Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/266

252 preferred to be landed there. We shipped eight men from the prizes. Sailed on April 13, leaving the Ladrone Islands, Los Jardines, Grampus and Margaret Islands to the westward, and Camira, Otra and Marcus Islands, to the eastward, we steered to intercept vessels from San Francisco and West Coast of South America for Hong Kong. We cruised in these tracks, but saw no sail. Before reaching the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude had heavy typhoons. Above that the weather settled.

On May 21, passed Moukouruski Island, and going through Amphitrite Straits, of Kuril Islands, entered the Ohkotsk Sea. The most beautiful optical illusions I ever witnessed were in the mirage in this latitude, about Kamchatka. When not foggy the atmosphere was a perfect reflector. We saw prominent points seventy miles distant. We would see a snow clad peak direct, and above it, inverted, the reflection, peak to peak, with perfect delineation, or we would see a ship direct, and above it, the reflection of the same ship, inverted, masthead to masthead. Just as if you put your finger to a mirror you would see the finger and reflection, point to point.

We were in the Arctic and contiguous regions during their summer. It was most interesting, as we went north towards the pole, to mark the days grow longer and longer, and to experience the sun's being below the horizon, a shorter and shorter period each twenty-four hours in its diurnal circuit, until finally we went so far that the sun did not go out of sight at all, but would go down to the lowest point, and without disappearing would rise again. In short, it was all day.

In the Okhotsk we encountered thick fogs and heavy ice. On May 27, in latitude 57 north, longitude 153, captured the American whaler Abigail, of New Bedford, which was burned. We took her crew of thirty-five men on board. Went up as far as Ghifinski and Tausk Bays, but could not enter for ice from fifteen to thirty feet thick.

June 10 and 12 twelve of the Abigail's crew enlisted. June 14 we went out of Okhotsk Sea, through Amphitrite Straits. June 1 6 two more men enlisted, and on same evening entered Bering Sea, through the Aletuian Islands, going north towards Captain Navarin.

June 23, captured whalers William Thompson and Susan