17? 8. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 463 



chart produced by him. The names of all the other 

 islands were taken from it, and we wrote them down 

 as pronounced 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 not existence. 



I have already observed, that the American conti- 

 nent 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 Ooneemak, 

 is used by them when speaking of the American con- 

 tinent 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 in- 

 formation they were able to give. For they assured 

 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 north- 

 ward, 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 er- 

 roneous ; and in which many of these islands are jum- 

 bled together in regular confusion, without the least 

 regard to truth ? And yet, he is pleased to call it a 

 very accurate map*. Indeed, it is a map to which 

 the most illiterate of his illiterate sea-faring country- 

 men would have been ashamed to have set his name. 



Mr. Ismyloff remained with us till the ^lst, in the 

 evening, when he took his final leave. To his care 



* 



* Staehlin's New Northern Archipelago, p. 15. 



