The next day we fitted ourselves out early and without difficulty. We arrived in four hours at Apatchin, but our floats could not come up as far as the village, on account of the shallowness of the water. We landed about four hundred yards from the ostrog, and atchieved this short distance on foot.
This village did not appear to me so considerable as the preceding ones, that is, it contained perhaps three or four habitations less. It is situated in a small plain, watered by a branch of the Bolchaïa-reka; and on the side opposite to the ostrog is an extent of wood, which I conceived might be an island formed by the different branches of this river.
I learned by the way, that the ostrog of Apatchin, as well as that of Natchikin, had not been always where they are at present. It is within a few years only that the inhabitants, attracted without doubt by the situation, or the hope of better and more commodious fishing, removed their houses to this place. The distance of the new ostrog from the former one is, as I was told, about four or five wersts.
Apatchin afforded nothing interesting. I left it to join our floats, which had passed the shallows, and were waiting for us three wersts from the ostrog, at the spot where the branch of Bolchaïa-reka, after having made a circuit round the village, returns again to its channel. The farther we advanced, the deeper and more rapid we found it; so that nothing impeded our course the whole way to Bolcheretsk, where we arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, accompanied by one only of our floats, the rest not having kept pace with us.
We were no sooner landed, than the governor conducted me to his house, where he had the civility to give me a lodging, which I occupied during the whole time of my stay at Bolcheretsk. He not only procured me all the conveniences and pleasures that were in his power, but furnished me with all the information which might contribute to my advantage, and which his office permitted him to give. His politeness often anticipated my desires and my questions; and he contrived to stimulate my curiosity, by presenting to it every thing which he thought was calculated to interest me. It was with this view he proposed, almost immediately upon our arrival, my going with him to view the galliot from Okotsk, that had been unfortunately just shipwrecked at a little distance from Bolcheretsk.
We had learned something of this melancholy news in our journey. It was said that the bad weather, which the galliot had encountered at its arrival, obliged it to come to anchor at the distance of a league from the coast; but finding that it still drove, the pilot saw no other means of saving the cargo than by running the vessel aground upon the coast; accordingly he cut the cables, and the ship was dashed to pieces.
Upon the first intelligence of this event, the inhabitants of Bolcheretsk flocked together to hasten to the succour of the vessel, and to save at least the provisions with which it was freighted. Immediately upon our arrival, M. Kasloff had given all the orders which appeared to him to be necessary; but not satisfied with this, he would go himself to see them carried into execution. He invited me to accompany him, which I accepted with cheerfulness, promising myself much pleasure from having an opportunity of viewing the mouth of the Bolchaïa-reka, and the harbour which is formed by it.
We set off at eleven o'clock in the morning, upon two floats, of which one, that which carried us, was formed of three canoes. Our conductors made use of oars and sometimes of their poles, which frequently in difficult and shallow passages, enabled them to resist the impetuosity of the current, by keeping back the float, which would otherwise have been carried along with rapidity and infallibly overturned.
The Bistraïa, another very rapid river, and larger than the Bolchaïa-reka, joins it to the west, about the distance of half a werst from Bolcheretsk. It loses its name at the conflux, and takes that of the Bolchaïa-reka, which is rendered very considerable by this addition, and empties itself into the sea at the distance of thirty wersts.