An old weather beaten church and equally old barracks are near each other, an appropriate arrangement in a country where church and state are united.  The military garrison includes thirty Cossacks, who are under the orders of the Ispravnik.  They row the pilot boat when needed, travel on courier or other service, guard the warehouses, and when not wanted by government labor and get drunk for themselves.  The governor was a native of Poland, and it struck me as a curious fact that the ispravniks of Kamchatka, Ghijiga, and Ohotsk were Poles.

Cows and dogs are the only stock maintained at Ohotsk.  The former live on grass in summer, and on hay and fish in whiter.  Though repeatedly told that cows and horses in Northeastern Siberia would eat dried fish with avidity, I was inclined to skepticism.  Captain Mahood told me he had seen them eating fish in winter and appearing to thrive on it.  What was more singular, he had seen a cow eating fresh salmon in summer when the hills were covered with grass.

There is a story that Cuvier in a fit of illness, once imagined His Satanic Majesty standing before him.

“Ah!” said the great naturalist, “horns, hoofs; graniverous; needn’t fear him.”

I wonder if Cuvier knew the taste of the cows at Ohotsk?  No ship had visited Ohotsk for nearly a year before our arrival, though half a dozen whalers had passed in sight.  A steamer goes annually from the Amoor with a supply of flour and salt on government account.  The mail comes once a year, so that the postmaster has very little to do for three hundred and sixty-four days.  Sometimes the mail misses, and then people must wait another twelvemonth for their letters.  What a nice residence it would be for a young man whose sweetheart at a distance writes him every day.  He would get three hundred and sixty-five letters at once, and in the case of a missing mail, seven hundred and thirty of them.

[Illustration:  YEARLY MAIL.]

Bears are quite numerous around Ohotsk, and their dispositions do not savor of gentleness.  Only a few days before our visit a native was partly devoured within two miles of town.

Many of the dogs are shrewd enough to catch their own fish, but have not learned how to cure them for winter use.  When at Ohotsk I went to the bank of the river as the tide was coming in, and watched the dogs at their work.  Wading on the sand bars and mud flats till the water was almost over their backs, they stood like statues for several minutes.  Waiting till a salmon was fairly within reach, a dog would snap at him with such accuracy of aim that he rarely missed.

I kept my eye on a shaggy brute that stood with little more than his head out of water.  His eyes were in a fixed position, and for twelve or fifteen minutes he did not move a muscle.  Suddenly his head disappeared, and after a brief struggle he came to shore with a ten-pound salmon in his jaws.  None of the cows are skilled in salmon catching.