APPROACHING BERING ISLAND 133 



season, the bad weather,302 the unserviceable mast, as well as the 

 distance from Avacha, and the small number of sailors and sol- 

 diers, feeble and sick, the Captain Commander should call a 

 council, in which it should be decided to land in the bay to the 

 west of us, where, at an estimated distance of six miles, a harbor 

 was suspected. And this was accomplished in the following 

 manner: — The Captain Commander, it is true, insisted that since 

 we had already risked and endured worse and could still use the 

 foremast and since we had yet six casks of water, an attempt 

 should be made to reach the port [Avacha]. However, both 

 officers opposed his proposition, insisted on a landing in the bay, 

 and persuaded all the petty officers and crew, who likewise 

 assented but nevertheless were only willing to sign on condition 

 that, as non-experts, they could be assured that this land was 

 Kamchatka; if it was not, they would be prepared still to risk 

 the utmost and work to the last. As Master Khitrov now assured 

 them that, if this were not Kamchatka, he would let his head be 

 cut ofT, the outcome depended upon a few only, some of whom, 

 however, by smooth as well as hard words were compelled to 

 sign against their will. — The Captain Commander thereupon 

 ordered the adjutant, at that time reduced to the rank of sailor, 

 at present the Lieutenant Ovtsin, to express his opinion.^o^ But 

 as he concurred in the opinion of the Captain Commander, the 

 order of both the officers was: ''Get out, shut up, 2°^ scoundrel, 



802 The MS has as an additional reason: "the broken shrouds." 

 303 Lieutenant Dimitri Ovtsin, on the expedition subsidiary to Ber- 

 ing's the purpose of which was to explore the Arctic coast of Siberia (see, 

 above, footnote 18), was detailed in 1734 to survey the coast from the Ob 

 to the Yenisei, which he did in 1737. But because of friendly relations 

 with the exiled Prince Dolgoruki, Ovtsin was reduced to the rank of 

 sailor and was sent to Okhotsk to join Bering. Bering, apparently, used 

 him as an adjutant, or assistant. See also his later counter-statement on 

 the condition of the St. Peter after the landing on Bering Island (Vol. i, 

 pp. 231-232). (G) 



3°< Both in the printed version and the MS these two expressions are 

 given in German transliteration of the Russian, which, in English trans- 

 literation, would be: von, get out; malshi (in the printed version, mashi), 

 i. e. molchi, hold your tongue. 



