On the 10th, Lediard returned with three Russian seamen, or furriers, who, with some others, resided at Egoochshac, where they had a dwelling-house, some store-houses, and a sloop of about thirty tons burthen. One of these men was either master or mate of this vessel, another of them wrote a very good hand and understood figures, and they were all three well-behaved intelligent men, and very ready to give me all the information I could desire. But for want of an interpreter, we had some difficulty to understand each other. They appeared to have a thorough knowledge of the attempts that had been made by their countrymen to navigate the Frozen Ocean, and of the discoveries which had been made from Kamtschatka, by Beering, Tscherikoff, and Spanberg. But they seemed to know no more of Lieutenant Syndo, or Synd, than his name.[5] Nor had they the least idea what part of the world Mr Stæhlin's map referred to, when it was laid before them. When I pointed out Kamtschatka, and some other known places, upon that map, they asked, whether I had seen the islands there laid down; and on my answering in the negative, one of them put his finger upon a part of this map, where a number of islands are represented, and said, that he had cruized there for land, but never could find any. I then laid before them my own chart, and found that they were strangers to every part of the American coast, except what lies opposite this island. One of these men said, that he had been with Beering in his American voyage, but must then have been very young, for he had not now, at the distance of thirty-seven years, the appearance of being aged. Never was there greater respect paid to the memory of any distinguished person, than by these men to that of Beering.[6] The trade in which they are engaged is very beneficial; and its being undertaken and extended to the eastward of Kamtschatka, was the immediate consequence of the second voyage of that able navigator, whose misfortunes proved to be the source of much private advantage to individuals, and of public utility to the Russian nation. And yet, if his distresses had not accidentally carried him to die in the island which bears his name, and from whence the miserable remnant of his ship's crew brought back sufficient specimens of its valuable furs, probably the Russians never would have undertaken any future voyages, which could lead them to make discoveries in this sea, toward the coast of America. Indeed, after his time, government seems to have paid less attention to this; and we owe what discoveries have been since made, principally to the enterprising spirit of private traders, encouraged, however, by the superintending care of the court of Petersburg. The three Russians having remained with me all night, visited Captain Clerke next morning, and then left us, very well satisfied with the reception they had met with, promising to return in a few days, and to bring with them a chart of the islands lying between Oonalashka and Kamtschatka.
On the 14th, in the evening, while Mr Webber and I were at a village at a small distance from Samganoodha, a Russian landed there, who, I found, was the principal person amongst his countrymen in this and the neighbouring islands. His name was Erasim Gregorioff Sin Ismyloff. He arrived in a canoe carrying three persons, attended by twenty or thirty other canoes, each conducted by one man. I took notice, that the first thing they did after landing, was to make a small tent for Ismyloff, of materials which they brought with them, and then they made others for themselves, of their canoes and paddles, which they covered with grass; so that the people of the village were at no trouble to find them lodging. Ismyloff having invited us into his tent, set before us some dried salmon and berries, which, I was satisfied, was the best cheer he had. He appeared to be a sensible intelligent man; and I felt no small mortification in not being able to converse with him, unless by signs, assisted by figures and other characters, which however were a very great help. I desired to see him on board the next day; and accordingly he came, with all his attendants. Indeed, he had moved into our neighbourhood, for the express purpose of waiting upon us.
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 Noss, 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. 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; and yet he wrote down the year, and marked the islands on the chart.[7] 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 be 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 Petersburgh, 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.[8]
The next morning, he would fain have made me a present of a sea-otter skin, which, he said, was worth eighty rubles 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.[9] 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 Penschinskian 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 Irkecchoff, 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 Penschinskian Sea, except Okotsk, till we come to the river Amur. The Kuril islands afford only one harbour, and that is on the N.E. side of Mareekan, in the latitude of 47-1/2°, 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 58-1/2°, and 75° of longitude from Okotsk, or, 218-1/2° from Greenwich; and the place where the former anchored, in 59-1/2° of latitude, and 63-1/2° 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.