The previous episode:
Khvostov and Davydov have finally reached Okhotsk, the port on the Sea of Okhotsk at which they are to pick up a ship and crew for the sea voyage to the Russian-American Company’s headquarters on Kodiak Island. Taken aback by the condition of both the ship and the crew, they nevertheless begin their voyage, even though the process of leaving the harbor takes them a week.
In the early days of the Russian fur trade in the Aleutians, the ships, crewed mostly by promyshlenniks and not sailors, generally only made short hops. Davydov argues, persuasively, for the difference a pair of experienced naval officers can make.
One of the terms that’s tricky to translate here is Morekhod (literally, sea-walker), which could mean sailing-master, except that few of those that held that title in the earlier days were really masters of much of anything. I’ve translated it as Mariner or Sailor, and in a couple of places as commander. Also, remember that sazhen basically means fathom, but it’s a little longer – about 7 feet.
DAVYDOV’S NARRATIVE (Continued)
CHAPTER III.
Preparations for the voyage. Departure from Okhotsk. The ship Elizaveta catches fire near the Kuril Islands. We enter the bay of Tanaga Island. We sail between Unalga and Unalashka. Stormy times and serious leakage of the ship. We arrive at Kodiak Island, where we will stay for the winter.
12 August [1802].
We very soon got to know the people living in Okhotsk and the manager of the [Russian-American] company, Gospodin Polev, a very smart and kind man. The ship Elizaveta, in which we were to go to America, was being armed; but so badly that everything had to be redone. The work could not be successful, for the crew consisted of only one good Boatswain, Semchin, and the rest were all promyshlenniks; that is, people hired in different parts of Siberia to go to America, and who have never seen the sea. To this I must add that the ship was built from a forest cut down in the winter [Davydov may be saying that the lumber had been cut just the previous winter, and so was still green –JT.], all the rigging is supremely bad, and the blocks and other mechanical aids seemed to have been made not to facilitate, but to frustrate the work. I truly could not have imagined that in the current state of navigation, such barebones ships as are in Okhotsk could exist anywhere.
Here I found Baron Steinheil, a friend of mine whom I last saw in Portsmouth [remember that Davydov had previously served in a joint Russian-British squadron –JT.]. Throughout our stay in Okhotsk, we were inseparable from him.
I do not dwell on the description of Okhotsk, which is quite well-known from various travel accounts. I can only say that this city was built at the end of a long spit, consisting of small, round stones. This spit, called a cat, is generally no wider than 25 sazhens. On one side is the Sea of Okhotsk, and on the other the Okhota River, which constantly washes it away, so that the inhabitants are often forced to dismantle their houses and transfer them to other places; for this and other reasons, in the past few years the number of houses, of course, has decreased by half. With a strong sea wind, at high tide the breakers pour over the spit, then the city is inundated and in danger of being razed to the ground.
There are a lot of dogs here, especially in summer, because they only use them to travel in the winter.
Around midnight, one dog howled, others began to join it, and finally, the dogs of the whole city howled in different voices, making up such a wonderful and loud concert, that I wished I were deaf for a while.
It is known that local and Kamchatka dogs do not bark, but only howl. They are quite calm and never rush at people, otherwise it would be difficult to protect oneself from them. When two dogs are fighting, others gather at the noise and surround them and watch to see how it will end. Dogs of the same owner grow accustomed to each other; they always live together. Unfamiliar ones are in danger of being hurt by them, if they come along and do not leave. The ears of the local dogs and Kamchatka dogs are erect; hanging ones are very rare.
This time of year the dogs are very fat and capricious; because there are a lot of fish thrown everywhere on the river bank. Like bears, they gnaw the heads and eat only the brain. This time of year, they shed and look very funny; for many have peeled off their hair from their heads and bodies; but the tightly matted fur stays on the tail, and the dog drags it around everywhere. In the winter people keep their dogs on the leash, drive them [as with dog sleds –JT.] and, moreover, they feed them little, giving them dried fish, known as Yukola, both here and in Kamchatka and America. At the end of autumn, when the rivers freeze and snow begins to fall, everyone catches their dogs, though many come running on their own, not finding food anywhere.
