1778. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 457 



during which, as IsmylofFsaid, 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, notwith- 

 standing 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 of late. 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 re- 

 pulsed 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 



* The latest expedition of this kind, taken notice of by Muller, 

 was in 1724. But injustice 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. Coxe, that, so late as 1768, the Governor of Siberia sent three 



