The Wichita Daily Eagle

How the Ural Sturgeon Are Caught By the Cossacks,

Of all the great Russian family, the Cossacks are undeniably the most warlike and independent. Their peculiar and isolated position, geographically and politically, has developed these traits in their character.

The czars have never attempted to subdue them. They have been and still are too useful in repelling the Turcomans, Kirghiz and others pillaging Mongolian nomad tribes, who periodically harass the dwellers on the borderland. The people retain the Russian institution of the Artel, or co-operative principle in all trades, but they give to that principle a much broader application than is found among the large western cities.

Every male member of the Cossack family is required to serve three years in the regular army of Russia. A certain number leave yearly the Ural and other provinces for St. Petersburg and other military stations, to relieve those other members of the tribe who have served their terms. They inherit the custom of ownership of land in common, and have equal access, as far as practicable, to all the productive wealth of the community. This system is well exemplified in their great sturgeon fisheries on the Don and Ural rivers, which are their chief source of income.

The river Ural takes its rise from the Ural mountains, and flows southward about eight hundred miles into the Caspian sea. On the lower part of this river are the largest sturgeon fisheries in the world. There are such fisheries on the Don and Volga, but by far the greatest celebrity, as well as commercial importance, is attained by those of the Ural. They increase greatly the wealth of the Cossacks of the district; for the fisheries belong to them exclusively, and no syndicate can interfere with their rights.

The Ural sturgeon is cartilaginous and almost boneless. The usual length of the fish is from five to six feet, but sometimes a Huso or Beluga-of the same family-is captured which measures more than twenty feet in length.

The method of fishing is peculiar. Hooks and lines are used, but the hooks on the sturgeon line have no barbs, as have those used for the capture of other fishes. The Cossacks stretch across the river, or from the shore outward, a line floated with corks. Ordinarily one end of the line is fastened to the shore, and the other to a boat anchored in the stream. From this line descend other shorter lines, often more than a thousand in number, carrying each at its extremity an unbarbed hook.

The hook is about ten inches long, and hangs in the water about seven feet from the surface. No bait is used.

The sturgeon seek a spawning ground in the fresh water, and at the approach of the proper season they swim up the river mouth, away from the salt and brackish water, and toward the ground they have selected for breeding purposes. It is during this journey that the fishing-lines are set for them, and as the fish blindly make their way up the river, they strike against the hooked lines and are "gaffed"-first, perhaps, by a single hook. Upon being struck thus, they slash their powerful tails in their pain and anger so fiercely and wildly that other hooks are imbedded in the infuriated fish, until at last, hopelessly hooked, it may be in a dozen places, the sturgeon is firmly held until the line is drawn in. It often happens that nearly every one of the one thousand hooks is found imbedded in some part of a fish.

In every commune or stanitza the fishing is carried on upon a co-operative basis. The fish caught are divided equally among the Cossacks of the district. Sometimes the division of the spoils affects the direct welfare of forty or fifty stanitza, each one of which forms in itself a community. When the season opens, the great gun of the town of Uralsk is discharged as a signal for the commencement of fishing.

No one dares fish for sturgeon before this signal is given. Word is then passed from stanitza to stanitza; communal guns are discharged in all the villages, and all the male Cossacks make their way to the river. The fishery is continued about three weeks. Another gun announces its termination, and, after this, sturgeon fishing is an offense which is severely punished, and which, therefore, is seldom known to have been necessary.

The most valuable products of the Cossack fisheries are the famous black caviare, and the caviare made from the sterlet-a small species of sturgeon. There is a common notion, even with some of our cyclopaedia makers, that caviare is simply the salted roe of the different species of sturgeon. This is a great error. The fresh roe, especially the black, is much more highly prized, much more delicious, and consequently more expensive than the salt. The price of either-black or sterlet fresh caviare-in St. Petersburg is ten shillings, while a pound of the salted article costs only sixpence. It is almost impossible to transport the fresh roe of the sterlet, for it is so tender that the slightest shaking will break the eggs. No perfectly prepared caviare, therefore, can be obtained except in the districts where the fish are taken.-Yankee Blade.