AWACHTA BAY. 421 



their services were now to be required in the sacred cause of conveying the 

 means of succour to the region in which the " Erebus " and " Terror," with 

 their colony of explorers, had been for three years lost. 



The " Herald " weighed anchor in the Bay of Panama, on the 9th May 

 1848, and was towed by a steamer westward, a distance of 660 miles, in order 

 to fall in with the trade-wind, and thus avoid the variables and calms. On 

 the 11th July she sighted the Hawaiian group of islands, and on the 7th 

 August anchored in the harbour of Petropaulovski, Kamtchatka. After 

 a long cruise along tropical shores, covered with abundant and glowing 

 vegetation, the men of the " Herald " expected that Kamtchatka would 

 show them nothing but nakedness and sterility, and were surprised at the 

 luxuriance of its herbage and the brilliant green of its snow-capped vol- 

 canoes. Setting sail again on the 14th August, Captain Kellett steered for 

 Norton Sound, North-West America, and reached the Eussian trading-port 

 of Michaelovski, where an Eskimo interpreter (whom the sailors of the 

 " Herald " afterwards nick-named Bosky) was taken on board. On the 14th 

 September Captain Kellett dropped anchor off Chamisso Island in Kotzebue 

 Sound, where, according to arrangement, he should have joined the 

 "Plover." Here the "Herald" lay inactive for fifteen days waiting the 

 arrival of the brig. There was nothing to do, and as time hung heavy on 

 the officers' hands, theatricals were resorted to, and the ingenious J. G. 

 Whiflan, clerk in the " Herald," and the manager of the extempore theatre, 

 brought out "The Mock Doctor; or the Dumb Lady Cured— a comedy 

 freely translated from the French of Moliere by Fielding," in which the part 

 of Sir Jasper was filled by Mr Bedford Pim, now (1876) M.P. for Gravesend, 

 and proprietor of the Navy, a valuable service paper, while the part of Dr 

 Hellibore, the mock doctor, was appropriately assigned to the " Herald's " 

 assistant-surgeon, Mr W. J. Billings. Meantime the open season was rapidly 

 drawing to a close, and as the " Plover " had not yet arrived at the place of 

 rendezvous, Kellett, on the 29th September, sailed out of the sound to resume 

 his survey of the Mexican coast, Panama, and the Sandwich Islands. 



On the 19th May 1849, having previously made preparations for a second 

 cruise in Arctic waters. Captain Kellett set sail from Honolulu. He sighted 

 Kamtchatka on the 22d June, and on the following day anchored again 

 off Petropaulovski in Awachta Bay. " Nothing more picturesque," writes 

 Berthold Seemann, the naturalist attached to the " Herald," " can be imagined 

 than the scenery of Awachta Bay when lit up by the full moon. The cliffs 

 standing out in bold relief, the conical volcanoes towering to the skies, and 

 throwing long shadows into the valleys, the large expanse of water, almost 

 resembling an inland lake, all combined to impress the mind with lofty feel- 

 ings : still this sight, however imposing, dwindled into insignificance before 

 that which displayed itself when the sun rose behind the snow-capped moun- 



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