Travels in Kamtschatka, During the Years 1787 and 1788, Volume 1Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste-Barthélemy, baron de
History
Travels in Kamtschatka, During the Years 1787 and 1788, Volume 1
Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste-Barthélemy, baron de
Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia) -- Description and travel
The next day we fitted ourselves out early and without difficulty. We
arrived in four hours at Apatchin, but our floats could not come up
as far as the village, on account of the shallowness of the water. We
landed about four hundred yards from the ostrog, and atchieved this
short distance on foot.
This village did not appear to me so considerable as the preceding
ones, that is, it contained perhaps three or four habitations less. It
is situated in a small plain, watered by a branch of the Bolchaïa-reka;
and on the side opposite to the ostrog is an extent of wood, which I
conceived might be an island formed by the different branches of this
river.
I learned by the way, that the ostrog of Apatchin, as well as that of
Natchikin, had not been always where they are at present. It is within
a few years only that the inhabitants, attracted without doubt by the
situation, or the hope of better and more commodious fishing, removed
their houses to this place. The distance of the new ostrog from the
former one is, as I was told, about four or five wersts.
Apatchin afforded nothing interesting. I left it to join our floats,
which had passed the shallows, and were waiting for us three wersts
from the ostrog, at the spot where the branch of Bolchaïa-reka, after
having made a circuit round the village, returns again to its channel.
The farther we advanced, the deeper and more rapid we found it; so
that nothing impeded our course the whole way to Bolcheretsk, where we
arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, accompanied by one only of
our floats, the rest not having kept pace with us.
We were no sooner landed, than the governor conducted me to his house,
where he had the civility to give me a lodging, which I occupied during
the whole time of my stay at Bolcheretsk. He not only procured me all
the conveniences and pleasures that were in his power, but furnished
me with all the information which might contribute to my advantage,
and which his office permitted him to give. His politeness often
anticipated my desires and my questions; and he contrived to stimulate
my curiosity, by presenting to it every thing which he thought was
calculated to interest me. It was with this view he proposed, almost
immediately upon our arrival, my going with him to view the galliot
from Okotsk, that had been unfortunately just shipwrecked at a little
distance from Bolcheretsk.
We had learned something of this melancholy news in our journey. It
was said that the bad weather, which the galliot had encountered at
its arrival, obliged it to come to anchor at the distance of a league
from the coast; but finding that it still drove, the pilot saw no other
means of saving the cargo than by running the vessel aground upon the
coast; accordingly he cut the cables, and the ship was dashed to pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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