which
the most fastidious need have hesitated to eat. The most noticeable
peculiarity of this, as of all the other Kamchadal houses which we saw
in southern Kamchatka, was the lowness of its doors. They seemed to
have been designed for a race of beings whose only means of locomotion
were hands and knees, and to enter them without making use of those
means required a flexibility of spinal vertebrae only to be acquired
by long and persevering practice. Viushin and Dodd, who had travelled
in Kamchatka before, experienced no difficulty in accommodating
themselves to this peculiarity of native architecture; but the Major
and I, during the first two weeks of our journey, bore upon the fore
parts of our heads, bumps whose extraordinary size and irregularity
of development would have puzzled even Spurzheim and Gall. If the
abnormal enlargement of the bumps had only been accompanied by a
corresponding enlargement of the respective faculties, there would
have been some compensation for this disfiguration of our heads; but
unfortunately "perception" might be suddenly developed by the lintel
of a door until it looked like a goose-egg, without enabling us to
perceive the very next beam which came in our way until after we had
struck our heads against it.

The Cossack who had been sent through the peninsula as an
avant-courier to notify the natives of our coming, had carried the
most exaggerated reports of our power and importance, and elaborate
preparations had been made by the Jerusalemites for our reception.
The house that was to be honoured by our presence had been carefully
scrubbed, swept, and garnished; the women had put on their most
flowery calico dresses, and tied their hair up in their brightest silk
handkerchiefs; most of the children's faces had been painfully washed
and polished with soap, water, and wads of fibrous hemp; the whole
village had been laid under contribution to obtain the requisite
number of plates, cups, and spoons, for our supper-table, while
offerings of ducks, reindeer-tongues, blueberries, and clotted cream
poured in upon us with a profusion which testified to the good-will
and hospitality of the inhabitants, as well as to their ready
appreciation of tired travellers' wants. In an hour we sat down, with
appetites sharpened by the pure mountain air, to an excellent supper
of cold roast duck, broiled reindeer-tongues, black-bread and fresh
butter, blueberries and cream, and wild-rose petals crushed wit