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LIII. Account of the Object and Destination of the Jirsi 

 Voyage round the World undertaken by Russia, 



J. he great number of establishments which the Russian 

 American company, encouraged by the favourable result of 

 its fur trade, has formed in the course of a few years past, 

 on the north-west coast of America, from Cook's River to 

 Norfolk Sound, and the great increase of the seamen and 

 otter persons in their service, render it necessary to send 

 thither a larger quantity of European manufactures, am- 

 munition, and even provisions, for no corn is cultivated 

 cither in the Aleutian Islands or on the American coast. 

 A dock for ships has, however, been constructed at Prince 

 William's Sound, where vessels of 250 tons are built ; but 

 no materials for constructing and rigging vessels can be 

 found, except timber. Hitherto the company's establish- 

 ments have been supplied with necessaries and stores 

 through Iakutsk and Ochotzk ; but the great distance, and 

 the difficulty attending the transportation of them, for 

 which four thousand horses are annually employed*, raise 

 the price of the articles even at Ochotzk 560 per cent, and 

 more. A pood of rye meal, for example, costs five 

 rubles, a pood of tobacco twenty-five, and a gallon of 

 brandy twenty rubles, &c. These articles also, when they 

 have got half way, are frequently plundered, and a remnant 

 only, which has been saved, reaches Ochotzk. It appeared 

 at first that to send thither anchors and cables would be al- 

 most impossible ; and as those articles could not be di- 

 spensed with, it was necessary to have recourse to means 

 which occasioned the loss of many ships : cables were 

 cut into pieces of seven or eight fathoms, and after- 

 wards joined when they reached Ochotzk ; by which process 

 they always lost some part of their strength. The anchors 

 Were also transported in pieces, and afterwards welded; but, 

 in consequence of the want of good workmen, they were 

 put together in a very imperfect manner. But however 

 difficult and expensive the transportation might be to 



* Those who have read Muller's, Lessep's, and Billing's Voyages, 

 must know, that from fakutzk to Ochotzk there is no road for carriages ; 

 and that all goods must be transported on horseback : each horse carries 

 iibout five pood, and with such a load can travel twenty versts a dav. 

 ^The carriage is a copec for each verst; one driver is allowed to six 

 jiorses, besides another on which he rides, and he carries with him two 

 felay horses. . Ochotzk is a thousand miles distant from lakutzk. 



Ochotzk, 



