When the Rurik appeared, Kadu was in the woods a long way from the coast. He was sent for at once, as he was looked upon as a great traveller, and he might perhaps be able to say what the great monster approaching the island was. Now Kadu had more than once seen European vessels, and he persuaded his friends to go and meet the strangers, and to receive them kindly.

Such had been Kadu's adventures. He now remained on the Rurik, identified the other islands of the Archipelago, and lost no time in facilitating intercourse between the Russians and the natives. Dressed in a yellow mantle, and wearing a red cap like a convict, Kadu looked down upon his old friends, and seemed not to recognize them. When a fine old man with a flowing beard, named Tigedien, came on board, Kadu undertook to explain to him and his companions the working of the vessel and the use of everything about the ship. Like many Europeans, he made up for his ignorance by imperturbable assurance, and had an answer ready for every question.

Interrogated on the subject of a little box from which a sailor took a black powder and applied it to his nostrils, Kadu glibly told some most extraordinary stories, and wound up with a practical illustration by putting the box against his own nose. He then flung it from him, sneezing violently and screaming so loud that his terrified friends fled away on every side; but when the crisis was over he managed to turn the incident to his own advantage.

Kadu gave Kotzebue some general information about the group of islands then under examination, and the Russians spent a month in taking surveys, &c. All these islands, which the natives call Radack, were under the control of one tamon, a man named Lamary. A few years later Dumont d'Urville gave the name of Marshall to the group. According to Kadu, another chain of islets, attolls, and reefs was situated some little distance off on the west.

Kotzebue had not time to identify them, and steering in a northerly direction he reached Ounalashka on the 24th April, where he had to repair the serious damage sustained by the Rurik in two violent storms. This done, he took on board some baidares (boats cased in skins to make them water-tight), with fifteen natives of the Aleutian Islands, who were used to the navigation of the Polar seas, and resumed his exploration of Behring Strait.

Kotzebue had suffered very much from pain in his chest ever since when, doubling Cape Horn, he had been knocked down by a huge wave and flung overboard, an accident which would have cost him his life had he not clung to some rope. The consequences were so serious to his health that when, on the 10th July, he landed on the island of St. Lawrence, he was obliged to give up the further prosecution of his researches.

On the 1st October the Rurik made a second short halt at the Sandwich Islands where seeds and animals were landed, and at the end of the month the explorers landed at Otdia in the midst of the enthusiastic acclamations of the natives. The cats brought by the visitors were welcomed with special enthusiasm, for the island was infested with immense numbers of rats, who worked havoc on the plantations. Great also was the rejoicing over the return of Kadu, with whom the Russians left an assortment of tools and weapons, which made their owner the wealthiest inhabitant of the archipelago.

Interior of a house at Radak.
(Fac-simile of early engraving.)

On the 4th November the Rurik left the Radak Islands, after identifying the Legiep group, and cast anchor off Guam, one of the Marianne islands, where she remained until the end of the month. A halt of some weeks at Manilla enabled the commander to collect some curious information about the Philippine Islands, to which he would have to return later.