estward
horizon like walls of ice with the base awash in thundering sea.
Thousands of cataracts, clear as crystal, flashed against the mountain
sides; and in places the rock wall rose sheer two thousand feet from the
roaring tide. Inlets, gloomy with forested mountain walls where
impetuous streams laden with the milky silt of countless glaciers tore
their way through the rocks to the sea, could be seen receding inland
through the fog. Then the foul weather settled over the sea again; and
by the first {51} week of August, with baffling winds and choppy sea, the
_St. Paul_ was veering southwestward where Alaska projects a long arm
into the Pacific. Chirikoff had passed the line where forests dwarf to
willows, and willows to sedges, and sedges to endless leagues of rolling
tundras. Somewhere near Kadiak, land was again sighted. When the fog
lifted, the vapor of far volcanoes could be seen hanging lurid over the
mountain tops.

Wind was followed by dead calm, when the sails literally fell to pieces
with rain-rot in the fog; and on the evening of September 8 the becalmed
crew were suddenly aroused by the tide-rip of roaring breakers. Heaving
out all anchors at once, Chirikoff with difficulty made fast to rocky
bottom. In the morning, when the fog lifted, he found himself in the
centre of a shallow bay surrounded by the towering cliffs of what is now
known as Adakh Island. While waiting for a breeze, he saw seven canoe
loads of savages put out from shore chanting some invocation. The
Russians threw out presents, but the savages took no notice, gradually
surrounding the _St. Paul_. All this time Chirikoff had been without any
water but the stale casks brought from Kamchatka; and he now signalled
his desperate need to the Indians. They responded by bringing bladders
full of fresh water; but they refused to mount the decks. And by evening
fourteen canoe loads of the taciturn savages were circling threateningly
round the Russians. Luckily, {52} at nightfall a wind sprang up.
Chirikoff at once slipped anchor and put to sea.

By the third week of August, the rations of rye meal had been reduced to
once a day instead of twice in order to economize water. Only twelve
casks of water remained; and Chirikoff was fifteen hundred miles from
Kamchatka. Cold, hunger, thirst, then did the rest. Chirikoff himself
was stricken with scurvy by the middle of September, and one sailor died
of the scourge. From the 26th, one death