A shooting trip to Kamchatka . own regions, suffering- aofonv ciurineintensely cold and sleepless nights, and frequentlyreturning with eighty or a hundred bear skins, whichthey exchanged with American dealers for articles ofprime necessity. They all carried Winchester rifles,and when they ran out of ammunition, Americantradesmen refused to supply them with cartridgesunless they took another rifle with a correspondingexchange, thus obliging them to throw away their oldrifle. In fact, I was told that a common lamp-glasscould not be obtained without acquiring a new unusual mode of traff
A shooting trip to Kamchatka . own regions, suffering- aofonv ciurineintensely cold and sleepless nights, and frequentlyreturning with eighty or a hundred bear skins, whichthey exchanged with American dealers for articles ofprime necessity. They all carried Winchester rifles,and when they ran out of ammunition, Americantradesmen refused to supply them with cartridgesunless they took another rifle with a correspondingexchange, thus obliging them to throw away their oldrifle. In fact, I was told that a common lamp-glasscould not be obtained without acquiring a new unusual mode of traffic had l)een imposed uponthem by /\mericans, the sole purveyors to thesenorthern tribes, who had helplessly to submit to thesetyrannic exactions. Mikhail told us that sable skinswere becoming very scarce on account ot the greatdemand for them. An average skin fetched twenty-five roubles, and a good sable-hunting dog was mostvaluable. The dog tracks the animal to its abodeunder the roots of a tree or in some fissure of a rock ;. THE ? AND VASsKA THE COOK. SABLE 113 a net is then placed at tlie entrance of the hole, andone may often remain days before the sable comes outand gets entangled in the net. Traps are also used,but with worse result. The Kamchatkan sable is offine quality, dark and soft, with greyish tips to the very best skins are said to come from Ajan andUda, districts of the Okhotsk region, and frequentlyfetch £^0 and more in the European markets. Atpresent the Russian Government has taken measurestowards the prohibition of sable-hunting in two dis-tricts of Kamchatka, with the view of preserving thiscostly animal. The country round the Kurile Lake inthe south, and that round Lake Kronotsky, close tothe eastern coast, have been selected for this purpose,but it is difficult to enforce regulations over theseuninhabited and remote parts. I learnt that two orthree years before, a Kamchatkan sable-hunter hadbeen found frozen to death in the Kronotsky La
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