On 26th June they had a narrow escape during a thick fog, when it was not possible to see anything a hundred yards away.  Breakers were heard, so the anchors were let go and fortunately held.  An hour or so after the fog lifted, and they found themselves about three-quarters of a mile from a rocky island, having passed between two elevated rocks, a place through with, Cook says, “I should have ventured on a clear day,” for all that they found themselves in “such an anchoring place that I could not have chosen a better.”

Anderson Dies.

On 27th June they were off the island of Onalaschka, and came across a party of natives who were towing two whales they had killed; they were somewhat shy, but had evidently seen ships before, and were more polite than those previously met with.  One was upset from his canoe, and Cook took him down into the cabin and provided him with dry clothes; “he dressed himself with as much ease as I could have done.”  His clothes were of birds’ skins, the feathers inside, and patched in places with silk, and over all he wore a sort of shirt of whale’s intestine, which, secured round the edge of the hole in which he sat in his canoe, rendered him practically waterproof.  Whilst in this neighbourhood they received a second letter in Russian, but having no one on board who could translate, it was returned with some presents to the bearer, who retired bowing his thanks.  After some detention from fogs and adverse winds they got away once more and pushed slowly northwards.  On 3rd August Mr. Anderson the surgeon, who had been ill for some months, died, and Cook, having named an island, sighted soon after his death, Anderson’s Island, “to perpetuate the memory of the deceased, for whom I had a very great regard,” appointed Mr. Law to the Resolution and Mr. Samwell to the Discovery as surgeons.

On 9th August, Cape Prince of Wales, 65 degrees 46 minutes North, 191 degrees 45 minutes East, was sighted, and they believed it to be the most westerly point of North America.  They landed on what, from Heydinger’s Chart, was the eastern end of the island of Alaska, but it afterwards was found to be the eastern extremity of Asia.  This chart, says Burney, was found “not only to be incorrect but almost unintelligible.”  The country was very desolate, neither tree nor shrub to be seen, and the inhabitants seemed afraid of their visitors, though not absolutely unfriendly.  They were taller and stouter than those on the American side, and their clothing very superior.

The ships fell in with the ice blink on the 17th, in 70 degrees 33 minutes North, 197 degrees 41 minutes East, rather earlier than had been expected, and soon afterwards with the ice itself in the shape of a large field extending as far as the eye could reach from west to east.  Here they got a supply of fresh meat in the shape of sea-horse, of which animal they killed a good many.  The flesh was fishy and indifferent eating, but Cook says anything was preferable to salt meat.