L 2i c 2 cook's voyage to july, 



whom it was natural enough for him to mistake for 

 a tribe of the Tschutski. * 



These two circumstances are of so striking and un- 

 equivocal a nature, that they appear to me conclusive 

 on the point of the Tschukotskoi Noss, notwith- 

 standing there are others of a more doubtful kind, 

 which we have from the same authority, and which 

 now remain to be considered. " To go," says Desh- 

 neff in another account, " from the Kovyma to 

 the Anadyr, a great promontory must be doubled, 

 which stretches very far into the sea ; and afterward, 

 this promontory stretches between north and north- 

 east." It was probably from the expressions con- 

 tained in these passages, that Mr. Muller w T as induced 

 to give the country of the Tschutski the form we find 

 in his map ; but had he been acquainted with the 

 situation of the East Cape, as ascertained by Captain 

 Cook, and the remarkable coincidence between it and 

 their promontory or isthmus (for it must be observed 

 that Deshneff appears to be all along speaking of the 

 same thing), in the circumstances already mentioned, 

 I am confident he would not have thought those 

 expressions merely by themselves, of sufficient weight 



* From the circumstance, related in the last volume, that gave 

 name to Sledge Island, it appears, that the inhabitants of the adja- 

 cent continents visit occasionally the small islands lying between 

 them, probably for the conveniency of fishing, or in pursuit of 

 furs. 



It appears also from Popoff's deposition, which I shall have 

 occasion to speak of more particularly hereafter, that the general 

 resemblance between the people, who are seen in these islands, and 

 the Tschutski, was sufficient to lead Deshneff into the error of 

 imagining them to be the same. " Opposite to the Noss,'* he says, 

 **. is an island of moderate size, without trees, whose inhabitants 

 resemble, in their exterior, the Tschutski, although they are quite 

 another nation ; not numerous indeed, yet speaking their own par- 

 ticular language." Again, " One may go in a baidare from the 

 Noss to the island in half a day; beyond is a great continent, which 

 can be discovered from the island in serene weather. When the 

 weather is good, one may go from the island to the continent in a 

 day. The inhabitants bf the continent are similar to the Tschutski, 

 excepting that they speak another 'anguage." 





