t run away when any one approached. A dear-bought experience,
however, soon taught them caution; at all events, from 800 to 900
head were taken, a splendid catch when we consider that the skin of
this animal at the Chinese frontier fetched from 80 to 100 roubles
each. Besides, in the beginning of winter two whales stranded on the
island. The shipwrecked men considered these then provision depots,
and appear to have preferred whale blubber to the flesh of the
sea-otter, which had an unpleasant taste and was tough as
leather.[359]

In spring the sea-otters disappeared, but now there came to the
island in their stead other animals in large herds, viz sea-bears,
seals, and sea-lions. The flesh of the young sea-lion was considered
a great delicacy.[360] When the sea-otters became scarcer and more
shy and difficult to catch, the shipwrecked men found means also to
kill sea-cows, whose flesh Steller considered equal to beef. Several
barrels of their flesh were even salted to serve as provisions
during the return journey. As the land became clear of snow in the
middle of April, Waxel called together the forty-five men who
survived to a consultation regarding the steps that ought to be
taken in order to reach the mainland. Among many different
proposals, that was adopted of building a new vessel with the
materials supplied by the stranded one. The three ship-carpenters
who had been on board were dead. But fortunately there was among the
survivors a Cossack, SAVA STARODUBZOV, who had taken part as a
workman in shipbuilding at Okotsk, and now undertook to manage the
building of the new vessel. With necessity for a teacher he also
succeeded in executing his commission, so that a new _St. Peter_ was
launched on the 21st/10th August, 1742. The vessel was forty feet
long, thirteen feet beam, and six and a half feet deep, and sailed
as well as if built by an experienced master of his craft, but on
the other hand leaked seriously in a high sea. The return voyage at
all events passed successfully. On the 5th September/25th August
Kamchatka was sighted, and two days after the _St. Peter_ anchored
at Petropaulovsk, where the shipwrecked men found a storehouse with
an _abundant_ stock of provisions according to their ideas, which
probably were not pitched very high. Next year they sailed on with
their Behring-Island-built vessel to Okotsk. On then arrival there,
of the seventy-six persons who originally took part in the
expedition, thirty