I was in hopes to have had by him the chart which his three countrymen had promised; but I was disappointed. However, he assured me I should have it; and he kept his word. I found that he was very well acquainted with the geography of these parts, and with all the discoveries that had been made in them by the Russians. On seeing the modern maps, he at once pointed out their errors. He told me he had accompanied Lieutenant Syndo, or Synd as he called him, in his expedition to the north; and, according to his account, they did not proceed farther than the Tschukotskoi Nos, or rather than the bay of St. Laurence, for he pointed on our chart to the very place where I landed. From thence, he said, they went to an island in latitude 63°, upon which they did not land, nor could he tell me its name. But I should guess it to be the same to which I gave the name of Clerke’s Island. To what place Synd went after that, or in what manner he spent the two years, during which, as Ismyloff said, his researches lasted, he either could not or would not inform us. Perhaps he did not comprehend our enquiries about this, and yet, in almost every other thing, we could make him understand us. This created a suspicion that he had not really been in that expedition, notwithstanding his assertion.
Both Ismyloff and the others affirmed, that they knew nothing of the continent of America to the northward; and that neither Lieutenant Synd, nor any other Russian had ever seen it of late. They call it by the same name which Mr. Stæhlin gives to his great island, that is Alaschka. Stachtan Nitada, as it is called in the modern maps, is a name quite unknown to these people, natives of the islands as well as Russians; but both of them know it by the name of America. From what we could gather from Ismyloff and his countrymen, the Russians have made several attempts to get a footing upon that part of this continent that lies contiguous to Oonalashka and the adjoining islands, but have always been repulsed by the natives, whom they describe as a very treacherous people. They mentioned two or three captains, or chief men, who had been murdered by them; and some of the Russians shewed us wounds which they said they had received there.
Some other information, which we got from Ismyloff, is worth recording, whether true or false. He told us, that in the year 1773, an expedition had been made into the Frozen Sea in sledges, over the ice, to three large islands that lie opposite the mouth of the river Kovyma. We were in some doubt whether he did not mean the same expedition of which Muller gives an account[[88]], and yet he wrote down the year, and marked the islands on the chart. But a voyage which he himself had performed, engaged our attention more than any other. He said, that on the 12th of May, 1771, he sailed from Bolscheretzk, in a Russian vessel, to one of the Kuril islands, named Mareekan, in the latitude of 47°, where there is a harbour and a Russian settlement. From this island he proceeded to Japan, where he seems to have made but a short stay. For when the Japanese came to know that he and his companions were Christians, they made signs for them to be gone, but did not, so far as we could understand him, offer any insult or force. From Japan he got to Canton, and from thence to France, in a French ship. From France, he travelled to Petersburg; and was afterward sent out again to Kamtschatka. What became of the vessel in which he first embarked, we could not learn, nor what was the principal object of the voyage. His not being able to speak one word of French, made this story a little suspicious. He did not even know the name of any one of the most common things that must have been in use every day, while he was on board the ship and in France. And yet he seemed clear as to the times of his arriving at the different places, and of his leaving them, which he put down in writing.
The next morning he would fain have made me a present of a sea-otter skin, which he said was worth eighty roubles at Kamtschatka. However, I thought proper to decline it; but I accepted of some dried fish, and several baskets of the lily or saranne root, which is described at large in the History of Kamtschatka.[[89]] In the afternoon, Mr. Ismyloff, after dining with Captain Clerke, left us with all his retinue, promising to return in a few days. Accordingly, on the 19th, he made us another visit, and brought with him the charts before mentioned, which he allowed me to copy; and the contents of which furnish matter for the following observations.
There were two of them, both manuscripts, and bearing every mark of authenticity. The first comprehended the Penshinskian Sea; the coast of Tartary, as low as the latitude of 41°; the Kuril Islands; and the peninsula of Kamtschatka. Since this map had been made, Wawseelee Irkechoff, Captain of the fleet, explored, in 1758, the coast of Tartary from Okotsk, and the river Amur, to Japan, or 41° of latitude. Mr. Ismyloff also informed us, that great part of the sea-coast of the peninsula of Kamtschatka had been corrected by himself; and described the instrument he made use of, which must have been a theodolite. He also informed us, that there were only two harbours fit for shipping on all the east coast of Kamtschatka, viz. the bay of Awatska and the river Olutora, in the bottom of the gulf of the same name; that there was not a single harbour upon its west coast; and that Yamsk was the only one on all the west side of the Penshinskian Sea, except Okotsk, till we come to the river Amur. The Kurile islands afford only one harbour; and that is on the north-east side of Mareekan, in the latitude of 471⁄2°; where, as I have before observed, the Russians have a settlement.
