The country bordering on the Ochotsk Sea, a place visited by hundreds of whalemen, presents a scenery in some respects quite different from that of the arctic.
While the surface of the country is uneven, interspersed with hills, valleys, and mountains, yet it is quite well wooded, especially on the seaboard.
As far north as 60° we have found patches of potatoes, turnips, barley, &c. As soon as the snow leaves the earth, numberless wild flowers of every hue and color, and some of them very odorous, immediately start into life and beauty, and adorn both the valley and hill side. And what is most remarkable in the multitude of flowers which follow the line of retreating frost and snow, we find in nature, as in opposite and antagonistical views and principles, that extremes meet.
Vegetation here in this region thrives with the greatest possible rapidity. It seems sometimes to put on the air even of romance, or fiction. One season we were in the Ochotsk Sea, which was the 15th of June, and then we found the country covered with snow; but in less than ten days from that time, the forests were leaved out, and every thing wore the dress of summer.
On the shores of the sea in different localities, we found growing in great profusion, berries of various sorts, such as whortleberry, cranberry, blackberry, mossberry, &c.
We found in the Ochotsk Sea, besides the whale, salmon, trout, cod, eels, butts, and flounders.
In addition to large sea fowl, which were very numerous, an immense number of little birds swarmed the air, some of them of beautiful plumage, and excelling in melodious notes. Many of them were so tame that they would light upon the ship's rigging and yards, and even descend to the deck to pick up crumbs, or little particles of food.