1779- THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 327 



household utensils differ greatly from those of any 

 other nation, and are made with an extraordinay de- 

 gree of neatness and dexterity, which implies that 

 they are both of their own invention, and have been 

 long in arriving at so great perfection ; that antece- 

 dently to the arrival of the Russians and Cossacks 

 among them, they had not the smallest knowledge of 

 any people except the Koreki ; that it is but of late 

 they had an intercourse with the Kuriles, and still 

 later (and happened by means of a vessel being ship- 

 wrecked on their coast) that they knew any thing of 

 the Japanese; and, lastly, that the country was 

 very populous, at the time the Russians first got 

 footing in it. 



The reasons he alleges for supposing them to be 

 originally descended from the Mungalians are ; that 

 many words in their language have terminations simi- 

 lar to those of the Mungalian Chinese, such as, o?ig 9 

 ing, oing, tching, tcha, tchoing, ksi, testing, &c. ; and 

 moreover, that the same principle of inflexion or 

 derivation obtains in both languages ; that they are 

 in general under-sized, as are the Mungalians ; that 

 their complexion, like theirs, is swarthy ; that they 

 have black hair, little beard, the face broad, the nose 

 short and flat, the eyes small and sunk, the eye-brows 

 thin, the belly pendant, the legs small ; all which are 

 peculiarities that are to be found among the Mun- 

 galians. From the whole of which he draws this 

 conclusion, that they fled for safety to this peninsula, 

 from the rapid advances of the eastern conquerors ; 

 as the Laplanders, the Samoides, &c. were compelled 

 to retreat to the extremities of the north, by the 

 Europeans. 



The Russians having extended their conquests, 

 and established posts and colonies along that im- 

 mense extent of coast of the frozen sea, from the 

 Jenesei to the Anadir, appointed commissaries for 

 the purpose of exploring and subjecting the countries 

 still farther eastward. They soon became acquainted 



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