mss142-vasilevShishmarev-i3-048

– 98 –

started to increase and we had to delay our intention to con-
tinue surveying the next day and moved away from shore. Com-
ing to an open place, we sailed close–hauled and stood under
least sail. During the night, the wind increased to such an
extent that we were forced to reef all topsails. It continued
until the evening of the 3rd, then slackened, but the fog and
gloomy weather started again, so that we could not continue
our survey. Therefore, following the moves of the "Discovery,"
we bore away to Cape Oriental, or East Cape, of Asia. We
did not sail long with a favorable wind. It shifted to the
SW and almost turned into a storm, delaying us, and we reached
the mentioned cape only on the ninth. It appeared to us at
dawn of that day in all the majesty of its wild nature. High
rocks rise vertically, and the ocean waves breaking against
them produced a thundering noise heard 20 or more miles on the
wind. Here and there in the [valleys] and on the slopes we
noticed the summer yurts of the coastal Chukchi, settled there
to catch sea birds nesting in the rocky gorges, seals, and fish.

We rounded East Cape the same day and took a course to
St. Lawrence Bay, lying almost on the same parallel of the is-
land by the same name. The intention of our captains was to
enter it to buy deer from the Chukchi to supply the crew with
fresh food, necessary to prevent scurvy, especially as going
from here to Unalashka or to Sitka we probably could not ob-
tain anything of this kind, and would have to wait until our
arrival in California where we intended to go from [Sitka] .