AT ANCHOR OFF SHUMAGIXS 87 



surf on the beach, was so great that we decided to wade waist 

 deep to the boat through the hurun (the breakers) and, trusting 

 to luck, to let ourselves be ferried over in it. On this day we 

 buried the first of our crew, the sailor Shumagin, who had died 

 on the previous day almost as soon as he got ashore. The island 

 is since called Shumagin's Island after him.^^^ 



When after some anxiety we arrived on board there was the 

 greatest lamentation because Master Khitrov and his men were 

 not yet at hand and it might be necessary to leave them on shore. 

 I now thanked God that through the cunning plots of the naval 

 men I had been kept away from his company. However, soon 

 after our arrival a big fire was observed not far from the spot 

 where we had been taken into the boat, and, judging from the 

 position, I concluded that Master Khitrov and his men must be 

 stopping at the lake where I had the second time advised that 

 water should be taken. — In the meantime the gale increased, 

 and it was our great good luck that, although the wind began in 

 the northeast, it suddenly shifted to the west, then to the south 

 and again back to west, but finally became northwest, ^^^ from 

 which quarter we were sheltered by the land and in no great 

 danger. It was very lucky for us that during the first storm, at 

 midnight, the Captain Commander did not permit the anchor 

 [cable] to be needlessly cut in order to drop another, supposed to 

 be better, in Its place, as otherwise, in such a dark night and w^ith 

 the usual confusion, we surely should have drifted on the rocks 

 and been wrecked. — This same evening I learned that the officers, 

 although too late, had changed their mind and from fear of 

 death sent ashore a few barrels to be filled, for their own con- 

 sumption, with spring water from the place I had indicated. 

 But Fate would not let them benefit by it, for, in the great hurry 



196 The name Shumagin is now given to the whole group; as already 

 mentioned in footnote 185, the Shumagin Island of Steller is now called 

 Nagai (see also Vol. i, p. 142, footnote 86). (G) 



1" The MS reads more plausibly as follows: "although the wind began 

 in the northeast, the wind suddenly shifted, and changed to southwest, 

 then west, and then northwest." 



