THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
499 
the year, and marked the iflands on the chart. But a voy¬ 
age which he himfelf had performed, engaged our atten¬ 
tion more than any other. He faid, that on the rath of 
May 1771, he failed from Bolfcheretzk, in a Ruffian veffel, 
to one of the Kuril iflands, named Mareekan, in the latitude 
of 47 0 , where there is a harbour, and a Ruffian fettlement. 
From this ifiand, he proceeded to Japan, where he feems 
to have made but a ffiort ftay. For when the Japanefe came 
to know that he and his companions were chriftians, they 
made ligns for them to be gone; but did not, fo far as we 
could underhand him, offer any infult or force. From 
Japan, he got to Canton; and from thence to France, in a 
French ffiip. From France, he travelled to Peterfburg; and 
was 'afterward fent out again to Kamtfchatka. What be¬ 
came of the veffel in which he firft embarked, we could 
not learn; nor what was the principal object of the voyage. 
His not being able to fpeak one word of French, made this 
Rory a little fufpicious. He did not even know the name 
of any one of the moft common things that muff have been, 
in ufe every day, while he was on board the ffiip, and in 
France. And yet he feemed clear as to the times of his 
arriving at the different places, and of his leaving them, 
which he put down in writing. 
The next morning, he would fain have made me a pre- 
fent of a fea-otter Ikin, which, he faid, was worth eighty 
roubles at Kamtfchatka. However, I thought proper to de¬ 
cline it; but I accepted of fome dried fiffi, and feveral baf- 
1778. 
Q&ober. 
Friday j 6 . 
Mr. Coxe, that, fo late as 1768, the Governor of Siberia fent three young officers over the 
ice, in fledges, to the iflands oppofite the mouth of the Kovyma. There feems no reafon for 
not fuppoflng, that a fubfequent expedition of this fort might alfo be undertaken in 1773. 
Mr. Coxe, p. 324, places the expedition on fledges in 1764; but Mr. Pennant’s MS. 
may be depended upon. 
3 s 2 
kets 
