years been using their endeavours to
bring them under their dominion; and, after losing a great many men in
their different expeditions for this purpose, have not been able to effect
it.

I shall here conclude this article, since all we can say of this people, on
our own knowledge, hath been laid before the reader in the preceding
volume.

[78] It is proper to remark, that Atlassoff sent an advanced party, under
the command of a subaltern, called Lucas Moloskoff, who certainly
penetrated into Kamtschatka, and returned with an account of his
success before Atlassoff set out, and is therefore not unjustly
mentioned as the discoverer of Kamtschatka.

[79] This river empties itself into the Jenesei.

[80] Captain Krusenstern informs us, that the people in Kamtschatska, and
more especially the Kamtschadales, are decreasing in number very
rapidly, and from different causes. They are subject to several
epidemic complaints; one of which, he says, carried off upwards of
five thousand persons in the years 1800 and 1801. But the principal
causes of depopulation, which, if not speedily removed, threaten the
total extinction of the inhabitants, are not dependent on the
severity, or even any peculiar maladies of the climate. It is to the
excessive use of spirits, and an extraordinary disproportion in the
number of females, that this serious evil is to be chiefly imputed.
The great moral defect in the character of the native Kamtschadale, is
his propensity to drunkenness; in which, it will readily be believed,
he finds companions amongst his neighbours; and in which, still more
unfortunately, he is absolutely encouraged, for the most fraudulent
purposes, by the petty agents of the American Company, and the other
merchants in Kamtschatka. Nothing can be more infamous than what is
related by Krusenstern on this subject. Let the following description
suffice. It is applied by K. indeed to a state of matters which
formerly existed without controul, but which the government, he would
have us believe, has lately endeavoured to destroy. How far this
interference has availed, or is likely to avail, may be conjectured,
though not without some very painful emotions, from the circumstance
admitted by K. himself, that there are few Kamtschadales remaining on
whom its benefits can operate; and the opinion he has also given, that
be