such as hatchets, bills, knives, scissars, needles;
looking-glasses, flour, sugar; tanned hides, boots, &c. We had an
opportunity of seeing a great many of these articles in the hands of a
merchant, who came in the empress's galliot from Okotzk; and I shall only
observe generally, that they sold for treble the price they might have been
purchased for in England. And though the merchants have so large a profit
upon these imported goods, they have a still larger upon the furs at
Kiachta, upon the frontiers of China, which is the great market for them.
The best sea-otter skins sell generally in Kamtschatka for about thirty
roubles a-piece. The Chinese merchant at Kiachta purchases them at more
than double that price, and sells them again at Pekin at a great advance,
where a farther profitable trade is made with some of them to Japan. If,
therefore, a skin is worth thirty roubles in Kamtschatka, to be transported
first to Okotzk, thence to be conveyed by land to Kiachta, a distance of
one thousand three-hundred and sixty-four miles; and thence on to Pekin,
seven hundred and sixty miles more; and after this to be transported to
Japan, what a prodigiously advantageous trade might be carried on between
this place and Japan, which is about a fortnight's, or at most three weeks,
sail from it?

All furs exported from hence across the sea of Okotzk, pay a duty of ten
per cent., and sables a duty of twelve. And all sorts of merchandise, of
whatever denomination, imported from Okotzk, pay half a rouble for every
pood.[83]

The duties arising from the exports and imports, of which I could not learn
the amount, are paid at Okotzk; but the tribute is collected at
Bolcheretsk; and, I was informed by Major Behm, amounted in value to ten
thousand roubles annually.

There were six vessels (of from forty to fifty tons burthen) employed by
the empress between Okotzk and Bolcheretsk; five of which are appropriated
to the transporting of stores and provisions from Okotzk to Bolcheretsk;
except that once in two or three years, some of them go round to Awatska
and the Kamtschatka river; the sixth is only used as a packet-boat, and
always kept in readiness, and properly equipped for conveying dispatches.
Besides these, there are about fourteen vessels employed by the merchants
in the fur-trade, amongst the islands to the eastward. One of these we
found frozen up in the harbour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which was to
sail on a trading voyage