THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 327 



North Weft to -South Eaft, a courfe of one hundred miles, '""?• 



October. 



falls into the bay of Awatfka. The Tigil is likewife a river ■ — ^- — > 

 of considerable fize. rifing amidfl fome very high moun- 

 tains, which lie under the fame parallel with Kamtfchatkoi 

 Nofs, and running, in an even courfe from South Eaft to 

 North Weft, falls into the fea of Okotfk. All the other 

 rivers of this peninfula, which are almoft infinite in num- 

 ber, are too fmall to deferve a particular enumeration. 



If I may judge of the foil, from what I faw of its vege- 

 table productions, I mould not hefitate in pronouncing it 

 barren in the extreme. Neither in the neighbourhood of 

 the bay, nor in the country I traverfed on my journey to Bol- 

 cheretfk, nor in any of our hunting expeditions, did I ever 

 meet with the fmalleft fpot of ground that refcmbled what 

 in England is called a good green turf; or that feemed as 

 if it could be turned to any advantage, either in the way of 

 pafturage, or other mode of cultivation. The face of the 

 country in general was thinly covered with ftunted trees, 

 having a bottom of mofs, mixed with low weak heath. 

 The whole bore a more ftriking refemblance to Newfound- 

 land, than to any other part of the world I had ever fecn. 



It muft however be obferved, that I faw at Paratounca 

 three or four ftacks of fweet and very fine looking hay ; 

 and Major Behm informed me, that many parts of the pen- 

 infula, particularly the banks of the river Kamtfchatka and 

 the Biftraia, produce grafs of great height and ftrengrh, 

 which they cut twice in the fummer ; and that the hay is of 

 a fucculent quality, and particularly well adapted to the 

 fattening of cattle. Indeed it mould appear, from the fize 

 and fatnefs of the thirty-fix head that were fent down to us, 

 from the Verchnei ojlrog, and which, we were told, were 



bred 



