See Davydov's The Two/old ]oumey to America of the Naval Officers Khvostov and Davydov, Written by the Latter. With a Foreuord by Shishkov (1810). In his foreword, Admiral Shishkov states that "Khvostov combined two opposed traits within his souclass="underline" the gentleness of a lamb and the ferocity of a lion." He says that Davydov "was more hot-tempered than Khvostov, but was his inferior in toughness and courage." This lamblike gendeness did not prevent Khvostov in 1806 from devastating Japanese ware- houses and capturing four Japanese on the shore of the Aniva in Southern Sakhalin. In 1807, together with his friend Davydov, he destroyed Japanese factories on the Kurile Islands and again pillaged Southern Sakhalin. These valiant officers fought against Japan without the government's knowledge and with full confi- dence in their impunity. They ended their lives in an unusual fashion. They were hurrying across a bridge in St. Petersburg at the moment when it was being raised, and they were drowned in the river Neva. Their exploits, which caused quite a sensation at the time, stimulated interest in Sakhalin society; it was discussed and, who knows, perhaps the destiny of this afflicted, terrifying island was even then predetermined. In his foreword Shishkov offers his unfounded belief that the Russians wanted to take pos- session of the island in the previous century and had actually organized a colony to achieve that purpose.
3 His work is called To-tats Ki Ko. I did not read it myself but used the quotations of L. I. Shrenk, the author of Non-Russians in the Amur Region.
• The Gilyaks live in small tribes on both banks of the lower Amur, beginning with Sofyska, then along the Liman, and along the adjacent bank of the Okhotsk Sea and in the northern section of Sakhalin. Existing historical records, dating back rwo hundred years, show no significant change in their boundaries. The pre- sumption is that Sakhalin was the Gilyak homeland and they later migrated to the nearest part of the mainland, neighboring the Ainu to the south, who were struggling against the Japanese, and also living close to the Japanese.
5 Sakhalin has an official Gilyak and Ainu translator. Since the translator does not know one word of Gilyak or Ainu, and most of the Gilyaks and Ainu do not understand Russian, this unneces- sary official may serve as a useful adjunct to the aforementioned inspector of the nonexistent Vedernikovsky way station. If there were an official who knew something about ethnography and sta- tistics instead of a translator, the matter would be handled far better.
0 Kuteykin was a character in the comedy The Semiliterate, by Denis Fonvizin ( 1745-92).—TRANS.
His excellent work Non-Russians in the Amur Region contains an ethnographic map and two drawings by Mr. Dmitriyev-Oren- burgsky. One of them depicts a Gilyak.
Our Amur non-Russians and those on Kamchatka were infected with syphilis by the Chinese and Japanese. It was not the fault of the Russians. One Chinese merchant, a great devotee of opium, toid me he has one babushka, or wife, living at home in China and another Gilyak babushka near Nikolayevsk. Under such con- ditions it is not difficult to infect the whole of the Amur and Sakhalin region.
The warden of the Due Post, Major Nikolayev, told a cor- respondent in 1866: "I don't have dealings with them in the summer, but in the winter I often buy furs from them and buy them quite cheaply. You can obtain a fine pair of sables for a bottle of vodka or a loaf of bread."
A correspondent was amazed at the huge number of furs he saw at the home of the major (see Lukashevich, "My Acquaint- ances in Due, on Sakhalin," The Kronstadt News, 1868, Nos. 47, 49). I will speak of this legendary major on a later occasion.
to They have no court and do not know the meaning of justice. How difficult it is for them to understand our way of life may be seen from the fact that they have not yet completely understood the purpose of roads. Even where roads have already been built, they continue to travel over the taiga. Often you will see them, their families and dogs laboriously making their way in single file through the marshes beside the road.
XII My Departure for the South - A jovial - The Western Shore - The Flux - Mauka - Krilon - Aniva - The Korsakov Post - New Acquaintances - A Northeaster - The Climate of Southern Sakhalin - The Korsakov Prison - The Fire Wagons
on september 10 I sailed on the Baikal, already famil- iar to the reader, for Southern Sakhalin. I departed with the greatest pleasure, because I was weary of the North and eager for new impressions. The Baikal cast anchor at ten o'clock at night. It was very dark. I stood alone on the stern, looking back and bidding farewell to that gloomy little world guarded from the sea by The Three Brothers, which could scarcely be discerned above the water, re- sembling in the darkness three black monks. Over the noise of the ship I could hear the waves smashing against the reefs.
Soon Zhonkiyer and The Three Brothers were left far behind, vanishing in the gloom, and I would never see them again. The roar of the breaking waves, expressing an impotent, evil yearning, slowly stilled. We had sailed eight versts when we saw fires gleaming. \VIe were passing the dreadful Voyevodsk prison; a little farther on we saw the fires of Due. But soon all this vanished, and all we could see was the darkness, and there was a horrible feeling as though we had come out of a terrifying nightmare.
Below deck I came upon a cheerful company. There were several passengers in the wardroom as well as the ship's commander and the officers. These were a lady, a young Japanese, a commissary official, the priest-monk Irakly, a Sakhalin missionary who was following me south so that we could travel to Russia together. The lady was the wife of a naval officer. She had fled from Vladivostok in fear of the cholera, and now, somewhat calmer, she was going back. She possessed an enviable character. For the simplest reason she would break out in the most sincere, joyful gales of lively laughter, leading to exhaustion, to tears. She starts explaining something in a guttural voice and suddenly she laughs, her joy bursting like a fountain, and, looking at her, I too begin laughing, and then Father Irakly laughs, and then it is the turn of the Japanese. Finally the commander says, "Well, now," and he also breaks out into laughter. Probably there has never been as much laughter on the normally angry Tatar Strait. The next morning we met on deck for conversation, the priest-monk, the lady, the Japanese and I. And again laughter; all that was needed was that the whales with their heads in the air should laugh when they saw us.