e
point of being removed, by a long and tedious navigation, to places
where they must either forego all surgical attendance, or obtain it
from people totally unskilled in the practice. I was curious to learn
on what food the sick were kept, and was shewn two casks of salt meat
destined for them. I requested to see a piece of it; but, on opening
the cask, so disgusting and pestilential a smell took possession
of the hold as compelled me instantly to quit it. Two tons of this
stinking salt meat, and some sacks of mouldy black biscuit, were the
only nourishing provisions on board for twenty invalids, for, to this
number, (out of seventy,) they actually amounted before the Maria (the
vessel they were on board) left St Peter and St Paul (for Kodiak)."
Was not the practice said to have been adopted at Jaffa by an
extraordinary character, to be esteemed for mercifulness in comparison
of this? Train oil and the flesh of the sea-lion, with a mixture of
rye-meal and water, form the choicest provisions of those who are
well, either on board a ship or on shore; these, it must be owned, are
quite suitable to the iron rule of the agent, under whom there can
be neither personal property nor individual security, because he is
subject to no law, and there are no courts of justice in Kodiak, or
any other of the company's possessions. Few of these wretched outcasts
ever again reach Russian ground, very few indeed attain the object
of their wishes (we dare not say hopes) to return to Europe. Disease,
disappointment, innumerable sufferings, continual drunkenness, the
only solace in which, for obvious reasons, they are indulged, bring
them speedily to the end of their unhappy existence, and leave a
vacant stage for the miseries of new victims. Should a remnant have
a more lengthened career, and having, by infinite pain and trouble,
amassed a little property, get back to Ochotsk, thinking to return
home and spend their days in comfort with their relatives, they are
beset by fresh and perhaps still more aggravated vexations. They
cannot leave that place, it seems, till they have closed accounts with
the agents, and, as this is frequently protracted, no doubt with
the most diabolical design, they become idle, spend what they had
acquired, run into debt, (for sufficient credit is allowed them),
and at last are necessitated to revert to their former slavery with
perhaps far less ability than formerly, and with no other expectation
of relief than