August 16/27. Saint Diomede's day. The Gabriel had kept on her course with a free wind making more than seven knots (miles) an hour. At nine in the morning they found themselves off a high promontory on the west, where there were Chukchi habitations. On the east and seaward they saw an island, which it was proposed to call after the saint of the day. At noon the vessel had made since the previous noon 115 miles and had reached latitude 66° 02'. Continuing on their way, with a fresh breeze and cloudy weather, they sailed along the Asiatic coast near enough to observe many natives and at two places they saw dwellings. At three P.M. very high land and mountains were passed (probably the highlands near St. Lawrence Bay).
Notes.—From 3 P.M. Aug. 15th to 9 A.M. Aug. 16th is 18 hours, which at seven knots an hour (allowing the alleged excess to be the equivalent of the drift caused by the current) would amount to 126 miles. Deduct from this the seven miles sailed between noon and 3 P.M. Aug. 15th in the opposite direction and we have remaining 119 miles made on the homeward voyage at a time when the Gabriel was between the Diomedes and East Cape, or at least in plain sight of both. But three hours later, at noon, according to Lauridsen, they had made only 115 miles in all, although the breeze was fresh and fair. From Chaplin's position for the turning point to latitude 66° 02' off East Cape is 96 miles. From our hypothetically corrected position for the turning point, off Cape Seppings, the distance would be to the same place 126 miles, or thereabouts. It is evident that there is a miscalculation, or an error in the record here, which, without further data, it is not possible to correct.
It is certain that Bering with whom the right of naming any new island would have rested, did not then name the island above mentioned after St Diomede. On all copies of the earlier version of his chart it appears if at all under the name of the Island of St. Demetrius. From this we may suspect that he identified it with the high land seen Aug. 14th, St. Demetrius' day, while others on board, suspecting they were not the same proposed the name of Diomede for the present island; regarding the high land as something distinct. If the hardy and self-willed Spanberg was the one who reported the land Aug. 14th, and if he saw the high land about Cape Prince of Wales, as several old charts allege, he would have been the last to admit that the relatively small and adjacent island now seen, should be identified with his discovery.
Aug. 17/28. The breeze having been strong and fair an observation at noon indicated that the latitude was 64° 27' and that the Gabriel had sailed 164 miles since noon of the 16th. In the afternoon the weather was clear and the wind became light. (The Gabriel must have come out of the strait this afternoon).
Notes.—A distance of 164 miles from the position of the previous noon would have put the Gabriel in latitude 63° 38'. The distance on the general course sailed by the Gabriel from 66° 02' to 64° 27' is about 107 miles. It is possible that in copying or printing 104 miles has become transmuted to 164 miles. There is an obvious error here of some kind.
Aug. 18/29. (Lauridsen does not refer to any record for this day, but it is probable that the wind continued light and the weather fair and that the Gabriel was slowly working her way westward and southward in the vicinity of Cape Chukotski.)
Aug. 19/30. In the afternoon being in the vicinity of the place where they had met the Chukchi boat on the outward voyage, four baidars were seen with their crews pulling for the vessel, which accordingly lay by for them to come up with her. There were ten natives to each baidar, or forty in all. They brought reindeer meat, fish, and fresh water in large bladders for sale for which they were suitably rewarded, while the crew of the Gabriel obtained from them skins of the red and the polar foxes and four walrus teeth, which the natives bartered for needles, flint-and-steel for striking fire, and iron. These Chukchi told them that they went over land to trade at the Kolyma River, carrying their goods with reindeer, and that they never went by sea. They had long known the Russians and one of them had even been to the Anadyrsk fort to trade. From this man they had hopes of gaining valuable information but he could tell them nothing more than they had learned from the first Chukchis who had been questioned.
Aug. 20/31 to Aug. 29/Sept. 9. (For this period the documents accessible to me give no information, but the Gabriel was doubtless pursuing her homeward way uneventfully along the coast of Kamchatka.)
Aug. 30/Sept. 10. A heavy storm arose with fog and the Gabriel finding herself dangerously close to the shore anchored near the land to ride it out. A note in Harris indicates that they may have been near Karaginski Island.
Aug. 31/Sept. 11. At one P.M. the storm had abated, but in weighing anchor the cable had been so chafed by the rocky bottom that it parted and they lost the anchor, and were obliged to put to sea without recovering it.