458 cook's voyage to oct. 



down the year, and marked the islands on the chart. 

 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 latitude of 

 47 , where there is a harbour and a Russian settle- 

 ment. From this island he proceeded to Japan, 

 where he seems to have made but a short stay. For 

 when the Japanese 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 

 Japan he got to Canton, and from thence to 

 France, in a French ship. From France, he tra- 

 velled to Petersburg ; and was afterward sent out 

 again to Kamtschatka. What became of the ves- 

 sel in which he first embarked, we could not 

 learn, nor what was the principal 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 com- 

 mon things that must have been in use every day, 

 while he was on board the ship 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. 



The next morning he w r onld fain have made me a 

 present of a sea-otter skin, which he said was worth 

 eighty roubles 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 Kamt- 



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. Coxe, p. 324, places the expedition on sledges in 1764 ; 

 but Mr. Pennant's MS. may be depended upon. 



