Accordingly we directed our course along this plain, and, though we saw several bears at a distance, we could never, with all our management, contrive to get within shot of them. Our diversion was therefore changed to spearing of salmon, which we saw pushing in great numbers through the surf into a small river. I could not help observing how much inferior our Kamtschadales were, at this method of fishing, to the people at Oonalashka; nor were their instruments, although pointed with iron, near so good for the purpose, nor to be compared in neatness to those of the Americans, though pointed only with bone. On enquiring into the reason of this inferiority, I was informed by the corporal, who had lived many years amongst the Americans, that formerly the Kamtschadales made use of the same kind of darts and spears with the Americans, headed and barbed with bone, and were not less dexterous in the management of them than the latter. We could not understand one another sufficiently for me to learn the cause of this change; probably it was one of the not unusual effects of a forced and imperfect state of improvement. It fell out very opportunely that the water afforded us a little prey; for, besides our ill success in the chase by land, we had also been disappointed in our expectations of shooting wild fowl, on a supply of which we had in some measure depended for our subsistence; and, on its failure, began to think that we had been full long absent from head quarters. Our Kamtschadales now discovered that the want of success in not meeting with game, was owing to the party being too large, and to the unavoidable noise that was the consequence of it. We therefore agreed to separate, Ivaskin, the corporal, and myself, forming one party, Captain Gore, and the rest of the company, the other.