420 CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES 



Glerke had likewise entrusted me with a discretionary power 

 of shewing him a chart of the discoveries made in the present 

 voyage, and as I judged that a person in his situation, and 

 of his turn of mind, would be exceedingly gratified by a 

 communication of this sort, I made no scruple to repose in 

 him a confidence of which his whole conduct shewed him 

 to be deserving. 



" I had the pleasure to find that he felt this compliment 

 as I hoped he would, and was much struck at seeing in one 

 view the whole of that coast, as well on the side of Asia as 

 on that of America, of which his countrymen had been so 

 many years employed in acquiring a partial and imperfect 

 knowledge. 



" We dined this day at the commander's, who, studious 

 on every occasion to gratify our curiosity, had, besides a 

 number of dishes dressed in our own way, prepared a great 

 variety of others after the Russian and Kamtschadale 

 manner. The afternoon was employed in taking a view of 

 the town and of the adjacent country. Bolcheretsk is 

 situated in a low swampy plain that extends to the sea of 

 Okotsk, being about forty miles long, and of a considerable 

 breadth. It lies on the north side of the Bolchoi-reka (or 

 great river). Below the town the river is from six to eight 

 feet deep, and about a quarter of a mile broad. There is 

 no corn of any species cultivated in this part of the country ; 

 and Major Behm informed me that his was the only garden 

 that had yet been planted. I saw about twenty or thirty 

 cows, and the major had six stout horses. These, and 

 their dogs, are the only tame animals they possess. 



" The houses in Bolcheretsk are all of one fashion, being 

 built of logs and thatched. That of the commander is 

 much larger than the rest, consisting of three rooms of a 

 considerable size, neatly papered, and which might have 

 been reckoned handsome, if the talc, with which the 

 windows were covered, had not given them a poor and 

 disagreeable appearance. The inhabitants, taken all 

 together, amount to between five and six hundred. 



" The next morning we applied privately to the merchant 

 Fedositsch to purchase some tobacco for the sailors, who 

 had been upward of a twelvemonth without this favourite 

 commodity. However, this, like all our other transactions 

 of the same kind, came immediately to the major's know- 

 ledge, and we were soon after surprised to find in our house 

 four bags of tobacco, weighing upward of a hundred pounds 

 each, which he begged might be presented in the name of 

 himself and the garrison under his command, to our sailors. 

 At the same time they had sent us twenty loaves of fine 

 sugar, and as many pounds of tea, being articles they 



