So speedy a return, occasioned some pleasantries on the part of M. Kokh and the other officers; each reminded me of his prediction; but I was less confused at the folly of my attempt, than mortified and distressed at its failure. I calculated with grief that my stay in this town would not perhaps be less than a month. Engrossed by a thousand melancholy ideas, I was for some time incapable of returning any answer to the demonstrations of joy and friendship which were heaped upon me. All the obstacles I had met with from my first landing at the port of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, occurred at once to my mind, and I conceived that the invincible hand of fate opposed itself to the success of my embassy. It was to no purpose that I employed every means of being expeditious; it was to no purpose that I had pushed my zeal to rashness, and on many occasions hazarded both my life and my dispatches. What a distance was I still from Petersburg! In the mean time six months are frequently known to be sufficient for this journey; and a vessel leaving Bolcheretsk in July, will, if it meet with no accident, commonly arrive at Okotsk in three weeks or a month, and sometimes in twelve or fifteen days. From Okotsk to Yakoutsk, on horseback, is only the business of a month, and in like manner from Yakoutsk to Irkoutsk, whether we sail down, the Lena, or ride along its banks. At Irkoutsk it will probably be necessary to wait six weeks till the frost sets in, and by means of sledges it is easy travelling to Petersburg in a similar portion of time; the governor general has performed it in twenty eight days. It is impossible to express my impatience and despair, when I contrasted the tediousness of my journey with this expeditious mode of travelling. Eight months had already elapsed, and I was no farther than Okotsk. It is true, I had no choice of season, and had been detained nearly three months at Bolcheretsk; obliged beside to make by land the tour of the peninsula of Kamtschatka, I had had to contend with tempests and a thousand obstacles, each more grievous than the preceding. These delays had been equally involuntary and unavoidable; and though they may be pleaded in my justification, they do not remove the regret that is inseparable from the recollection of them. It is always distressing not to be able to execute the trust reposed in us, particularly when it is known, that at a different season, and under other circumstances, the task would have been easy; but it is still more distressing, when attended with the anxiety to see our native country and our dearest friends. Such were the reflections which agitated my mind on my return to Okotsk; and for many days they poisoned the pleasures that every one was desirous of procuring me. At length, however, the attentions I experienced, and the amusements that poured in upon me on all sides, dispelled my chagrin, and there was no longer any merit in my resignation.