We found the settlement here in the most distressing situation. The whole of the male inhabitants, except the Russian overseer and his son, and the Indian interpreter, having gone out to catch seals, about three weeks before this time, a severe gale of wind came on, which their slight canoes were unable to resist, and every one of them perished. This dreadful calamity did not prevent the survivors from receiving us with the kindest hospitality. We were lodged in the hot bath, which was effectually warmed by the steam of water thrown upon red-hot stones. Ungar is nearly twenty miles in length; in the interior the country rises into lofty mountains; near the sea it is more level, and is covered with brushwood, but produces no vegetable food, except berries, and a root from which the Russians make the liquor called quass. We remained eight days at this place, during which we went out several times to shoot deer, with which the island abounds, accompanied by the son of the overseer and the interpreter; we had tolerable sport, and the venison made a most acceptable addition to our store. The natives seem, in all respects, the same as those at Sannack. The settlement consisted of one Russian and about thirty Indian families. The houses of the latter were built of mud, in the form of a bee-hive, with a hole at the top instead of a door; they had no fire-places, but warmed themselves by means of lamps made out of flat hollow stones, with rush wicks, which when cold, they placed under their frocks. One cooking place served for the whole village. This island is separated from the main land, by a strait nearly ten miles wide at high water, but so extremely shallow that it is said to dry at low ebbs, when deer frequently pass over from the continent. The village is situated on the north side of a small, well sheltered harbour, the entrance to which is between two rocky heads, not above a cable’s length asunder. Within it is a quarter of a mile broad, and divides, a short way above the village, into two branches, one of which extends a considerable distance to the west. There are three or four high pointed rocks a little to the south of the entrance, but there is deep water all round. We sailed on the morning of the 28th, with the wind at N. W. and steered between the main land and a small isle to the east of Ungar. Before we reached the open sea, the wind headed us, and blew with such violence as to force us back to the harbour we left in the morning. Gales from the N. E. with heavy falls of snow, prevented us from sailing for the eight following days. I employed myself in making a squaresail out of a bolt of canvass we had for the purpose.