The clothing of the Kamtschadales, consists of an up per garment resembling a waggoner's [rock, which in sum mer is made of nvkeen, or of skin without hair, hut in winter of deer or dog skin, with the hair preserved, and worn innermost ; a close jacket of nankeen, or other cot ton stuff; a shirt of thin Persian silk, of a red, blue or yel low colour ; a pair of long breeches, or tight trotvsers, made of leather, and reaching nearly to the ankles; hoots of goat, dog, or deer skin, tanned in summer, but, in win ter, with the hair turned inwards ; and a fur cap with two flaps, which are usually tied up round the head, but, in cold weather, are brought down to cover the neck and shoulders. Their richer dresses, and robes of ceremony, consist of an upper garment resembling that already described, with gloves, cap and boots, made tip of finer furs of different co lours, cut into triangular pieces, and neatly joined together, with trimmings of coloured leather threads, and edgings of velvet or sea otter's skin.
The principal food of the Kamtschadales is fish, and especially salmon, which, with little exertion, they can procure in great abundance during the whole summer season, from the middle of May to the end of September. The greater part of this provision is dried or smoked, and stored up for winter use, when it is either eaten like bread, or pulverized and formed into paste and cakes. In prepar ing the fish for drying, they first take off the belly piece, which is esteemed the best, and is carefully smoked ; next a slice along each side of the back bone, which are mere ly dried in the air ; and the remainder, consisting of the back, ribs, and head, are generally deposited, after drying, as provender for the dogs. When the fish is not dried, but used for immediate subsistence, it is prepared by boil ing, or broiling, and sometimes by placing a heap of it on stakes over a large fire, so that it is partly roasted and part ly smocked, so as to prove a very savoury kind of food. But the most favourite mode of preparing it, is to bury it, as soon as caught, in a hole lined with grass, and leave it there till it becomes sour, or rather perfectly putrid ; and in this state it is eaten with the utmost relish, as the most luxurious repast. The roes of the fish, dried or soured, afford also a very favourite dish. Several kinds of vege tables, roots, and berries, collected by the women in har vest, form a considerable part of the winter provisions. The berries, made like jam, are used as a general sauce to the dried fish ; or are mixed with fish roe, or whale and seal fat, by way of puddings ; or are employed by decoc tion, in making cooling drink for ordinary use. There are two vegetables, particularly, which deserve to be noticed among these articles of subsistence, namely, the sarana, or Kamtschatiense, and the sweet grass, or heraclium Sibericum. The former affords a bulbous root, wholesome, nourishing, and agreeable, which may be boiled like pota toes, or baked in an oven, and then pounded into the form of meal or flour, which is mixed in all the soups, and most other dishes. The latter, resembling sedge, about six
feet in height at its full growth, with a hollow stalk, and a white, sweet, pungent down on its leaves and stein. The stalks, after being split and freed from the pith, are dried for future use, and are boiled when wanted to be mixed with other dishes ; but the plant has, in later times, been chiefly employed in distillation. In preparing it for this purpose, the stalks are freed from the downy substance, (in scraping off which the women are obliged to wear gloves, as the rind is so acrid as to ulcerate the skin,)' placed in small heaps till they begin to heat ; and, after being dried, are laid up in sacks of matting, where, in a few days, they become covered with a sweet saccharine powder, which exudes from the hollow of the stem. When taken out for distillation, they are steeped in hot water in a close vessel, where a violent fermentation takes place ; and then the whole mass of herbs and liquor put into a copper still yields a spirit called raka, as strong as brandy, in the proportion Of 25 pints from 72 pounds of the plant. They make several decoctions from various other plants ; and drink, without any kind of mixture or preparation, the liquor which flows From a dwarf-birch, and which they pro cure by simply tapping the tree.
The furniture of the Kamtschadales consists Only of a few of the most necessary cooking utensils; and the place of chairs, beds, tables, is supplied by the benches, cover ed with skins and mats, around the walls of the apart ments. Several of their instruments are neatly made ; and others sufficiently coarse. A hollow stone, tilled with fat, with a bit of rag as a wick, constitutes the lamp, the smoke and smell of which are intolerably fetid and pun gent. From a coarse kind of grass, which grows plenti fully along the coast, they make a strong matting to cover their floors, beds, Sc.;t and front the same materials they form baskets, bags, sacks. From a plant growing in the marshes, and resembling cylteroides, they gather a sort of down, which they card like wool, with an instrument made of the bones of the sea-swallow ; and with this soft sub stance they swathe the new born children, and also make a kind of wadding, to give additional warmth to different parts of their own clothing. From the nettle, which they cut down in August, and hang around their houses to dry, they form a useful kind of hemp, which they spin into thread with a spindle, and manufacture into cordage, for fishing nets and other purposes. Formerly they used spears and arrows, poisoned with the juice of a root called agate ; but, since their subjugation to the Russians, they are provided with rifle-barrelled guns.