I have already mentioned that Captain Clerke’s health continued daily to decline, notwithstanding the salutary change of diet which the country of Kamtschatka afforded him. The priest of Paratounca, as soon as he heard of the infirm state he was in, supplied him every day with bread, milk, fresh butter, and fowls, though his house was sixteen miles from the harbour where we lay.
On our first arrival, we found the Russian hospital, which is near the town of St. Peter and St. Paul, in a condition truly deplorable. All the soldiers were, more or less, affected by the scurvy, and a great many in the last stage of that disorder. The rest of the Russian inhabitants were also in the same condition; and we particularly remarked that our friend the serjeant, by making too free with the spirits we gave him, had brought on himself in the course of a few days, some of the most alarming symptoms of that malady. In this lamentable state, Captain Clerke put them all under the care of our surgeons, and ordered a supply of sour krout, and malt for wort, to be furnished for their use. It was astonishing to observe the alteration in the figures of almost every person we met on our return from Bolcheretsk; and I was informed by our surgeons that they attributed their speedy recovery principally to the effects of the sweet wort.
On the 1st of June we got on board two hundred and fifty poods, or nine thousand pounds’ weight of rye flour, with which we were supplied from the stores of St. Peter and St. Paul’s, and the Discovery had a proportional quantity. The men were immediately put on full allowance of bread, which they had not been indulged in since our leaving the Cape of Good Hope. The same day our watering was completed, having got on board sixty-five tons.
On the 4th we had fresh breezes and hard rain, which disappointed us in our design of dressing the ships, and obliged us to content ourselves with firing twenty-one guns in honour of the day, and celebrating it in other respects in the best manner we were able. Port, who was left with us on account of his skill in languages, behaved himself with so much modesty and discretion, that as soon as his master was gone he was no longer Jean Port, but Monsieur Port, the interpreter, and partook, as well as the serjeant (in his capacity of commander of the place), of the entertainment of the day. Our worthy friend the priest of Paratounca having got intelligence of its being our king’s birth-day, gave also a sumptuous feast, at which some of our gentlemen were present, who seemed highly delighted with their entertainment, which consisted of abundance of good eating and drinking, together with dancing.
On the 6th, twenty head of cattle were sent us by the commander’s orders from the Verchnei ostrog, which is situated on the river Kamtschatka, at the distance of near a hundred miles from this place, in a direct line. They were of a moderate size; and, notwithstanding the Kamtschadales had been seventeen days in driving them down to the harbour, arrived in good condition. The four following days were employed in making ready for sea, and on the 11th, at two in the morning, we began to unmoor; but before we had got one anchor up, it blew so strong a gale from the north-east, that we kept fast, and moored again, conjecturing, from the position of the entrance of the bay, that the current of wind would set up the channel. Accordingly, the pinnace being sent out to examine the passage, returned with an account that the wind blew strong from the south-east, with a great swell, setting into the bay, which would have made any attempt to get to sea very hazardous.
Our friend Port now took his leave of us, and carried with him the box with our journals, which was to go by the major, and the packet that was to be sent express. On the 12th, the weather being moderate, we began to unmoor again; but, after breaking the messenger, and reeving a running purchase with a six-inch hawser, which also broke three times, we were obliged at last, to heave a strain at low water, and wait for the flowing of the tide to raise the anchor. This project succeeded; but not without damaging the cable in the wake of the hawse. At three, we weighed the best bower, and set sail; and, at eight, having little wind, and the tide making against us, we dropped anchor again in ten fathoms, off the mouth of Rakowina harbour; the ostrog bearing north by east half east, two miles and a half distant; the needle rocks on the east side of the passage south south-east half east, and the high rock, on the west side of the passage, south.
On the 13th, at four in the morning, we got under weigh with the ebb tide; and, there being a dead calm, the boats were sent ahead to tow the ships. At ten, the wind springing up from the south-east by south, and the tide having turned, we were again obliged to drop anchor in seven fathoms; the Three Needle Rocks bearing south half east; and the ostrog north half east, at the distance of one mile from the nearest land. After dinner, I went with Captain Gore on shore, on the east side of the passage, where we saw, in two different places, the remains of extensive villages; and on the side of the hill, an old ruined parapet, with four or five embrasures. It commanded the passage up the mouth of the bay; and, in Beering’s time, as he himself mentions, had guns mounted on it. Near this place, were the ruins of some caverns under ground, which we supposed to have been magazines.
At six in the afternoon we weighed with the ebb tide, and turned to windward; but at eight, a thick fog arising, we were obliged to bring-to, as our soundings could not afford us a sufficient direction for steering between several sunk rocks, which lie on each side of the passage we had to make. In the morning of the 14th, the fog clearing away, we weighed as soon as the tide began to ebb; and, having little wind, sent the boats ahead to tow; but, at ten o’clock, both the wind and tide set in so strong from the sea, that we were again obliged to drop anchor in thirteen fathoms, the high rock bearing west one quarter south, distant three quarters of a mile. We remained fast for the rest of the day, the wind blowing fresh into the mouth of the bay; and, toward evening, the weather had a very unusual appearance, being exceedingly dark and cloudy, with an unsettled shifting wind.
Before day-light on the 15th, we were surprised with a rumbling noise, resembling distant hollow thunder; and when the day broke, we found the decks and sides of the ships covered with a fine dust like emery, near an inch thick. The air, at the same time, continued loaded and darkened with this substance; and, toward the volcano mountain, situated to the north of the harbour, it was so thick and black, that we could not distinguish the body of the hill. About twelve o’clock, and, during the afternoon, the explosions became louder, and were followed by showers of cinders, which were, in general, about the size of peas; though many were picked up from the deck larger than a hazel-nut. Along with the cinders fell several small stones, which had undergone no change from the action of fire. In the evening we had dreadful thunder and lightning, which, with the darkness of the atmosphere, and the sulphureous smell of the air, produced altogether a most awful and terrifying effect. We were, at this time, about eight leagues from the foot of the mountain.
On the 16th, at day-light, we again weighed anchor, and stood out of the bay; but the ebb-tide setting across the passage upon the eastern shore, and the wind falling, we were driven very near the Three Needle Rocks, which lie on that side of the entrance, and obliged to hoist out the boats, in order to tow the ships clear of them. At noon we were two leagues from the land, and had soundings with forty-three fathoms of line, over a bottom of small stones, of the same kind with those which fell on our decks, after the eruption of the volcano; but whether they had been left there by the last, or by some former eruptions, we were not able to determine.