THE PACIFIC OCEAN. i?s 



affiflance; and in the afternoon, fhe moored clofe by us. '779- 



May. 



They told us, that after the weather cleared up on the 28th, < — ^*_* 

 the day on which fhe had parted company, they found 

 themfelves to leeward of the bay, and that, when they got 

 abreaft of it, the following day, and faw the entrance 

 choaked up with ice, they flood off, after firing guns, con- 

 cluding we could not be here ; but finding afterward it was 

 only loofe drift-ice, they had ventured in. The next day, Sunday*, 

 the weather was fo very unfettled, attended with heavy 

 fhowers of fnow, that the carpenters were not able to pro- 

 ceed in their work. The thermometer flood at 28 in the 

 evening, and the frofl was exceedingly fevcre in the night. 



The following morning, on our obferving two fledges Monday 5. 

 drive into the village, Captain Clerke fent me on fhore, to 

 inquire whether any mefTage was arrived from the Com- 

 mander of Kamtfchatka, which, according to the ferjcant's 

 account, might now be expected, in confequence of the in- 

 telligence that had been fent of our arrival. Bolcheretfk, 

 by the ufual route, is about one hundred and thirty-five 

 Englifh miles from Saint Peter and Saint Paul's. Our dii- 

 patches were fent off in a fledge drawn by dogs, on the 29th, 

 about noon. And the anfwer arrived, as we afterward 

 found, early this morning ; fo that they were only a little 

 more than three days and a half in performing a journey or 

 two hundred and feventy miles. 



The return of the Commander's anfwer was, however, 

 concealed from us for the prefent ; and I was told, on my 

 arrival at the ferjeant's, that we fhould hear from him the 

 next day. Whilft I was on fhore, the boat, which had 

 brought me, together with another belonging to the Dilco- 

 very, were fet faft in the ice, which a Southerly wind had 



driven 



