mss142-vasilevShishmarev-i3-034

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distance of a half mile from the island. Its rocky shores
rise steeply to a hundred or more feet. The surface is very
evenly covered with a layer of black earth on which grows
short dry grass, moss, and many cloudberries [salmonberries],
the only fruit that we saw in these lands. In its coastal
rocks nest an innumerable quantity of murres and puffins. The
first bird was already described by me. The body of the sec-
ond is completley similar to it, but has a flat, long beak,
and is yellow and red in color, with a shape resembling the
beak of a parrot; therefore, it is also called a sea parrot.
Its meat is as tasty as that of the murre and we knocked down
a few hundred of both kinds in a day. The Aleuts, brought from
Unalashka, who left in the mornings in their three baidars,
returned toward evening with a full load. They shot them with
five-pointed arrows.

The "Discovery" was still not there. The weather was
overcast, so we could not engage in astronomical observations,
and were extremely bored from this inactivity. For amusement
the captain proposed that we visit the northeastern part of
the bay, namely, the place where he saw whole mountains of
ice standing on the shore in 1816. Everyone gratefully accepted
this proposal. We immediately began to prepare for a two- or
three-day absence. We armed the longboat, placed on it four
falconets, took provisions for three days and two Aleuts with
one baidar, and started out in the number of 20 persons on the
morning of July 14 at seven o'clock. The wind blew rather