dry them. If the wet should set in, during this operation, the fish
instantly becomes magotty, and the whole stock is rendered useless.
From the great numbers of soldiers, (as, besides the cossacks, there
is a battalion of five hundred men, and about twenty officers,
quartered in Kamtschatka), and the small number of Kamtschadales, it
must be sufficiently evident, that the latter are frequently taken
from their work, and, it may be added, almost without remuneration;
for the post-money allowed by the crown, which amounts to one kopeck
the werst, considering the high price of every article, is, surely,
not only an inconsiderable, but an insulting reward for the service
performed," Thus far K. To some readers, it may be necessary to
mention, in order to their due understanding of this reward, that 100
kopecks make a rouble, the value of which varies according to the rate
of exchange from 2s. 6d. to 4s. 2d. British, having been so low as the
former rate in the year 1803, and that three wersts are about equal to
two English miles, so that we may fairly enough estimate this insult,
as K. expresses it, at one half-penny per mile!--E.

[87] Krusenstern's description of the houses and their contents is exactly
in proportion to the other parts of his very unfavourable report. Even
of two of them, which he says are the very ornament of Kamtschatka,
the furniture is represented as most wretchedly deficient. "That of
the anti-room consisted merely of a wooden stool, a table, and two or
three broken chairs. There was neither earthen-ware nor porcelain
table-service; no glasses, decanters, nor any thing else of a similar
nature; two or three tea-cups, one glass, a few broken knives and
forks, and some pewter spoons, constituted the wealth of the good
people (two artillery officers) who were both married. But what most
of all distressed me, was the condition of their windows; they had not
double sashes, which, in a cold climate, are as necessary to health as