und it excellent for the purpose. The other grows
on the mountains, to a greater height, and bears a small nut, or apple. We
were told by the old _Toion_ at Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that Beering,
during the time he lay in that harbour, first taught them the use of the
decoction of these pines, and that it proved a most excellent remedy for
the scurvy; but, whether from the great scarcity of sugar, or from what
other cause, we could not learn, we were sorry to find that it was no
longer in use amongst them.

The birch was by far the most common tree we saw; and of this we remarked
three sorts. Two of them fit for timber, and differing only in the texture
and colour of the bark; the third of a dwarfish kind. This tree is applied
to a great variety of uses by the inhabitants. The liquor which, on
tapping, it yields in great abundance, they drink without mixture, or any
preparation, as we had frequent opportunities of observing upon our journey
to Bolcheretsk; and found it ourselves pleasant and refreshing, but
somewhat purgative. The bark they convert into vessels, for almost all
their domestic and kitchen purposes; and it is of the wood of this tree the
sledges and canoes are also made.[45]

The birch, and every other kind of tree in the neighbourhood of the bay,
were small and stunted; and they are obliged to go many miles up into the
country, for wood of a proper size to work into canoes, for the principal
timbers of their _balagans_, and the like uses.

Besides the trees above-mentioned, Krascheninnikoff relates, that the larch
grows on the banks of the river Kamtschatka, and of those that fall into
it, but no where else; and that there are firs in the neighbourhood of the
river Berezowa; that there is likewise the service-tree (_padus foliis
annuis_;) and two species of the white thorn, one bearing a red, the other
a black berry.

Of the shrub kind, as junipers, the mountain-ash, wild rose-trees, and
raspberry bushes, the country produces great abundance; together with a
variety of berries; blue berries of two sorts, round and oval; partridge-
berries, cranberries, crow-berries, and black-berries. These the natives
gather at proper seasons, and preserve, by boiling them into a thick jam,
without sugar. They make no inconsiderable part of their winter provisions,
and are used as sauce to their dried and salt fish; of which kind of food
they are unquestionably excellent correctives. They likewise eat them by
thems