PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
535 
eastward as far as he could go with safety to the boat ; but he was on CHAP, 
no account to risk being beset in the ice ; and in the event of separation 
from the ship, he was not to protract his absence from Kotzebue Sound 
beyond the 1st of September. He was also to examine the shoals off 
Icy Cape and Cape Krusenstern, and to explore the bay to the north- 
ward of Point Hope. 
Having made these arrangements we endeavoured to put to sea, 
but calms and fogs detained us at Chamisso until the 14th, and it was 
the l6th before we reached the entrance of the sound. The barge, 
however, got out, and the weather afterwards being very foggy we did 
not rejoin for some time. Before we left the island we were visited by 
several natives whom w'e remembered to have seen the preceding year. 
They brought some skins for sale, as usual, but did not find so ready 
a market for them as on the former occasion, in consequence of the 
greater part of the furs, which had been purchased by the seamen at 
that time, having rotted and become offensive on their return to warm 
latitudes. Our visiters were, as before, dirty, noisy, and impudent. 
One of them finding he was not permitted to carry off some deep-sea 
leads that were lying about, scraped off the greasy arming and devoured 
it : another, after bargaining some skins for the armourer’s anvil, uncon- 
cernedly seized it for the purpose of carrying it away: but, much to 
his surprise, and to the great diversion of the sailors who had played 
him the trick, he found its weight much too great for him, and after a 
good laugh received back his goods. A third amused the young 
gentlemen very much by his humorous behaviour. He was a shrewd, 
observing, merry fellow. For some time he stood eying the officers 
walking the deck, and at length appeared determined to turn them 
into ridicule ; seizing therefore a young midshipman by the hand, he 
strutted with him up and down the deck in a most ludicrous manner, 
to the great diversion of all present. They quitted us late at night, 
but renewed their visit at three in the morning, and seemed sur- 
prised to find us washing the decks. They probably expected that we 
should be fast asleep, and that they would have an opportunity of 
appropriating to themselves some of the moveable articles upon deck. 
There was otherwise no reason for returning so soon ; and from what 
