Volume Xvi Part 25 (1/2)
I was in hopes to have had by him, the chart which his three countrymen had promised, but I was disappointed. However, he a.s.sured 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 lat.i.tude 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 a.s.sertion.
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 Staehlin 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 lat.i.tude of 47, where there is a harbour, and a Russian settlement.
From this island, he proceeded to j.a.pan, where be seems to have made but a short stay. For when the j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan, he got to Canton, and from thence to France, in a French s.h.i.+p. 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 princ.i.p.al 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 s.h.i.+p, 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]
[Footnote 7: The latest expedition of this kind, taken notice of by Mr Muller, was in 1724. But in justice to Mr Ismyloff, it may be proper to mention, which is done on the authority of a MS. communicated by Mr Pennant, and the substance of which has been published by Mr c.o.xe, that, so late as 1768, the Governor of Siberia sent three young officers over the ice in sledges to the islands opposite the mouth of the Kovyma. There seems no reason for not supposing, that a subsequent expedition of this sort might also be undertaken in 1773. Mr c.o.xe, p.
324, places the expedition on sledges in 1764, but Mr Pennant's MS.
may be depended upon.--D.]
[Footnote 8: There is nothing at all unlikely in the voyage now spoken of. According to Captain Krusenstern, whose information is in all probability quite unexceptionable, the Kuril islands and Jesso have been often visited by Russian merchants since 1741, when Spanberg and Walton reached the coast of j.a.pan; though without any positive advantage, he says, accruing either to science or commerce from their visits.--E.]
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 ma.n.u.scripts, and bearing every mark of authenticity. The first comprehended the _Penschinskian Sea_, the coast of Tartary, as low as the lat.i.tude 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 j.a.pan, or 41 of lat.i.tude. 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 s.h.i.+pping, 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 lat.i.tude of 47-1/2, where, as I have before observed, the Russians have a settlement.
[Footnote 9: English translation, p. 83, 84.]
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 lat.i.tude of 58 and 58-1/2, and 75 of longitude from Okotsk, or, 218-1/2 from Greenwich; and the place where the former anch.o.r.ed, in 59-1/2 of lat.i.tude, 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 lat.i.tude 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 lat.i.tude, in the s.p.a.ce 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, a.s.suring 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 a.s.signed to them by their former visitors.
The islands of St Macarius, St Stephen, St Theodore, St Abraham, Seduction Island, and some others, which are to be found in Mr Muller's chart, had no place in this now produced to us; nay, both Mr Ismyloff, and the others, a.s.sured me, that they had been several times sought for in vain. And yet it is difficult to believe how Mr Muller, from whom subsequent map-makers have adopted them, could place them in this chart without some authority. Relying, however, on the testimony of these people, whom I thought competent witnesses, I have left them out of my chart, and made such corrections amongst the other islands as I was told was necessary. I found there was wanting another correction; for the difference of longitude, between the Bay of Awatska, and the harbour of Samganoodha, according to astronomical observations, made at these two places, is greater by five degrees and a half, than it is by the chart. This error I have supposed to be infused throughout the whole, though it may not be so in reality.
There was also an error in the lat.i.tude of some places, but this hardly exceeded a quarter of a degree.
I shall now give some account of the islands, beginning with those that lie nearest to Kamtschatka, and reckoning the longitude from the harbour of Petropaulowska, in the Bay of Awatska. The first is _Beering's Island_, in 55 of lat.i.tude, and 6 of longitude. Ten leagues from the south end of this, in the direction of E. by S., or E.S.E., lies _Meidenoi Ostroff_, or the Copper Island. The next island is _Atakou_, laid down in 52 45' of lat.i.tude, and in 15 or 16 of longitude. This island is about eighteen leagues in extent, in the direction of E. and W., and seems to be the same land which Beering fell in with, and named _Mount St John_. But there are no islands about it, except two inconsiderable ones, lying three or four leagues from the east end, in the direction of E.N.E.
We next come to a group, consisting of six or more islands, two of which, _Atghka_ and _Amluk_ are tolerably large, and in each of them is a good harbour. The middle of this group lies in the lat.i.tude of 52 30', and 28 of longitude from Awatska, and its extent, E. and W., is four degrees. These are the isles that Mr Ismyloff said were to be removed four degrees to the E., which was done. And in the situation they have in my chart, was a group, consisting of ten small islands, which, I was told, were wholly to be struck out, and also two islands lying between them and the group to which Oonalashka belongs. In the place of these two, an island called Amoghta (which in the chart was situated in the lat.i.tude of 51 45', and 4 of longitude to the W.) was brought.
