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11

200 roubles offered for a team of ten dogs.

Meanwhile I had some very interesting interviews with Koriak and Tchuktchi chiefs.

It was the period of their yearly migration to the southward. In October they begin to move towards Tigil and hunt the sable on the Kamtchatka mountains. In January there is a general gathering of them round Tigil, where they exchange the produce of their hunting for tobacco, tea, sugar, rifles and copperware. Tchuktchis have begun to appear since last year. Once in Kamtchatka they have to become Russian subjects and to pay the "yessak" (taxes) on the same principle as all other wandering tribes under Russian dominion. 

Bad weather detained them in the neighborhood of Lessnoi and, hearing of our arrival, many of them came to see me.

Some pounds  of circassian tobacco and several tumblers of tea made us good friends They advised us, should we leave Lessnoi very soon, not to follow the sea coast, where mouths of rivers never freeze before end of November, but to incline eastward after we would reach  Podkagernaya.

I followed willingly their advice, not being sorry to become acquainted with the country north east of Kamtchatka, so little, or rather