Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/306

300 good coats and jackets made of fish-skins. The prettiest Gilyak girl I saw (and she had no great beauty to boast of) wore a coat of fish-skin that was gathered closely in at the neck and held around the waist by a girdle. A few yards away you couldn't distinguish it from cloth.

"The Gilyaks row their boats by pulling alternately on the oars, while the Goldees, who are higher up the river, pull the oars simultaneously. The houses of the Goldees are superior in every way to those of the Gilyaks. They are warmed by means of wooden pipes passing beneath benches on three sides of the room, and serving as seats by day and beds

at night. Like the Gilyaks, the Goldees live chiefly by fishing, but they give more attention to agriculture, and many of them have cows and horses. One day we passed a village where a large fleet of boats was engaged in fishing for salmon and sturgeon. Two men tried a race with the