The inhabitants of the eastern shores of Siberia, all of Kamchatka, and Northwestern America could not have lived in these places, with their wildness and poverty, if nature had not sent them special means of feeding themselves. In the summer, all rivers flowing into the sea contain an extraordinary variety of fish, mostly of the genus salmon, which the inhabitants catch and store for winter in various ways. In Okhotsk, this is sometimes salted, but since salt is scarce, most of the fish is dried. First, they butterfly it, clean the inside, remove the bones and hang it on poles, where it dries up and is called Yukola. This is fed only to dogs, although people sometimes also eat it out of necessity. Sometimes in winter the price of one yukola rises to fifty kopecks. In the fall, when it is not so hot and the flies that spoil the drying fish disappear, they begin to hang it, cleaning it without removing the bones – this is called Kachemas. Kachemas cannot be as dry as Yukola, and is prepared for human food.
Then, when the frosts begin, but while fish is still being caught, they freeze it and bury it in the snow; where it remains fresh for the whole winter, unless there is a big thaw.
In the summer, the common people here mostly wear rogduga kamleyka. Any deer skin without fur is called rogduga. A kamleyka is like a shirt, but with a hood in the back. Kamleykas are also made in China. In winter they dress in parkas and kuplyankas. The last garment looks like a parka, only with a hood that is worn on the head during snowstorms, and with a flap sewn to the front of the collar, which can be raised to cover the face. Kuplyankas are usually made double, that is, with fur up and down. Poor people more often wear parkas of dog fur, which is especially warm. Reindeer dresses and skins are obtained from Gizhiginsk and Tigil, from the Chukoch and Koryaks, brokered through the Russians; to the aforementioned cities (also to Kamchatka) the merchants bring vodka, tobacco, tea, sugar, lead, dab and fanzi (Chinese [canvas and] silk fabrics), and other things necessary for living in a barracks. All these goods are sent from Okhotsk on state-owned ships, transporting provisions which are required for the maintenance of a small number of troops stationed there; they pay to the treasury half a ruble per pood for freight, but on the spot they are sold at extremely expensive prices.
Okhotsk is the center of trade between Siberia and the eastern regions of Russia, such as America, Kamchatka and Gizhiginsk [a region of Siberia well to the northeast of Okhotsk, but not quite so far as Kamchatka –JT.]. But this will be discussed at greater length elsewhere.
21 August.
Finally, the ship was ready; as usual we sang a prayer service, after which breakfast was given. I suppose that nobody will be sorry when I omit the description of this magnificent feast.
23 August.
The Okhota and Kukhtui rivers flow into the sea at one mouth, in which the water depth at low tide is no more than 4 1/2 or 5 feet; for which reason, for the ships to leave, they wait for the tide, which enters the estuaries with extreme speed. When the water rises, at the mouth, at different times of the year, it can be from 10 to 15 feet or more. More commonly it is from 9 to 11. Therefore, we choose the beginning of the ebb tide, or, as they say, when the water trembles, to go out to sea, through a mouth filled with shoals and across the river bar, or overpass; also trying to avoid any fresh wind from the sea, which always produces great and steep breakers at the bar, making going out to sea completely impossible. Many ships have wrecked because they considered this danger to be nothing, among others a ship called Good Intentions, built for the expedition of Captain Billings.
In the afternoon we pulled up to the mouth of the Okhota; but suddenly a fresh wind blew out from the SE and forced to wait for another tide.
24 August.
At midnight we began to warp, but our Pilot did not know the Manicha well (the unpredictable rise of the sea at an unusual time); the current changed much faster than we expected; the warps, which stretched, dragged; so the ship was pressed against the shallows, and the swell hit us quite hard. However, the water soon ran out, and the ship grounded and lay still, for the water under it was only 1-1/2 feet deep. With the next tide, with the help of our sails, we pulled ourselves off the shoals and stopped at a depth of four sazhens. I went aft at this time, fell into the steering hole and painfully hurt myself on the grapnel; so I was forced to go to the cabin to rest. But it was full of smoke and no one knew what was causing it. Knowing that there was more than fifty poods [just under a ton –JT.] of gunpowder under the cabin, I went out on deck in order to find out where the smoke was coming from, and as soon as everyone learned about it, there was great confusion. There were many people on deck who had come from the city, and everyone was shouting: smoke, fire, conflagration, we are perishing! etc. Those who stood on the shore, about fifty sazhens from us, ran away, fearing of course that they would be killed if the gunpowder had exploded. But we soon pulled it out and put it on rowboats, then we found two bales of warm cordage, to which we first attributed the cause of the smoke; however, later we learned that the smoke from the kitchen made its way through the deck to the cabin, where, finding an opening, it exited through the doors; for as soon as the fire was extinguished in the kitchen, all the smoke from under the deck dissipated and never appeared again.
