chatka. It was understood that there were several
settlements in the immediate neighbourhood employing altogether about
four hundred Russians.

LETTERS TO LONDON.

On the 14th Cook and Webber were at an Indian village a short distance
from the ships, when they saw a canoe arrive containing three men and
accompanied by some twenty or thirty single canoes. A tent was rigged up
for one of the first three, a Russian named Ismyloff (Ismailoff) the
chief trader of the district, whilst the others made shelters of their
canoes and grass, and so all were independent of the Indians. Ismailoff
invited Cook to join him at his meal, which consisted of dried salmon and
berries, and some sort of conversation was carried on by means of signs
and figures. Ismailoff proved to be well acquainted with the geography of
the district, and pointed out several errors in the modern maps. He said
he had been with Lieutenant Lindo's expedition as far north as
Tchukotskoi Nos, and saw Clerke's Island; but when he could or would not
say what else they had done during the two years the expedition was out,
Cook began to have doubts. He also said the Russians had several times
tried to gain a footing on the American shore, but the Indians had driven
them off with the loss of two or three of their leaders. He also spoke of
a sledge expedition in 1773 to three islands opposite the Kolyma River,
which Cook thought might be the one mentioned by Muller, he related that
he had sailed, in 1771, from a Russian settlement called Bolscheretski,
in the Kurile Islands, to Japan, but the ship was ordered away because
they were Christians, so they went to Canton and sailed on a French ship
to France, and from thence he went to Petersburg, and was then sent out
again. He was quite clear as to his dates, and put them on paper; but as
he was perfectly ignorant of any French, "not even the names of the
commonest articles," though he had been such a long time amongst French
people, Cook was again inclined to be sceptical. He stayed all night,
dining with Clerke, and returned again on the 19th, with charts, which he
permitted to be copied, and some manuscripts. One chart showed the
Asiatic coast as far as 41 degrees North, with the Kurile Islands and
Kamtschatka, and the second, the more interesting to the English, showed
the discoveries made by the Russians to the east of Kamtschatka,
exclusive of the voyages of Behring and Tcherikoff. Cook found the
longitudes in place