necessaries, wrapped up in a bundle, behind him.  The dogs are usually five in number, yoked two and two, with a leader.  The reins, not being fastened to the head of the dogs, but to the collars, have little power over them, and are therefore generally hung upon the sledge, whilst the driver depends entirely on their obedience to his voice for the direction of them.  With this view, the leader is always trained up with a particular degree of care and attention; some of them rising to a most extraordinary value on account of their docility and steadiness; insomuch, that for one of these, I am well assured, forty roubles (or ten pounds) was no unusual price.  The driver is also provided with a crooked stick, which answers the purpose both of whip and reins; as, by striking it into the snow, he is enabled to moderate the speed of the dogs, or even to stop them entirely; and when they are lazy, or otherwise inattentive to his voice, he chastises them by throwing it at them.  Upon these occasions their dexterity in picking it up again is very remarkable, and forms the principal difficulty of their art.  But it is indeed not surprising that they should labour to be skilful in a practice upon which their safety so materially depends.  For they say, that if the driver should happen to lose his stick, the dogs will instantly perceive it; and unless their leader be of the most sober and resolute kind, they will immediately run a-head full speed, and never stop till they are quite spent.  But as that will not be the case soon, it generally happens that either the carriage is overturned, and dashed to pieces against the trees, or they hurry down some precipice, and are all buried in the snow.  The accounts that were given us of the speed of these dogs, and of their extraordinary patience of hunger and fatigue, were scarcely credible, if they had not been supported by the best authority.  We were indeed ourselves witnesses of the great expedition with which the messenger, who had been dispatched to Bolcheretsk with the news of our arrival, returned to the harbour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, though the snow was at this time exceedingly soft.  But I was informed, by the commander of Kamtschatka, that this journey was generally performed in two days and a half; and that he had once received an express from the latter place in twenty-three hours.

The dogs are fed, during the winter, on the offals of dried and stinking fish; but are always deprived of this miserable food a day before they set out on a journey, and never suffered to eat before they reach the end of it.  We were also told, that it was not unusual for them to continue thus fasting two entire days, in which time they would perform a journey of one hundred and twenty miles.[17] These dogs are in shape somewhat like the Pomeranian breed, but considerably larger.