farther to the northward upon
this coast (America); and it is equally as improbable that this amazing
mass of ice should be dissolved by the few remaining summer-weeks which
will terminate this season; but it will continue, it is to be believed, as
it now is, an insurmountable barrier to every attempt we can possibly make.
I therefore think it the best step that can be taken, for the good of the
service, to trace the sea over to the Asiatic coast, and to try if I can
find any opening, that will admit me farther north; if not, to see what
more is to be done upon that coast; where I hope, yet cannot much flatter
myself, to meet with better success; for the sea is now so choaked with
ice, that a passage, I fear, is totally out of the question."

[21] Krusenstern substantially admits the correctness of Captain King's
statement respecting the Russian hospital, &c. by saying, expressively
enough, things are not quite so bad at present. It is evident,
however, from his remarks, that the change to the better is almost to
the full amount of being imperceptible, notwithstanding the zeal of
some individuals whose exertions he is anxious to eulogize, and his
own disposition to believe that their well-meant exertions have not
been entirely fruitless. The change, it would seem, consists in the
greater quantities of medicine sent to Kamtschatka, and not in the
greater practicability of judiciously applying them. This, most
persons of discernment will shrewdly suspect, is several degrees worse
than problematically a change to the better. At least one could
scarcely help desiring rather to accept peaceably the warrant of a
natural death, than to risk the enhancement of a conflict on the
doubtful aid of a bungling doctor, whose chief recommendation,
perhaps, if he would but allow himself to be favoured by it, consisted
in his avowed ignorance securing his neutrality. In such a case,
indeed, and it seems on the whole to be almost the very one which K.
describes, it is obvious enough that the medicines can at least do no
more harm than the bottles and boxes that contain them; but then one
cannot easily perceive wherein consists the merit or utility of having
provided them, unless, as in the instance of fire-arms hung over the
chimney never to be loaded or fired, or in that of idols of wood and
stone which adorn the temples of pagans, but which can