In the evening we reached a little mountain brook, which, after winding through a ravine, falls into the sea at Port Romanzow, or Bodega. It was already dark, and though but ten miles distance from Ross, we were obliged to pass the chill and foggy night not very agreeably on this spot. In the morning we forded the shallow stream, and as we proceeded, found in the bold, wild features of the scene a striking difference from the smiling valleys through which we had travelled on the preceding day. The nearer we drew to the coast, the more abrupt became the precipices and the higher the rocks, which were overgrown with larch even to their peaked summits. We wound round the bases of some hills, and having with much fatigue climbed other very steep ascents, reached towards noon a considerable height, which rewarded us with a magnificent prospect. Amongst the remarkable objects before us, the ocean stretched to the west, with the harbour of Romanzow, which unfortunately will only afford admission to small vessels; the Russian settlement here, can therefore never be as prosperous as it might have been, had circumstances permitted its establishment on the bay of St. Francisco. To the east, extending far inland, lay a valley, called by the Indians the Valley of the White Men. There is a tradition among them, that a ship was once wrecked on this coast; that the white men chose this valley for their residence, and lived there in great harmony with the Indians. What afterwards became of them is not recorded. On the north-east was a high mountain thickly covered with fir trees, from amongst which rose dark columns of smoke, giving evidence of Indian habitations. Our soldiers said that it was the abode of a chief and his tribe, whose valour had won the respect of the Spaniards; that they were of a distinct class from the common race of Indians; had fixed their dwellings on this mountain on account of its supposed inaccessibility; were distinguished for their courage, and preferred death to the dominion of the Missionaries, into whose power no one of 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.