perceivable at upward of a league's distance; it was covered with a great
number of sea-birds, that were feasting on it.

On the 24th, the wind, which had varied round the compass the three
preceding days, fixed at S.W., and brought clear weather, with which we
continued our course to the N.E. by N. across the bay, without any land in
sight.

This day we saw a great number of gulls, and were witnesses to the
disgusting mode of feeding of the arctic gull, which has procured it the
name of the parasite; and which, if the reader is not already acquainted
with it, he will find in the note below.[22]

On the 25th, at one o'clock in the afternoon, being in latitude 59° 12',
longitude 168° 35', the wind freshening from the same quarter, a thick fog
succeeded; and this unfortunately just at the time we expected to see
Olutorskoi Noss, which, if Muller places it right in latitude 59° 3O', and
in longitude 167°36', could only have then been twelve leagues from us; at
which distance, land of a moderate height might easily have been seen. But
if the same error in longitude prevails here, which we have hitherto
invariably found, it would have been much nearer us, even before the fog
came on; and as we saw no appearances of land at that time, it must either
have been very low, or there must be some mistake of latitude in Muller's
account. We tried soundings, but had no ground with one hundred and sixty
fathoms of line.

The weather still thickening, and preventing a nearer approach to the land,
at five we steered E. by N., which is somewhat more easterly than the
Russian charts lay down the trending of the coast from Olutorskoi Noss. The
next day we had a fresh gale from the S.W., which lasted till the 27th at