After this incident, we moored, but the current of 6 to 7 knots carried and pressed us toward the bank, and having pulled back from it with great difficulty, we stopped at a depth of four sazhens.
When the tide began to turn, the anchor dragged and the ship drifted, and the current from the Kukhtui pinned us to the bank located on the left side of the Okhota.
25 August.
All our efforts to pull ourselves free were in vain and we were forced to wait for another full tide. They brought us a mooring line, without which we would not have been able to come upright and stem up.
26 August.
High tide was at 5 o'clock in the morning, but the Manicha was so great that the rise and fall of the water did not exceed 4 1/2 feet. With the evening tide we left the shallows, and laid three mooring lines above the anchor from the bow and stern.
There were 49 people in all on the ship Elizaveta: Lieutenant Khvostov was the chief thereof, I, the Navigator, a sub-navigator, boatswain, three sailors, 34 promyshlenniks, two Aleuts from the Fox Islands, one American [Russians in the Pacific referred to indigenous Alaskans as “Americans.” Yankee traders they usually called “Bostonians.” –JT.] from the Alyaksa peninsula, a clerk, his assistant and our two men. Towards nightfall there was a strong wind with squalls from NNE; in the morning the wind died down. In the evening I saw one of the old Sailors of the company. He barely knew what a compass and charts were; but he sailed the sea, although slowly, rather happily. Then I remembered a proverb: happiness is better than heroism. The state-owned galliot exited the river mouth; but the water was not deep enough for our vessel.
28 August.
At 7 o'clock in the evening we began to go out of the mouth of the river, while the water was still rising. At 9 o'clock we approached the harbor entrance, the width of which was up to 200 sazhens, and as we had a favorable, gentle breeze, we set topsails, topgallants, jib, staysails and, with the help of a tug, went beyond the bar, where, after calm had set in, we came to anchor, at a depth of 5 sazhens, the bottom fine sand.
29 August.
At 4 o’clock in the morning we weighed anchor in a light stern wind, and at 10 o’clock we lay adrift and raised the baidaras, which are usually on board the company’s ships instead of boats. Baidaras are rowboats used in those places in America where there is no forest for building boats, or where they do not know how to make them. The Russians adopted such rowing vessels from the natives. To build the Baidara, a hull is first made, consisting of very light and thin timbers, on top of which tightly sewn leather is fitted, which serves as a skin instead of sheathing. For the most part, the leather of sea lions is used for this; out of necessity in Okhotsk they also use bulls. The baidara is more often steered by an oar than by a rudder, the stern is steep and somewhat rounded, the stem is very long and sloping, so that the baidara can more easily climb into waves. One can imagine how uncomfortable such rowboats are.
The work on the ship was going extremely badly, and one could not expect otherwise; when none of the promyshlenniks and sailors knew anything. In the afternoon the wind became fresher, a rather great excitement spread; most people felt nausea and other symptoms of seasickness.
30 September [sic].
At night, the wind died down, but in the morning it freshened again and forced us to lower the royals and topgallants. A hawk flew to the ship about noon and soon disappeared again.
The day was fine until noon, but after that it started raining and the wind blew from N. Several small birds flew near the ship, which cannot go far from land, and of course they were carried by the wind. One of them sat down on the deck from fatigue, and easily fell into our hands, and although she was immediately taken to the cabin and given grain, she soon died.
The rain continued until 4 pm. Ducks of a small type swam and flew near the ship. Having enough free time, we read about the disastrous state of the English ship Centaur under the command of Captain Engelfield, which escaped with only 13 or 15 men, from all the military and merchant fleet that was with them. Although such a misfortune could easily have happened to us, the description did not disturb us. Maybe because we are not willing to delve into thinking about the calamities of another, when the same could be close to us.
