is 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.

As we did not choose to trust to our own skill, we had each of us a man to
drive and guide the sledge, which, from the state the roads were now in,
proved a very laborious business. For, as the thaw had advanced very
considerably in the vallies, through which our road lay, we were under the
necessity of keeping along the sides of the hills; and this obliged our
guides, who were provided with snow-shoes for that purpose, to support the
sledges, on the lower side, with their shoulders, for several miles
together. I had a very good-humoured cossack to attend me, who was,
however, so very unskilful in his business, that we were overturned almost
every minute, to the great entertainment of the rest of the company. Our
party consisted in all of ten sledges. That in which Captain Gore was
carried, was made of two lashed together, and abundantly provided with furs
and bear-skins; it had ten dogs, yoked fo