SARYTSCHEW’S TRAVELS. 
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O w 
fresh water which came within our reach with the utmost 
avidity, and certainly found it the sweetest beverage we had ever 
enjoyed in our lives. In a couple of days our whole crew was 
removed on shore, and quartered in the old jurts we had built 
for ourselves. We unrigged the ship, and brought all our 
stores into the magazine. We found the galliot already there, 
which had been sent from Ochotsk with provisions for us, and 
had also brought that part of the Dobroe Namereni’s crew, 
■which had been left behind. 
To the close of October the weather remained fine, but 
was succeeded by rain and cold. In order to guard the 
stores collected at the fortress of Bolscherezsk, and to make 
room for us in our narrow dwellings, thirty-four men were sent 
thither for the winter. 
In the preceding winter, Captain Billings had had the plan 
of building a new cutter to accompany the Slawa Rossii in the 
river Kamtschatka ; and for that purpose had dispatched a car¬ 
penter and several other labourers to the town of Nishue Kamt- 
schatsk. The command of this vessel devolving on Captain 
Hall by right of seniority, he setoff on the 16‘th of December, 
in order to inspect its construction. The necessary materials 
and t adding were sent after him on sledges, drawn by 
dogs. 
We accompanied Captain Hall, and truly envied him his oc¬ 
cupation, while we were obliged to drag through four winter 
months in total idleness. In order, however, to get rid of our 
time, Mr. Billings, Mr. Behring, and 1, travelled, at the close 
of December, to Bolscherezsk, where the latter and I staid 
only fourteen days ; but Captain Billings still longer. On our 
return, we were overtaken by a severe frost among the moun¬ 
tains which run through the middle of Kamtschatka, though at the 
same time it had thawed and rained in Petropauiousk, not a 
hundred versts distance. 
Soon after this, Captain Behring went, with a part of the 
crew destined for maiming the new cutter, to Nisbne Kamt- 
schatsk. 
In the latter half of January, and the whole of February, the 
frost was so violent that the part of Awatscha Bay, from 
the interior of the harbour to the muscle bay Rakowoi, was 
covered with thick ice that admitted of being passed in dog- 
sledges with great security. 
At the beginning of April we began to careen our vessel, in 
order to examine the under part, and clear it of the sea-weeds ; 
for, on the whole bottom, seawort was grown out five feet long, 
and several sorts of muscles had stuck among it to the boards. 
We were employed the whole of April in preparing for our 
