46 A C C O U N T O F T H E
Account of
Inhabitants.
called Agataku; and the third Shemya: they lie from
forty to fifty verfts afunder. Upon all the three iflands
there are (exclufive of children) but fixty males, whom they
made tributary. The inhabitants live upon roots which
grow wild, and fea animals: they do not employ themfelve3
in catchin«- fifh, although the rivers abound with all kinds
o f falmon, and the fea with turbot. Their cloaths are
made of the fkins of birds and of fea-otters. The Toigon
or chief of the firft illand informed them by means of a
boy, who underftood the Ruffian language, that Eaft-
ward there are three large and well peopled iflands,
Ibiya, Rickfa, andOlas, whofe inhabitants fpeak, a different
language. Shefiyrin and Dumeff found upon the
ifland three round copper plates, with fome letters engraved
upon them, and ornamented with foliage, which
the waves had caft upon the fhore : they brought them,
together with other trifling euriofities, which they had
procured from the natives, to New Kamtchatkoi Oftrog.
Another flap built of larch wood by the fame Trapef-
nikoff, which failed in 1 7 5 a under the conduct of Alexei
Drufinin a merchant of Kurfk, had been wrecked at Beer-
ing’s Ifland, where the crew conftrudled another veflel
out of the wreck, which they named Abraham. In this
veffel they bore away for the more diftant iflands 5 but
being forced back by contrary winds to the fame ifland,
and meeting with the St. Nicholas upon the point of failing
for the Aleutian Ifles, they embarked on that fhip, after
having left the new conftrufted veflel under the care of
four
four of their own failors. The crew had flain upon Beering’s
Ifland five fea-otters, 1222 arctic foxes, and 2500
fea-bears : their fhare of the furs, during their expedition
in the St. Nicholas, amounted to the fkins of 500 fea-
otters, and of 300 cubs, exclufive o f 200 fea-otter-fkins,
which they procured by barter.
C H A P .