268 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



Sakhalin ; an hour later, as a gust of wind dispersed 

 the fog, land was sighted to starboard, confirming the 

 captain's words, and, fortunately, during the afternoon 

 a northerly breeze sprang up unexpectedly, dissolving 

 instantly the mist which had so long enveloped us. 

 The dull sound of the foghorn ceased as if by en- 

 chantment, and we detected, some ten miles south, 

 Cape Soya, the northernmost point of Jezzo, while a 

 dark strip of land on the opposite side — Cape Notoro 

 — proved to us that we were in the middle of La 

 Perouse Straits. At six p.m. we entered the Gulf 

 of Tartary,* and altering our course, steered in a due 

 northerly direction. The temperature, damp and cold 

 up to the present, suddenly changed, and we found 

 ourselves sailing, comfortable and warm, under a clear 

 blue sky. 



The following niorning we witnessed a magnifi- 

 cent sunrise, and were in full view of the coast of 

 the Asiatic continent. We could plainly distinguish 

 with our glasses its high cliffs, which at places rose 



* The so-called (lulf of Tartaiy- in reality Straits of Tartary — was 

 known as a "gulf" owing to the f;ict that Sakhalin had been considered, 

 till the middle of last century, as being joined to the Asiatic mainland. 

 After Admiral Nevelskoy had discovered, in the fifties, the mouths of the 

 Amur, and founded the settlement of Nikolaievsk, he proceeded north 

 with his fleet, and was greatly amazed to find an open sea where he 

 expected every moment to sight land. His first exclamation on meeting 

 Count Aluravieff, when he returned, was " Sakhalin is an island I" 



