Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 2.: The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 2.: The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
La Perouse had some intercourse with the natives of Crillon Cape, and
stated that they were handsome men, far more industrious than the
Orotchys of Casters Bay, but less liberal in their dealings.
"They have," he says, "one most important article of commerce--unknown
in the channel of Tartary--from which they derive their riches, namely,
whale oil. Of this they collect considerable quantities. They extract
it in a way which is far from economical. They cut the flesh into
pieces, and dry it upon a slope in the open air, by exposing it to the
sun. The oil which flows from it is caught in vessels made of bark, or
into bottles of dried sealskin."
After sighting the Cape Arniva of the Dutch, the vessels coasted along
the barren, treeless, uninhabited country in possession of the Dutch
Company, and shortly reached the Kurile Islands. They then passed
between Marikon Island and the Island of the Four Brothers, calling
the strait--the finest amongst the Kurile Islands, through which they
penetrated--La Boudeuse.
On the 3rd of September the coast of Kamtchatka was reached. This
coast was uninviting enough. "There the eyes rest painfully, and often
fearfully, upon enormous masses of rock, which are already covered
with snow in the beginning of September, and which never appear to
have had any vegetation."
Three days later Avatscha Bay, or the Bay of Saint Peter and Saint
Paul, was reached. The astronomers at once proceeded to take
observations; the naturalists made the perilous and arduous ascent of
a volcano, some eight leagues inland; whilst those of the crew who
were not engaged upon the vessels gave themselves up to hunting and
fishing. Thanks to the welcome accorded by the governor, their
pleasures were varied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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