ISLAND No. 4 179 



lagoon. These islands are little more than sandbanks, 

 and the beacons erected upon them for the guidance of 

 vessels entering the river are washed away every spring 

 by the ice. To re-erect these beacons and to inspect 

 others on various promontories on the shores of the 

 lagoon, the steamer makes a trip every July. Captain 

 Engel asked us to accompany him, and we gladly ac- 

 cepted the invitation. 



Passing Stanavialachta and Cape Bolvanski, we sailed 

 almost due north to the bar, where the lead announced 

 scarcely thirteen feet of water. We then steered nearly 

 east to within three miles of the shore, whence we after- 

 wards kept in a north-easterly direction. A few miles 

 after passing Cape Constantinovka we altered our course 

 to north, and made Island No. 4 about midnight. Off Cape 

 Constantinovka we came upon a shoal of white whales or 

 beluga, which played like porpoises round the steamer. 



We stayed a couple of hours on Island No. 4, erecting 

 the beacon upon it. The night was foggy at intervals, but 

 the midnight sun shone bright. The island is a flat 

 desert of sand, unrelieved by a blade of grass. It may 

 be a couple of square miles in extent in the summer time, 

 and is not much affected by the tide, which rises only four 

 or six inches. We found a large flock of glaucous gulls 

 upon it, but we could only discover two nests. They 

 were heaps of sand, hollowed slightly at the apex and 

 lined with some irregularly disposed tufts of seaweed. 

 The young in down were running about on the flat sand- 

 bank. We secured half a dozen and shot four old birds. 

 The young were less spotted than those of most gulls ; 

 the old birds were pure white, with delicate, dove- 

 coloured mantles, paler than those of our herring-gull. 

 The legs and feet were pale flesh-tinted pink ; the beak 

 and the line round the eye were straw-yellow. The 