The second chart was to me the most interesting, for it comprehended all the discoveries made by the Russians to the eastward of Kamtschatka, toward America, which, if we exclude the voyage of Beering and Tscherikoff, will amount to little or nothing. The part of the American coast with which the latter fell in is marked in this chart, between the latitude of 58° and 581⁄2°, and 75° of longitude from Okotsk, or 2181⁄2° from Greenwich; and the place where the former anchored in 591⁄2° of latitude, and 631⁄2° of longitude from Okotsk, or 207° from Greenwich. To say nothing of the longitude, which may be erroneous from many causes, the latitude of the coast discovered by these two navigators, especially the part of it discovered by Tscherikoff, differs considerably from the account published by Mr. Muller, and his chart. Indeed, whether Muller’s chart, or this now produced by Mr. Ismyloff, be most erroneous in this respect, it may be hard to determine, though it is not now a point worth discussing. But the islands that lie dispersed between 52° and 55° of latitude, in the space between Kamtschatka and America, deserve some notice. According to Mr. Ismyloff’s account, neither the number nor the situation of these islands is well ascertained. He struck out about one-third of them, assuring me they had no existence; and he altered the situation of others considerably, which, he said, was necessary, from his own observations. And there was no reason to doubt about this. As these islands lie all nearly under the same parallel, different navigators, being misled by their different reckonings, might easily mistake one island, or group of islands, for another; and fancy they had made a new discovery, when they had only found old ones in a different position from that assigned to them by their former visitors.
The islands of St. Macarius, St. Stephen, St. Theodore, St. Abraham, Seduction Island, and some others, which are to be found in Mr. Muller’s chart, had no place in this now produced to us; nay, both Mr. Ismyloff, and the others assured me, that they had been several times sought for in vain. And yet it is difficult to believe, how Mr. Muller, from whom subsequent map-makers have adopted them, could place them in his chart without some authority. Relying, however, on the testimony of these people, whom I thought competent witnesses, I have left them out of my chart; and made such corrections amongst the other islands as I was told was necessary. I found there was wanting another correction; for the difference of longitude, between the Bay of Awatska, and the harbour of Samganoodha, according to astronomical observations, made at these two places, is greater by five degrees and a half, than it is by the chart. This error I have supposed to be infused throughout the whole, though it may not be so in reality. There was also an error in the latitude of some places; but this hardly exceeded a quarter of a degree.
I shall now give some account of the islands; beginning with those that lie nearest to Kamtschatka, and reckoning the longitude from the harbour of Petropaulowska, in the Bay of Awatska. The first is Beering’s Island, in 55° of latitude, and 6° of longitude. Ten leagues from the south end of this, in the direction of east by south, or east south-east, lies Maidenoi Ostroff, or the Copper Island. The next island is Atakou, laid down in 52° 45ʹ of latitude, and in 15° or 16° of longitude. This island is about eighteen leagues in extent, in the direction of east and west; and seems to be the same land which Beering fell in with, and named Mount St. John. But there are no islands about it, except two inconsiderable ones, lying three or four leagues from the east end, in the direction of east north-east.
We next come to a group, consisting of six or more islands; two of which, Atghka and Amluk are tolerably large; and in each of them is a good harbour. The middle of this group lies in the latitude of 52° 30ʹ, and 28° of longitude from Awatska; and its extent, east and west, is four degrees. These are the isles that Mr. Ismyloff said were to be removed four degrees to the east, which is here done. And in the situation they have in my chart, was a group, consisting of ten small islands, which, I was told, were wholly to be struck out; and also two islands lying between them and the group to which Oonalashka belongs. In the place of these two, an island called Amoghta (which in the chart was situated in the latitude of 51° 45ʹ, and 4° of longitude to the west) was brought.
Nothing more need be said to show how erroneous the situation of many of these islands may be; and for which I am in nowise accountable. But the position of the largest group, of which Oonalashka is one of the principal islands, and the only one in which there is a harbour, is not liable to any such errors. Most of these islands were seen by us; and consequently their latitude and longitude were pretty exactly determined; particularly the harbour of Samganoodha in Oonalashka, which must be looked upon as a fixed point. This group of islands may be said to extend as far as Halibut Isles, which are forty leagues from Oonalashka toward the east north-east. Within these isles, a passage was marked in Ismyloff’s chart, communicating with Bristol Bay; which converts about fifteen leagues of the coast, that I had supposed to belong to the continent, into an island, distinguished by the name of Ooneemak. This passage might easily escape us, as we were informed that it is very narrow, shallow, and only to be navigated through with boats, or very small vessels.