1779. THE PACIFIC OCEA ;. 2fJ!> 



years. He was a very tall thin man, with a face all 

 over furrowed with deep wrinkles ; and bore, in his 

 whole figure, the strongest marks of old age, though 

 he had scarcely reached his fifty-fourth year. 



To our very great disappointment, he had so 

 totally forgotten both his German and French, as 

 not to be able to speak a sentence, nor readily to 

 undertand what was said to him, in either of these 

 languages. We found ourselves thus unfortunately 

 deprived of what we nattered ourselves would have 

 turned out a favourable opportunity of getting farther 

 information relative to this country. We had also 

 promised ourselves much pleasure from the history 

 of this extraordinary man, which he probably would 

 have been induced to relate to strangers, who might 

 perhaps be of some little service to him, but who 

 could have no inducement to take advantage, from 

 any thing he might say, to do him an injury. No 

 one here knew the cause of his banishment ; but 

 they took it for granted, that it must have been for 

 something very atrocious ; particularly, as two or 

 three commanders of Kamtschatka have endeavoured 

 to get him recalled, since the present empress's reign; 

 but far from succeeding in this, they have not been 

 even able to get the place of his banishment changed. 

 He told us that, for twenty years, he had not tasted 

 bread, nor had been allowed subsistence of any kind 

 whatsoever ; but that, during this period, he had 

 lived among the Kamtschadales, on what his own 

 activity and toil in the chace had furnished. That 

 afterward he had a small pension granted ; and that 

 since Major Behm came to the command, his situa- 

 tion had been infinitely mended. The notice that 

 worthy man had taken of him, and his having often 

 invited him to become his guest, had been the 

 occasion of others following his example ; besides 

 which, he had been the means of getting his pension 

 increased to one hundred roubles a-year; which is the 

 common pay of an ensign in all parts of the empress's 