Nothing more need be said to shew how erroneous the situation of many of these islands may be, and for which I am in nowise accountable. But the position of the largest group, of which Oonalashka is one of the princ.i.p.al islands, and the only one in which there is a harbour, is not liable to any such errors. Most of these islands were seen by us, and consequently their lat.i.tude and longitude were pretty exactly determined, particularly the harbour of Samganoodha in Oonalashka, which must be looked upon as a fixed point. This group of islands maybe said to extend as far as Halibut Isles, which are forty leagues from Oonalashka toward the E.N.E. Within these isles, a pa.s.sage was marked in Ismyloff's chart, communicating with Bristol Bay, which converts about fifteen leagues of the coast, that I had supposed to belong to the continent, into an island, distinguished by the name of _Ooneemak_. This pa.s.sage might easily escape us, as we were informed, that it is very narrow, shallow, and only to be navigated through with boats, or very small vessels.[10]
[Footnote 10: This pa.s.sage is marked on all the modern maps, no doubt on the somewhat scanty authority here given. With respect to most of the islands now alluded to, the opinion entertained of their utter insignificance, will account for and perhaps justify the sparing solicitude we have used to ascertain their number and position. Some less suspicious data than are to be met with in the accounts of early Russian voyages, would be requisite, to induce much attention to a subject of even greater importance.--E.]
It appeared by the chart, as well as by the testimony of Ismyloff and the other Russians, that this is as far as their countrymen have made any discoveries, or have extended themselves, since Beering's time.
They all said, that no Russians had settled themselves so far to the east as the place where the natives gave the note to Captain Clerke, which Mr Ismyloff, to whom I delivered it, on perusing it, said, had been written at Oomanak. It was, however, from him that we got the name of _Kodiak_, the largest of Schumagin's Islands; for it had no name upon the chart produced by him.[11] The names of all the other islands were taken from it, and we wrote them down as p.r.o.nounced by him. He said, they were all such as the natives themselves called their islands by; but, if so, some of the names seem to have been strangely altered. It is worth observing, that no names were put to the islands which Ismyloff told us were to be struck out of the chart, and I considered this as some confirmation that they have no existence.
[Footnote 11: A Russian s.h.i.+p had been at Kodiak in 1776, as appears from a MS. obligingly communicated by Mr Pennant.--D.]
I have already observed, that the American continent is here called by the Russians, as well as by the islanders, Alaschka; which name, though it properly belong only to the country adjoining to Oonemak, is used by them when speaking of the American continent in general, which they know perfectly well to be a great land.
This is all the information I got from these people, relating to the geography of this part of the world; and I have reason to believe that this was all the information they were able to give. For they a.s.sured me, over and over again, that they knew of no other islands, besides those which were laid down upon this chart; and that no Russian had ever seen any part of the continent of America to the northward, except that which lies opposite the country of the Tschutskis.
If Mr Staehlin was not grossly imposed upon, what could induce him to publish a map so singularly erroneous, and in which many of these islands are jumbled together in regular confusion, without the least regard to truth; and yet he is pleased to call it _a very accurate little map_.[12] Indeed, it is a map to which the most illiterate of his illiterate sea-faring countrymen would have been ashamed to set his name.
[Footnote 12: Staehlin's New Northern Archipelago, p. 15.]
Mr Ismyloff remained with us till the 21st, in the evening, when he took his final leave. To his care I intrusted a letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, in which was inclosed a chart of all the northern coasts I had visited. He said there would be an opportunity of sending it to Kamtschatka, or Okotsk, the ensuing spring, and that it would be at Petersburg the following winter. He gave me a letter to Major Behm, governor of Kamtschatka, who resides at Bolscheretsk, and another to the commanding officer, at Petropaulowska. Mr Ismyloff seemed to have abilities that might ent.i.tle him to a higher station in life, than that in which we found him. He was tolerably well versed in astronomy, and in the most useful branches of the mathematics. I made him a present of an Hadley's octant; and though, probably, it was the first he had ever seen, he made himself acquainted, in a very short time, with most of the uses to which that instrument can be applied.