14 VISITS OF COOK, ETC., TO TCHUTSKI. 



westward, and spoke of an island not far distant, which 

 he discovered two days after, and called St. Lawrence ; 

 but neither he nor Lieutenant Synd, who in 1767 

 visited this island, and was close to the main, 

 seem to have thought it worth while to land or 

 make further inquiry respecting this isolated nation. 

 Billings, an officer in the Russian service, who had 

 been with Cook in his voyage to the North Pacific, 

 anchored in the Bay of St. Lawrence (not St. Lawrence 

 Island) on the 4th August, 1790 ; he does not appear 

 to have made any lengthened sojourn, nor to have 

 endeavoured to learn much respecting the people ; 

 but proceeded at once to the River Kolyma, a journey 

 which occupied six months, and thence to St. Peters- 

 bm'gh. We have learned little concerning the Tchutski 

 by his experience. Simeon Novikof and Ivan Baccof, 

 proceeding in 1749 from Anadyrsk to Kamtchatka 

 by sea, saw a few Tchutski upon the heights of their 

 coast on the gulf. 



These notices appear to comprehend nearly all 

 that is known of this people, until the expedition 

 of Wrangell, in 1821, when Matiuschin gained 

 sufficient casual experience of them at the fair 

 of Ostronowie and elsewhere, to create in his own 

 mind and that of Baron Wrangell an intense desire to 

 extend their knowledge of that extraordinary race. 



