We had still a difficult pass to make, that terrified my people; it is called Podporojenei, or the ebb of the cataract, which is about the distance of a werst from it. They were still talking of it when we arrived, and I had scarcely time to explain to them the manœuvre which I thought it necessary to practice. Our object was to choose the deepest side; the blackness of the water seemed to point it out, and I steered towards it. The multiplicity and bulk of the waves tossed us about with more violence than if we had been in the open sea. All at once our boat was pitched upon a rock that was on a level with the water, and which none of us had perceived. We were thrown down by the force of the shock; my companions imagined themselves to be lost, and had not the courage to raise themselves; it was in vain I called upon them to row on; they paid no attention to my cries. I caught hold of the helm, and perceiving that the boat had sustained no injury, I animated their drooping spirits, and prevailed on them to take their stations. We owed our safety to the moss with which the rock was covered; the boat touched it in its passage, and glided along without suffering any damage.
To avoid this accident, it is necessary to pass exactly in the middle of the stream, and to pay no attention to the waves which rise, and seem to break against the rocks. The passage is about three hundred yards. At the bottom of this podporojenei, another river empties itself; the clearness of its water, and the smoothness of its current by the side of the agitation and turmoil of the Yudoma, form so striking a contrast, that the eye for a long time distinguishes the one from the other.
At the left of this last is another arm equally formidable, and which is called Tschortofskoï-protok, or devil’s arm. It pours itself into the Yudoma about thirty wersts from where this river joins the Maya. It is known by the number of rocks and dead trees that obstruct its entrance; if you are not careful to steer constantly to the right, you are drawn in by a very rapid current, and your ruin is inevitable.
I hoped to kill a bear that was prowling on the bank; I loaded my gun with deer-shot, and fired at it, but in spite of its wound it fled to the woods, and I lost sight of it. The next moment a beautiful rein deer started fifteen paces before me, but my gun not being charged, it escaped. I saw also a number of argalis, swans, geese, and a fox, but I could reach none of them.
This day I perceived, for the first time since my departure from Yudomskoi-krest, a forest of pine trees. To make up for it, I had not been able to count the numerous woods of firs that presented themselves to my view, both on the right and left, and it is this tree[73] that furnishes the masts and other timber used in all the dock yards on this coast.
I felt myself indisposed by the attack of a fever, but I paid no great attention to it; I merely laid myself down in the boat, and observed no other regimen than that of drinking cold water. We no longer halted during the night, as our navigation was become perfectly easy.
Notwithstanding the assertions I had heard, I could not easily believe that the Ourak was more rapid than the Yudoma. We sailed on the latter ten, twelve, and frequently fifteen wersts an hour. Its most regular direction appeared to be west, and it forms at its mouth a great number of small islands.
I entered the Maya on the 22, at two o’clock in the morning, and proceeded in a direction nearly north, but inclining now and then to the east. The banks of this river are less steep, less dreary than those of the preceding, though at intervals there are mountains and even rocks. The difference of the current was still more perceptible, as we only sailed four wersts an hour.
About noon we met nine boats loaded with a variety of military stores for M. Billings’ expedition. They were drawn by men, and were going up the rivers that we had descended. I was not able to approach them, but I knew that they were bound for Okotsk, under the command of M. Behring, son of the navigator, to whom Russia owes such interesting discoveries on the north-west coast of America. He expected, I was told, to be six weeks in performing what had cost us only four days.