5 September.
The day was beautiful and the breeze gentle. At 5pm we saw from the deck the island of Alait [this is apparently the volcano Alaid, not far west of Cape Lopatka at the tip of the Kamchatka peninsula –JT.], the roundish top of which was covered with snow. The crew member sitting in the crow’s nest as lookout said that he had seen it for a long time, but was afraid to say so. Why was he afraid? - We were flogged for this before, was his answer. Finally we found out the interpretation of this riddle. When it happened that they did not see the land for a long time, justly ascribing it to the lack of skill of the ship’s master, or the Mariner (as he is usually called here), they sometimes shouted in mockery that they saw the coast, were beaten for that and were silent if they really saw the land.
Finally at sea. This episode’s track is across the Sea of Okhotsk.
It may not be useless to mention here the state of Russian navigation by promyshlenniks in the Eastern Ocean. It is still in a very poor condition, though formerly it was even worse: the extreme difficulty to obtain people skilled in the naval profession in such a remote place, the high cost of supplies and all kinds of instruments, the greed of proprietors, ingrained habits, the harmful practice of hiding, instead of correcting, the bad, and other similar reasons prevent it from rising to the desired level of proficiency otherwise than with very tentative and slow steps. There is also a desire to conceal these conditions, and so they never come to a better state. And so we will describe this navigation in its present form. Until now, ships were built in Okhotsk in the worst way; for this was done either by one of the promyshlenniks, with no idea of the structure of sea-going ships, or by some shipwright’s student, who also knew nothing at all.
A ship built in this way is loaded and armed in exactly this fashion, that is, without any knowledge of the proper procedures. Then it is necessary to find a Skipper or Mariner to command the ship. The head of the Okhotsk port provides, for a few hundred rubles, some drunken and ignorant Navigator's pupil; but more often they chose for this one of the promyshlenniks that had been out to the islands several times, which people call Old Voyagers as if they were Khazars again setting out. The art of this Mariner consists in the fact that he knows the compass, has memorized the courses by which to go from one shore to the next, and out of habit remembers the appearance of many places. From Okhotsk he sets out for the Kamchatka Peninsula, along which, if the ship does not wreck on the shore, he makes his way to the first Kuril Strait. To see some conspicuous place is called to intercept the shore. From the Kuril Islands further, they are looking to intercept one of the Aleutian islands, and then they go along the ridge of these and try not to lose sight of the shores, to Unalaska or Kodiak, wherever the ship is bound. Sailing along the Aleutian Islands is called wading through the garden; for these islands lie so close one to the other as far as America itself, that keeping along them, one almost cannot lose sight of them.
A ship that sets off from Okhotsk never reaches Kodiak in the same year. The Mariner is afraid to stay at sea beyond the beginning of September. As soon as this month comes, he, having seen a coast, rolls over to it in a bay, or in a slightly sheltered cove, chooses where the shore is sandy, that is, a soft place, beaches his ship, builds dugouts for people, and feeds them with wild animals and fish until the month of July; for from this time only, according to his belief, safe sailing begins; then he pulls off the ship, and continues on. Rigging a galliot with a mizzen mast without a topmast cannot take more time. There are examples of ships from Okhotsk that only reached Kodiak in the fourth year; because they sail for the shortest time and only on favorable winds, and otherwise lie adrift, even if it was the calmest, because they have no idea of maneuvering. Then if a current, or a strong wind, carries the ship away from the shore, then they try to intercept it again somewhere, in order to take the course they know from there; otherwise, they suffer the greatest calamities. It has happened that ships wandered for a month or two, without knowing to which side the land was. People then went to extremes from lack of food, and especially water; they even ate their boots and the skins which were wrapped around the rigging. From this cause, ships either completely disappeared, or lost many people, or arrived late to their appointed places, having consumed all the cargo they were carrying. These misfortunes, resulting from ignorance, were attributed to fate, and no one thought about how disgusting they were.
