the river, and which they told us was continually shifting. When we had
crossed this shoal, the water again deepened, and here we found a
commodious boat, built and shaped like a Norway yawl, ready to convey us up
the river, together with canoes for our baggage.

The mouth of the Awatska is about a quarter of a mile broad, and, as we
advanced, it narrowed very gradually. After we had proceeded a few miles,
we passed several branches, which, we were told, emptied themselves into
other parts of the bay; and that some of those on the left hand flowed into
the Paratounca river. Its general direction from the bay, for the first ten
miles, is to the north, after which it turns to the westward; this bend
excepted, it preserves for the most part a straight course; and the country
through which it flows, to the distance of near thirty miles from the sea,
is low and flat, and subject to frequent inundations. We were pushed
forward by six men, with long poles, three at each end of the boat, two of
whom were cossacks, the others Kamtschadales, and advanced against a strong
stream, at the rate, as well as I could judge, of about three miles an
hour. Our Kamtshadales bore this severe labour with great stoutness for ten
hours, during which we stopped only once, and that for a short time, whilst
they took some little refreshment. As we had been told, at our first
setting out in the morning, that we should easily reach an _ostrog_, called
Karatchin, the same night, we were much disappointed to find ourselves, at
sunset, fifteen miles from that place. This we attributed to the delay
occasioned in passing the shoals we had met with, both at the entrance of
the river, and in several other places as we proceeded up it; for our boat
being the first that had passed up the river, the guides were not
acquainted with the situation of the shifting sand-banks, and unfortunately
the snow not having yet begun to melt, the shallowness of the river was at
its extreme.