Both Ismyloff and the others affirmed, that they knew nothing of the continent of America to the northward; and that neither Lieutenant Synd, nor any other Russian, had ever seen it.  They call it by the same name which Mr Staehlin gives to his great island, that is Alaschka.  Stachtan Nitada, as it is called in the modern maps, is a name quite unknown to these people, natives of the islands as well as Russians; but both, of them know it by the name of America.  From what we could gather from Ismyloff and his countrymen, the Russians have made several attempts to get a footing upon that part of this continent that lies contiguous to Oonalashka and the adjoining islands, but have always been repulsed by the natives, whom they describe as a very treacherous people.  They mentioned two or three captains, or chief men, who had been murdered by them; and some of the Russians shewed us wounds which, they said, they had received there.

Some other information which we got from Ismyloff is worth recording, whether true or false.  He told us, that in the year 1773, an expedition had been made into the Frozen Sea in sledges, over the ice, to three large islands that lie opposite the mouth of the river Kovyma.  We were in some doubt, whether he did not mean the same expedition of which Muller gives an account; and yet he wrote down the year, and marked the islands on the chart.[7] But a voyage which he himself had performed, engaged our attention more than any other.  He said, that on the 12th of May, 1771, he sailed from Bolscheretzk, in a Russian vessel, to one of the Kuril islands, named Mareekan, in the latitude of 47 deg., where there is a harbour, and a Russian settlement.  From this island, he proceeded to Japan, where be seems to have made but a short stay.  For when the Japanese came to know that he and his companions were Christians, they made signs for them to be gone; but did not, so far as we could understand him, offer any insult or force.  From Japan, he got to Canton, and from thence to France, in a French ship.  From France, he travelled to Petersburgh, and was afterward sent out again to Kamtschatka.  What became of the vessel in which he first embarked, we could not learn, nor what was the principal object of the voyage.  His not being able to speak one word of French, made this story a little suspicious.  He did not even know the name of any one of the most common things that must have been in use every day, while he was on board the ship, and in France.  And yet he seemed clear as to the times of his arriving at the different places, and of his leaving them, which he put down in writing.[8]

[Footnote 7:  The latest expedition of this kind, taken notice of by Mr Muller, was in 1724.  But in justice to Mr Ismyloff, it may be proper to mention, which is done on the authority of a MS. communicated by Mr Pennant, and the substance of which has been published by Mr Coxe, that, so late as 1768, the Governor of Siberia sent three young officers over the ice in sledges to the islands opposite the mouth of the Kovyma.  There seems no reason for not supposing, that a subsequent expedition of this sort might also be undertaken in 1773.  Mr Coxe, p. 324, places the expedition on sledges in 1764, but Mr Pennant’s MS. may be depended upon.—­D.]