward as if in agony. “There be land rats and water rats,” according to Shakspeare. Some of the latter dwelt in this bluff-bowed schooner and peered curiously from the crevices in her sides.
BREACH OF ETIQUETTE.
The majority of our visitors made their calls very brief. After their departure, I went on shore with Mr. Hunter, an American resident of Petropavlovsk. In every house I visited I was pressed to take petnatzet copla (fifteen drops,) the universal name there for something stimulating. The drops might be American whisky, French brandy, Dutch gin, or Russian vodka. David Crockett said a true gentleman is one who turns his back while you pour whisky into your tumbler. The etiquette of Kamchatka does not permit the host to count the drops taken by his guest.
Take a log village in the backwoods of Michigan or Minnesota, and transport it to a quiet spot by a well sheltered harbor of Lilliputian size. Cover the roofs of some buildings with iron, shingles or boards from other regions. Cover the balance with thatch of long grass, and erect chimneys that just peer above the ridge poles. Scatter these buildings on a hillside next the water; arrange three-fourths of them in a single street, and leave the rest to drop wherever they like. Of course those in the higgledy-piggledy position must be of the poorest class, but you can make a few exceptions. Whitewash the inner walls of half the buildings, and use paper or cloth to hide the nakedness of the other half.
This will make a fair counterfeit of Petropavlovsk. Inside each house place a brick stove or oven, four or five feet square and six feet high. Locate this stove to present a side to each of two or three rooms. In each side make an aperture two inches square that can be opened or closed at will. The amount of heat to warm the rooms is regulated by means of the apertures.
Furnish the houses with plain chairs, tables, and an occasional but rare piano. Make the doors very low and the entries narrow. Put a picture of a saint in the principal room of every house, and adorn the walls with a few engravings. Make a garden near each house, and let a few miscellaneous gardens cling to the hillside and strive to climb it. Don’t forget to build a church, or you will fail to represent a Russian town.
Petropavlovsk has no vehicle of any kind except a single hand cart. Consequently the street is not gashed with wheel ruts.
We were invited to ‘assist’ at a wedding that happened in the evening after our arrival. The ceremony was to begin at five o’clock, and was a double affair, two sisters being the brides. A Russian wedding requires a master of ceremonies to look after the affair from beginning to end. I was told it was the custom in Siberia (but not in European Russia) for this person to pay all expenses of the wedding, including the indispensable dinner and its fixtures. Such a position is not to be desired by a man of limited cash, especially if the leading characters are inclined to extravagance. Think of being the conductor of a diamond wedding in New York or Boston, and then paying the bills!
