DESCRIPTION OF THE ANCHORAGE. 
331 
been presented a more promising appearance of good 
entry and subsequent shelter. 
It was in the form of a pot-hook, the handle being 
represented by the mainland, and the hook-part by a 
towering and curved promontory, w’hile the “huge pile 
of rocks,” which proved to be one immense irregular 
mass surrounded by an infinite number of smaller ones, 
was situated equidistant from either of those points, and 
about a mile seaward of an imaginary line drawn from 
the point of the hook to the opposite side of the handle. 
At this latter extremity of the line, where it joined the 
mainland, were to bo seen several mound-like objects, 
having posts and poles stuck in and around them, and 
looking very much like one of the half-buried villages 
which we had read of as being common to Kamtschatka. 
We could see no smoke, however, and thence concluded 
it to be uninhabited. 
In passing the rock for which we were now pulling 
back, I had expected to find good water inside the hook ; 
but, upon arriving at our imaginary line, it had shoaled, 
as I say, to two fathoms, and so, having given up all hope 
of finding an anchorage for the ship inside of the hook, 
we were now looking for one under the shelter of the 
rock. This latter, though quite small when compared 
with the false harbour, was nevertheless quite largo 
enough to break the sea as it rolled in, thus creating a 
kind of uneasy anchorage under its lee, that was only 
acceptable from the fact of there being no other; and I 
therefore picked out a twelve-fathom hole, having a mud 
bottom and passably-smooth surface, and, having let go 
our little anchor near its centre, hoisted a flag as a signal 
