f them has ever yet been entrapped. Is it not possible that they
may owe their superiority to having mingled their race with that of the
shipwrecked whites?

Our road now lay sometimes across hills and meadows, and sometimes along
the sands so near the ocean that we were sprinkled by its spray. We
passed Port Romanzow, and soon after forded the bed of another shallow
river to which the Russians have given the name of Slavianka. Farther
inland it is said to be deeper, and even navigable for ships; its banks
are extremely fertile, but peopled by numerous warlike hordes. It flows
hither from the north-east; and the Russians have proceeded up it a
distance of a hundred wersts, or about sixty-seven English miles.

The region we now passed through was of a very romantic though wild
character; and the luxuriant growth of the grass proved that the soil
was rich. From the summit of a high hill, we at length, to our great
joy, perceived beneath us the fortress of Ross, to which we descended by
a tolerably convenient road. We spurred our tired horses, and excited no
small astonishment as we passed through the gate at a gallop. M. Von
Schmidt, the governor of the establishment, received us in the kindest
manner, fired some guns to greet our arrival on Russian-American ground,
and conducted us into his commodious and orderly mansion, built in the
European fashion with thick beams.

The settlement of Ross, situated on the sea-shore, in latitude 38 deg.
33', and on an insignificant stream, was founded in the year 1812, with
the free consent of the natives, who were very useful in furnishing
materials for the buildings and even in their erection.

The intention in forming this settlement was to pursue the chase of the
sea-otter on the coast of California, where the animal was then
numerous, as it had become extremely scarce in the more northern
establishments. The Spaniards who did not hunt them, willingly took a
small compensation for their acquiescence in the views of the Russians;
and the sea-otter, though at present scarce even here, is more
frequently caught along the Californian coast, southward from Ross, than
in any other quarter. The fortress is a quadrangle, palisaded with tall,
thick beams, and defended by two towers which mount fifteen cannons. The
garrison consisted, on my arrival, of a hundred and thirty men, of whom
a small number only were Russians, the rest Aleutians.

The Spaniards lived at first on the best terms