PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 271 



the islanders made a most unjustifiable attack upon 

 her, he was afraid to return to the shore, and accom- 

 panied the Baron to Petropaulski, where I received 

 him and another seaman, similarly circumstanced, into 

 the ship. 



Toward night the wind increased to a gale, and split 

 almost every sail that was spread ; the weather was 

 dark and thick, with heavy falls of snow ; and suspect- 

 ing there might be a current setting through the strait, 

 we anxiously looked out for the Diomede Islands, 

 which were to leeward, and we were not a little sur- 

 prised to find, on the weather clearing up shortly after 

 daylight the following morning, that there had been a 

 current running nearly against the wind, at the rate of 

 upwards of a mile an hour, in a N. 41° W. direction. 



From the time we quitted Port Clarence the tem- 

 perature began to rise, and this morning stood four 

 degrees above the freezing point. Change of locality 

 was the only apparent cause for this increase, and it is 

 very probable that the vicinity of the mountains to 

 Port Clarence is the cause of the temperature of that 

 place being lower than it is at sea. 



In the morning we saw a great many walrusses and 

 whales, and observed large flocks of ducks migrating 

 to the southward. The coast on both sides was co- 

 vered with snow, and every thing looked wintry. The 

 wind about this time changed to N.W., and by the 

 evening carried us off the entrance of Kotzebue 

 Sound, when we encountered, as usual, an easterly 

 wind, and beat up all night with thick misty weather. 



In our run to this place we again passed over a 

 shoal, with eight and a half and nine fathoms water 

 upon it off SchismarefF inlet. After beating all night 

 in very thick weather, on the 9th of September we 



