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Overtaken by thick fogs and violent storms, Kruzenstern now hunted in vain for some islands marked on a map found on a Spanish gallion captured by Anson, and the existence of which had been alternately accepted and rejected by different cartographers, though they appear in La Billardière's map of his voyage.
In fact Kruzenstern was very affably received by the king of the cannibals, who appeared to exercise but little authority over his people, a race addicted to the most revolting vices, and our hero owns that but for the intelligent and disinterested testimony of the two Europeans mentioned above he should have carried away a very favourable opinion of the natives.
In our opinion these societies resemble the clans of Scotland or the Indian tribes of America. Kruzenstern, however, does not agree with us, as the following quotation will show.
Kotzebue had gone round the world as a midshipman with Kruzenstern, and that explorer now entrusted to him his eldest son, as did also Möller, the Minister of Marine, a proof of the great confidence both fathers placed in him.
During this last sojourn at Petropaulovsky, Kruzenstern received an autograph letter from the Emperor of Russia, enclosing the order of St. Anne as a proof of his Majesty's satisfaction with the work done.
In Aniwa Bay they were all clad in furs; their boots were made of seal-skins, and in these likewise the women were invariably clothed." After passing through the Straits of La Pérouse, Kruzenstern cast anchor in Aniwa Bay, off the island of Saghalien. Here fish was then so plentiful, that two Japanese firms alone employed 400 Ainos to catch and dry it.
"I know of no better place," says Kruzenstern, "to get supplies after a long voyage than St. Helena. The entrance, with the precaution of first getting near the land, is perfectly easy; and on quitting the island nothing more is necessary than to weigh anchor and stand out to sea.
La Pérouse had been the only navigator to traverse before Kruzenstern the seas between Japan and the continent. The Russian explorer was therefore anxious to connect his work with that of his predecessor, and to fill up the gaps the latter had been compelled for want of time to leave in his charts of these parts.
Kotzebue gives it S. lat. 44 degrees 50 minutes and W. long. 138 degrees 47 minutes. During the ensuing days were discovered the desert island of Romantzoff, so named in honour of the promoter of the expedition; Spiridoff Island, with a lagoon in the centre; the Island Oura of the Pomautou group, the Vliegen chain of islets, and the no less extended group of the Kruzenstern Islands.
The last-named took an important part in the voyage of the Englishman Billings, a voyage by the way which was far from achieving all that might have been fairly expected from the ten years it occupied and the vast sums it cost. Adam John von Kruzenstern was the first Russian to whom is due the honour of having made a voyage round the world under government auspices and with a scientific purpose.
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