174 cook's voyage to may, 



moored close by us. They told us that after the 

 weather cleared up on the 28th, the day on which 

 she had parted company, they found themselves to 

 leeward of the bay, and that when they got abreast 

 of it the following day and saw the entrance choked 

 up with ice, they stood off after firing guns, conclud- 

 ing we could not be here ; but finding afterward it 

 was only loose drift-ice, they had ventured in. The 

 next day the weather was so very unsettled, attended 

 with heavy showers of snow, that the carpenters were 

 not able to proceed in their work. The thermometer 

 stood at 28° in the evening, and the frost was exceed- 

 ingly severe in the night. 



The following morning, on our observing two 

 sledges drive into the village, Captain Clerke sent 

 me on shore to inquire whether any message was ar- 

 rived from the commander of Kamtschatka, which, 

 according to the Serjeant's account, might now be 

 expected, in consequence of the intelligence that 

 had been sent of our arrival. Bolcheretsk by the 

 usual route is about one hundred and thirty-five 

 English miles from St. Peter and St. Paul's. Our 

 dispatches were sent off in a sledge drawn by dogs, 

 on the 29th about noon. And the answer arrived, 

 as we afterward found, early this morning, so that 

 they were only a little more than three days and a 

 half in performing a journey of two hundred and 

 seventy miles. 



The return of the commander's answer was, how- 

 ever, concealed from us for the present, and I was 

 told on my arrival at the Serjeant's, that we should 

 hear from him the next day. Whilst I was on shore 

 the boat which had brought me, together with an- 

 other belonging to the Discovery, were set fast in the 

 ice, which a southerly wind had driven from the other 

 side of the bay. On seeing them entangled, the 

 Discovery's launch had been sent to their assistance, 

 but soon shared the same fate, and in a short time 

 the ice had surrounded them near a quarter of a mile 