It is known that one ship, having set off from Kamchatka, unable to intercept the Aleutian Islands, went so far to the south, believing these islands were still in that direction, that in November the tar began to melt. I saw many people from this ship who told me that at last, not knowing what to do and where to go; suffering, moreover, unbearably from lack of water, they decided to rely on the will of God. They brought the image of the Mother of God onto the deck, prayed to it and said that no matter where the wind blew, they would go with it — an hour later it rained, which brought them the greatest joy — and a strong south wind arose, which lasted for 18 days. They sailed that whole time on a stern wind, passed some land and finally on the 18th day saw land again. The people were so happy about it that they crossed themselves and came to shore under all sail. That was the island of Afognak, which is north of Kodiak, on the latter of which there was already Shelekhov's establishment, under the command of Baranov. The journal of these promyshlenniks confirms the existence of land located near the 40th parallel. [The rumors of land in the mid-Pacific at about 40º north proved surprisingly durable, and the incident Davydov describes here became part of the lore of the Russian fur trade. The accuracy of the account is doubtful, but it appears to have arisen from the 1798 voyage of an Irkutsk merchant named Kisilev, who was the last independent Russian operator before the chartering of the Shelekhov’s firm as the Russian-American Company at the very end of 1799, largely on the strength of skillful lobbying by Rezanov. We will meet Baranov before long, as he was still in charge at Kodiak Island. –JT.]
What happened to these Sailors of the Eastern Ocean is absolutely incredible. One of them went three times in a summer from Unalashka to look for the Kotovye Islands, located 160 miles from the first, and could never find them. [I can’t find them either –JT.]
Another sailor, in a strong wind, sailed up the Kamchatka coast, and so fortuitously that later a rare roller reached the ship. Having woken up the chief they told him that the ship was aground. Their bewilderment consisted in figuring out where they were: in Japan, or America; but a soldier who came in the morning said that they were near Bolsheretsk. [On the west coast of Kamchatka –JT.]
A third, when stormy weather began to drive the ship onshore, dropped two anchors and went ashore with all his people. After the wind changed, the ship was carried out to sea; but providence, making the blind wise, brought this ship back to the same place a few days later, and the people again boarded it.
The Kamchatka coast, which the sailors of that time usually tried to intercept, was partly a witness to their ignorance. When one ship sailed onto it under full sail, they tried various means to pull it back into the water. Some wanted to set warps, others thought to sail, but the tide carried them off the shoals and out of trouble.
The ship Orel [Eagle], sailing from Cheringov Bay to Kodiak, was laid on its side in a squall. The commander was in a cabin from which he could not be called; for by reading prayers he was now answering the authority of God. Finally, one promyshlennik, bolder than the others, seeing that neither the commander nor anyone else wanted to save them from death, paid out the sheets at the sails, and the ship righted.
Examples like this were not uncommon. These new Argonauts, sailing for animal skins to America, are much more astonishing than those under the leadership of Jason; for with equal ignorance and shortcomings in methods, they had to cross incomparably vast and no less unknown seas. To their complete ignorance of navigation must be added the lack of leadership; for the prommyshlenniks had no respect whatsoever for their Mariners, whom they often beat or nailed into their cabin. When out of sight of land for a long time, they take counsel among themselves, replace the mariner, lock him up, choose another and throw themselves onto the shore, if only they find one. I say throw themselves; for there is no other word for the hauling out of ships on each shore. The ukase of HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, announced by former Minister Mordvinov, which allows naval officers, without leaving the half-pay service, to join companies established for trade, may provide a means of bringing the navigation of the Eastern Ocean to a better state than before. Khvostov and I were the first naval officers to join the American company: therefore, everyone can easily imagine what difficulties we had to overcome, what shortcomings we had to endure in everything, what ingrained prejudices we had to exterminate, what people accustomed to violence we had to pacify, and finally what ignorance we had to fight against incessantly.
In the next installment: Chapter III of Davydov’s narrative continues. The Elizaveta passes through the third Kuril strait, and after sighting the island of Attu, the westernmost of the Aleutians, begins its “wade in the garden” toward our travelers’ destination, Kodiak Island. The Elizaveta encounters the sorts of hazards you might imagine in late autumn well above 50º North latitude, but Davydov describes them in the matter-of-fact manner of an experienced naval officer.