THE PORT OF PETER AND PAUL.

131

pieces. A gentleman who arrived there in 1859, had to send his clothes to Shanghai to be washed-a journey of 1,600 miles! Since the great influx of foreigners, however, plenty of Niphons have turned laundrymen.

Their tea-gardens, like those of the Chinese, are often large and extremely ornamental, and at them one obtains a cup of genuine tea made before your eyes for one-third of a halfpenny.*

The great attraction, in a landscape point of view, outside Yokohama, is the grand Fusiyama Mountain, an extinct volcano, the great object of reverence and pride in the Japanese heart, and which in native drawings and carvings is incessantly represented. A giant, 14,000 feet high, it towers grandly to the clouds, snow-capped and streaked. It is deemed a holy and worthy deed to climb to its summit, and to pray in the numerous temples that adorn its sides. Thousands of pilgrims visit it annually. And now let us make a northward voyage.

CHAPTER IX.

ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (continued).

NORTHWARD

AND SOUTHWARD-THE

AUSTRALIAN STATION.

The Port of Peter and Paul-Wonderful Colouring of Kamchatka Hills-Grand Volcanoes-The Fight at Petropaulovski -A Contrast-An International Pic-nic-A Double Wedding-Bering's Voyages - Kamchatka worthy of Further Exploration-Plover Bay-Tchuktchi Natives-Whaling-A Terrible Gale-A Novel "Smoke-stack "-Southward again-The Liverpool of the East-Singapore, a Paradise-New Harbour-Wharves and Shipping-Cruelties of the Coolie Trade-Junks and Prahus-The Kling-gharry Drivers-The Durian and its Devotees-Australia-Its Discovery -Botany Bay and the Convicts-The First Gold-Port Jackson-Beauty of Sydney-Port Philip and Melbourne.

MANY English men-of-war have visited the interesting peninsula of Kamchatka, all included in the China station. How well the writer remembers the first time he visited Petropaulovski, the port of Peter and Paul! Entering first one of the noblest bays in the whole worldglorious Avatcha Bay-and steaming a short distance, the entrance to a capital harbour disclosed itself. In half an hour the vessel was inside a land-locked haven, with a sand-spit protecting it from all fear of gales or sudden squalls. Behind was a highly-coloured little town, red roofs, yellow walls, and a church with burnished turrets. The hills around were autumnly frost-coloured; but not all the ideas the expression will convey to an artist could conjure up the reality. Indian yellow merging through tints of gamboge, yellow, and brown ochre to sombre brown; madder lake, brown madder, Indian red to Roman sepia; greys, bright and dull greens indefinable, and utterly indescribable, formed a mélange of colour which defied description whether by brush or pen. It was delightful; but it was puzzling. King Frost had completed at night that which autumn had done by day. Then behind rose the grand mountain of Koriatski, one of a series of great volcanoes. * For further details concerning this most interesting people, vide Dr. Robert Brown's "Peoples of the World."

It seemed a few miles off; it was, although the wonderful clearness of the atmosphere belied the fact, some thirty miles distant. An impregnable fortress of rock, streaked and capped with snow, it defies time and man. Its smoke was constantly observed; its pure snows only hid the boiling, bubbling lava beneath.

With the exception of a few decent houses, the residences of the civil governor, captain of the port, and other officials, and a few foreign merchants, the town makes no great show. The poorer dwellings are very rough, and, indeed, are almost exclusively log cabins. A very picturesque and noticeable building is the old Greek church, which has painted red and green roofs, and a belfry full of bells, large and small, detached from the building, and only a foot or two raised above the ground. It is to be noted that the town, as it existed in Captain Clerke's time, was built on the sandspit. It was once a military post, but the Cossack soldiers have been removed to the Amoor.

There are two monuments of interest in Petropaulovski; one in honour of Bering, the second to the memory of La Perouse. The former is a plain cast-iron column, railed in, while the latter is a most nondescript construction of sheet iron, and is of octagonal form. Neither of these navigators is buried in the town. Poor Bering's remains lie on the island where he miserably perished, and which now bears his name; while of the fate of La Perouse, and his unfortunate companions, little is known.

In 1855, Petropaulovski was visited by the allied fleets, during the period of our war with Russia. They found an empty town, for the Russian Government had given up all idea of defending it. The combined fleet captured one miserable whaler, razed the batteries, and destroyed some of the government buildings. There were good and sufficient reasons why they should have done nothing. The poor little town of Saints Peter and Paul was beneath notice, as victory there could never be glorious. But a stronger reason existed in the fact, recorded in a dozen voyages, that from the days of Cook and Clerke to our own, it had always been famous for the unlimited hospitality and assistance shown to explorers and voyagers, without regard to nationality. All is not fair in war. Possibly, however, reason might be found for the havoc done, in the events of the previous year.

In August, 1854, the inhabitants of Petropaulovski had covered themselves with glory, much to their own surprise. On the 28th of the month, six English and French vesselsthe President, Virago, Pique, La Fort, l'Eurydice, and l'Obligado-entered Avatcha Bay. Admiral Price reconnoitred the harbour and town, and placed the Virago in position at 2,000 yards. The Russians had two vessels, the Aurora and Dwina, to defend the harbour, and a strong chain was placed across its narrow entrance. The town was defended by seven batteries and earthworks, mounting fifty guns.

It was not difficult to silence the batteries, and they were accordingly silenced. The townspeople, with their limited knowledge of the English-those English they had always so hospitably received, and who were now doing their best to kill them-thought their hour was come, and that, if not immediately executed, they would have to languish exiles in a foreign land, far from their beautiful Kamchatka. The town was, and is, defended almost as much by nature as by art. High hills shut it in so completely, and the harbour entrance can be so easily defended, that there is really only one vulnerable point, in its rear,

where a small valley opens out into a plot of land bordering the bay. Here it was thought desirable to land a body of men.

