A merchant who knew Mr. Borasdine invited us to his house, where he brought a lunch of bread, cheese, butter, and milk for our entertainment.  Salted cucumbers were added, and the repast ended with tea.  In the principal room there was a Connecticut clock in one corner, and the windows were filled with flowers, among which were the morning glory, aster, and verbena.  Several engravings adorned the walls, most of them printed at Berlin.  We purchased a loaf of sugar, and were shown a bear-skin seven feet long without ears and tail.  The original and first legitimate owner of the skin was killed within a mile of town.

In addition to his commerce and farming, this merchant was superintendent of a school where several Gilyak boys were educated.  It was then vacation, and the boys were engaged in catching their winter supply of fish.  At the merchant’s invitation we visited the school buildings.

The study room was much like a backwoods schoolroom in America, having rude benches and desks, but with everything clean and well made.  The copy-books exhibited fair specimens of penmanship.  On a desk lay a well worn reading book containing a dozen of AEsop’s fables translated into Russian and profusely illustrated.  It corresponded to an American ‘Second Reader.’

There was a dormitory containing eight beds, and there was a wash-room, a dining-room, and a kitchen, the latter separate from the main building.  Close at hand was a forge where the boys learned to work in iron, and a carpenter shop with a full set of tools and a turning lathe.  The superintendent showed me several articles made by the pupils, including wooden spoons, forks, bowls, and cups, and he gave me for a souvenir a seal cut in pewter, bearing the word ‘Fulyhelm’ in Russian letters, and having a neatly turned handle.

The school is in operation ten months of each year.  The superintendent said the children of the Russian peasants could attend if they wished, but very few did so.  The teacher was a subordinate priest of the Eastern church.  The expense of the establishment was paid by Government, with the design of making the boys useful in educating the Gilyaks.

The Gilyaks of the lower Amoor are pagans, and the attempts to Christianize them have not been very successful thus far.  Their religion consists in the worship of idols and animals, and their priests or shamans correspond to the ‘medicine man’ of the American Indians.  Among animals they revere the tiger, and I was told no instance was known of their killing one.  The remains of a man killed by a tiger are buried without ceremony, but in the funerals of other persons the Gilyaks follow very nearly the Chinese custom.  The bear is also sacred, but his sanctity does not preserve him from being killed.

[Illustration:  BEAR IN PROCESSION.]