BUILDING OF HUTS U5 



persons, and decided to pass the night there. We laid the wood 

 crosswise over it and covered the top with our clothes, overcoats, 

 and blankets, made a fire to warm ourselves, went to sleep again, 

 and thus, God be thanked, passed a very good night. 



On the following day (November ii) I went down to the sea 

 and fetched a seal, the fat of which I cooked with peas and ate in 

 company with my three comrades, who in the meantime had 

 made two shovels and begun to enlarge our pit. — In the after- 

 noon the Captain Commander was brought to us on a stretcher 

 and had a tent, made of a sail, put upon the spot that we had 

 originally chosen for our dwelling place. We entertained him, as 

 well as the other officers who had come to our pit, with tea. — 

 Towards evening both officers returned to the ship. Master 

 Khitrov e\^en proposed to Lieutenant Waxel that they should 

 winter on board the vessel in the open sea, because, according to 

 his idea, more warmth and comfort could be had there than on 

 land, where, for lack of wood, one would have to endure the 

 winter in a tent. This proposition was now approved as very 

 sensible, yet three days later^s^ the Master, on his own accord, 

 came ashore and could not be brought back on board the vessel 

 by any orders when later he was to haul it up on the beach. — 

 However, we continued to enlarge our underground home by 

 digging and collected everywhere on the beach wood for a roof 

 and inside coating. — This evening328 we fixed up a light roof 

 and in the person of assistant constable Roselius obtained the 

 fifth member of our party.^^g j^ the same manner a few others, 

 who still had strength left, began also to dig a four-cornered pit 



327 This does not seem to tally with the log book. Khitrov is himself 

 the author of the entries as published in Volume i covering this period, 

 and there are references which imply he was still on board the St. Peter 

 as late as November 21 (astronomical; ibid., p. 225). By November 26 

 {.ibid., p. 229) there is a statement implying that he was then on shore. 



328 The MS reads "every evening." 



329 A November 21 entry in the log book (Vol. i, p. 225) would seem to 

 imply that Roselius was still on board the vessel at that date. There is a 

 reference, however {ibid., p. 214), to his being ashore on November 9 

 (civil date), which is probably equivalent to Steller's November 11. 



