The intolerance and superstition met with by the visitors at every turn made the explorer reflect deeply. He regretted seeing so much force and so many resources which might have promoted the intellectual progress and material prosperity of the country wasted on perpetual revolutions. To Lutke nothing less resembled a valley of Paradise than Valparaiso and its environs: rugged mountains, broken by deep _quebradas_, a sandy plain, in the centre of which rises the town, with the lofty heights of the Andes in the background, do not, strictly speaking, form an Eden. The traces of the terrible earthquake of 1823 were not yet entirely effaced, and here and there large spaces covered with ruins were still to be seen. On the 15th April, the _Seniavine_ set sail for New Archangel, where she arrived on the 24th June, after a voyage unmarked by any special incident. The necessity for repairing the effects of the wear and tear of a voyage of ten months, and of disembarking the provisions for the company of which the _Seniavine_ was the bearer, detained Captain Lutke in the Bay of Sitka for five weeks. This part of the coast of North America presents a wild but picturesque appearance. Lofty mountains clothed to their very peaks with dense and gloomy forests form the background of the picture. At the entrance of the bay rises Mount Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano 2800 feet above the sea-level. On entering the bay the visitor finds himself in a labyrinth of islands, behind which rise the fortress, towers, and church of New Archangel, which consists of but one row of houses with gardens, a hospital, a timber-yard, and outside the palisades a large village of Kaloche Indians. At this time the population consisted of a mixture of Russians, Creoles, and Aleutians, numbering some 800 altogether, of whom three-eighths were in the service of the company. This population, however, fluctuates very much according to the season. In the summer almost every one is away at the chase, and no sooner does autumn bring the people before they are all off again fishing. New Archangel does not offer too many attractions in the way of amusements. Truth to tell, it is one of the dullest places imaginable, inexpressibly gloomy, where autumn seems to reign all through the year except for three months, when snow falls continuously. All this, however, does not of course affect the passing visitor, and for the resident there is nothing to keep up his spirits but a good stock of philosophy or a stern determination not to die of hunger. There is a good deal of remunerative trade with California, the natives, and foreign vessels.