152 BEECHEY'S EXPEDITION. 



On the 2d of June, having left the Sandwich Islands, 

 he shaped his course for Karntschatka, and on the 27th 

 was becalmed within six miles of Petropalauski. The 

 best guides to this harbor are a range of high moun- 

 tains, on one of which, upwards of eleven thousand feet 

 in height, a volcano is in constant action. It was a 

 serene and beautiful evening when they approached this 

 remote quarter of the world, and all were struck with 

 the magnificence of the mountains capped with peren- 

 nial snow, and rising in solemn grandeur one above the 

 other. At intervals the volcano emitted dark columns 

 of smoke ; and, from a sprinkling of black spots upon 

 the snow to the leeward, it was conjectured there had 

 been a recent eruption. 



From Petropalauski, Beechey sailed, on the 1st of 

 July, for Kotzebue's Sound. " We approached/' says 

 he, "the strait which separates the two great continents 

 of Asia and America, on one of those beautiful still 

 nights well known to all who have visited the Arctic 

 regions, when the sky is without a cloud, and when the 

 midnight sun, scarcely his own diameter below the 

 horizon, tinges with a bright hue all the northern circle. 

 Our ship, propelled by an increasing breeze, glided rap- 

 idly along a smooth sea, startling from her path flocks 

 of aquatic birds, whose flight, in the deep silence of the 

 scene, could be traced by the ear to a great distance.' 3 

 Having closed in with the American shore some miles 

 northward of Cape Prince of Wales, they were visited 

 by a little Esquimaux squadron belonging to a village 

 situated on a low sandy island. 



The natives readily sold everything they possessed, 

 and were cheerful and good-humored, though exceed- 

 ingly noisy and energetic. Their bows were more slen- 

 der than those of the islanders to the southward, but 

 made on the same principle, with drift-pine, assisted 



