46 
S A ti Y T S CIIE W ’ S T R A V E L S. 
Oo the 31st we weighed anchor and bore up to Fledge 
island, called by the Americans Ajak. At noon we observed 
the latitude to be 64 c/ 34, the longitude 193° SI 7 , and the 
island Ajak to be five miles from us to the south-west 6? A In 
the afternoon the wind dropped entirely, and we came to an 
anchor in ten fathoms water and a pebbly bottom, at a distance 
of two miles from the shore, of America. Here the same 
Americans visited us as had come the day before, and with them 
many others whom we did not know. They brought us similar 
articles, and carried-on a brisk, trade with our sailors. Glass 
beads were in the greatest request with them, for which they 
paid most liberally. Captain Billings bought a single-seated 
baidar for one row of them only; and the purchaser concealed 
them immediately they were in his possession, probably from 
an apprehension that we might repent of our inconsiderate bar¬ 
gain, and wish to retreat. This baidar was as large, and con¬ 
structed in the same manner, as that of the Kadjukers, only 
with this difference, that it was not covered with the hides of 
the sea-lion, but with those of the walrus, which, on account 
of their thickness, had been parted three times. 
A north wind springing Up toward evening we weighed anchor 
and steered between Ajak and Cape Rodney, on which we 
found several summer juris erected in different places. On the 
first of August we observed our latitude at noon to be 60° 40', 
and longitude 193 ° -7'. Iu the afternoon we saw, to north¬ 
west 3-4ths west, the mountainous island which is called by the 
Americans Okiben , but by the Engligh King hland ; and in the 
evening were two miles distant from it. it is five miles in cir¬ 
cumference : from the inaccessible rocks with which it was girt 
and the wildneH of its aspect, we judged it to be uninhabited, but 
afterwards' we learned from the Tschukshens that some families 
actually resided there. 
On the morning of the 2d we descried through the mist a small 
island, the smallest of the Needle isies, lying in Behring’s strait, 
and at noon we came in sight of the.other* two. The first was 
21 miles from us to The north-west, 12 -; the second 20 miles, to 
north west, 4° ; the third 1.5 miles to the north east 14 A The first 
two are mountainous, the latter has the appearance of a small hill. 
We calculated our latitude at 6324 7 , longitude 190° 29 '; the 
depth was 28 fathoms, and the bottom sandy. 
On the 3d we laveered with a north wind in Behring’s Strait, 
betwixt the north eastern cape of Asia and the north western 
cape of America: Both shores are mountainous and woody, and 
the mountains occasionally covered with snow. 
In the afternoon of the 4th we laveered so far to the north as 