Accordingly, 700 marines and sailors were put ashore. The men looked forward to an easy victory, and hurriedly, in detached and straggling style, pressed forward to secure it. Alas! they had reckoned without their host-they were rushing heedlessly into the jaws of death. A number of bushes and small trees existed, and still exist, on the hill-sides surrounding this spot, and behind them were posted Cossack sharp-shooters, who fired into our men, and, either from skill or accident, picked off nearly every officer. The men, not seeing their enemy, and having lost their leaders, became panic-struck, and fell back in disorder. A retreat was sounded, but the men struggling in the bushes and underbrush (and, in truth, most of them being sailors, were out of their element on land) became much scattered, and it was generally believed that many were killed by the random shots of their companions. A number fled up a hill at the rear of the town; their foes pursued and pressed upon them, and many were killed by falling over the steep cliff in which the hill terminates.

The inhabitants, astonished at their own prowess, and knowing that they could not hold the town against a more vigorous attack, were preparing to vacate it, when the fleet weighed anchor and set sail, and no more was seen of them that year! The sudden death of our admiral is always attributed to the events of that attack, as he was known not to have been killed by a ball from the enemy.*

The writer has walked over the main battle-field, and saw cannon-balls unearthed when some men were digging gravel, which had laid there since the events of 1854. The last time he passed over it, in 1866, was when proceeding with some Russian and American friends to what might be termed an "international" pic-nic, for there were present European and Asiatic Russians, full and half-breed natives, Americans, including genuine "Yankee" New Englanders, New Yorkers, Southerners, and Californians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and one Italian. Chatting in a babel of tongues, the party climbed a path on the hill-side, leading to a beautiful grassy opening, overlooking the glorious bay below, which extended in all directions a dozen or fifteen miles, and on one side farther than the eye could reach. Several grand snow-covered volcanoes towered above, thirty to fifty miles off; one, of most beautiful outline, that of Vilutchinski, was on the opposite shore of Avatcha Bay.

The sky was bright and blue, and the water without a ripple; wild flowers were abundant, the air was fragrant with them, and, but for the mosquitoes (which are not confined to hot countries, but flourish in the short summer of semi-Arctic climes), it might have been considered an earthly edition of paradise! But even these pests could not worry the company much, for not merely were nearly all the men smokers, but most of the ladies also! Here the writer may remark, parenthetically, that many of the Russian ladies smoke cigarettes, and none object to gentlemen smoking at table or elsewhere. At the many dinners and suppers offered by the hospitable residents, it was customary to draw a few whiffs between the courses; and when the cloth was removed,

* Vide "Nautical Magazine," October, 1855.

the ladies, instead of retiring to another room, sat in company with the gentlemen, the larger proportion joining in the social weed. After the enjoyment of a liberal al fresco dinner, songs were in order, and it would be easier to say what were not sung than to give the list of those, in all languages, which were. Then after the songs came some games, one of them a Russian version of "hunt the slipper," and another very like "kiss in the ring." The writer particularly remembers the latter, for he had on that occasion the honour of kissing the Pope's wife! This needs explanation, although the Pope was his friend. In the Greek Church the priest is "allowed to marry," and his

title, in the Russian language, is "Pope."

And the recollection of that particular "Pope" recalls a well-remembered ceremony -that of a double wedding in the old church. During the ceremony it is customary to crown the bride and bridegroom. In this case two considerate male friends held the crowns for three-quarters of an hour over the brides' heads, so as not to spoil the artistic arrangement of their hair and head-gear. It seems also to be the custom, when, as in the present case, the couples were in the humbler walks of life, to ask some wealthy individual to act as master of the ceremonies, who, if he accepts, has to stand all the expenses. In this case M. Phillipeus, a merchant who has many times crossed the frozen steppes of Siberia in search of valuable furs, was the victim, and he accepted the responsibility of entertaining all Petropaulovski, the officers of the splendid Russian corvette, the Variag, and those of the Telegraph Expedition, with cheerfulness and alacrity.

was

The coast-line of Kamchatka is extremely grand, and far behind it are magnificent volcanic peaks. The promontory which terminates in the two capes, Kamchatka and Stolbevoy, has the appearance of two islands detached from the mainland, the intervening country being low. This, a circumstance to be constantly observed on all coasts, was, perhaps, specially noticeable on this. The island of St. Lawrence, in Bering Sea, a very prominent example. It is undeniable that the apparent gradual rise of a coast, seen from the sea as you approach it, affords a far better proof of the rotundity of the earth than the illustrations usually employed, that of a ship, which you are supposed to see by instalments, from the main-royal sail (if not from the 'sky-scraper' or moon-raker') to the hull. The fact is, that the royal and top-gallant sails of a vessel on the utmost verge of the horizon may be, in certain lights, barely distinguishable, while the dark outline of an irregular and rock-bound coast can be seen by any one. First, maybe, appears a mountain peak towering in solitary grandeur above the coast-line, and often far behind it, then the high lands and hills, then the cliffs and low lands, and, lastly, the flats and beaches.

It was from the Kamchatka River, which enters Bering Sea near the cape of the same name, that Vitus Bering sailed on his first voyage. That navigator was a persevering and plucky Dane, who had been drawn into the service of Russia through the fame of Peter the Great, and his first expedition was directly planned by that sagacious monarch, although he did not live to carry it out. Müller, the historian of Bering's career, says: "The Empress Catherine, as she endeavoured in all points to execute most precisely the plans of her deceased husband, in a manner began her reign with an order for the expedition to Kamchatka." Bering had associated with him two active subordinates,