1850.
Notices of the Island of Turakui.
1
207
fect information was completed by mere suppositions, the shape of the island on the old charts was totally misdrawn. La Peyrouse and Broughton were the first to examine the southwest coast, and the former has furnished some in- teresting information on it. Krusenstern afterwards explored the whole east and northwest coast, so that only eighty or a hundred miles on the mouth of the Sagalien remained unexplored. Up to the present time there is no con- nection here with the mainland, and the former opinion of travelers, that Tarakai is a peninsula, is disproved. The Japanese Mamia Rinsoo visit- ed the straits in 1808, and laid it down, and a party commissioned by the em- peror of Japan afterwards again in 1810 surveyed it, and fixed the situation positively. Since then, the name of the Straits of Mamia has been adopted." It is generally frozen up from December till March.
Tarakai is long and narrow. It begins at the north with two small promon- tories, Cape Maria (lat. 54° 17′ N., long. 217° 42′ W.) and Cape Elizabeth (lat. 54° 24′ N., long. 217° 13′ W.), runs down on the western side in almost a straight line, barring a few out-bays, whilst it extends its breadth on the east side down to Cape Patience (lat. 48° 52′ N., long. 215° 13′ W.), in such a measure, that the breadth here is 24 degrees, to only half a degree on the north. After this, however, the land falls in, forms a large bay, the bay of Patience, and continues only on the west side in a small narrow line un- til it ends in a fork at Cape Crillon (lat. 45° 54′ N., long. 218" 02′ W.)' and Cape Aniwa (lat. 46° 02′ N., long. 216° 29′ W.)
The whole length therefore is 572 miles at its farthest extremnity, the breadth varies from 25 to 175 miles. The interior is entirely unknown, only the coast has been visited in some places. La Peyrouse pushed on to 51° 29' N.; he found the coast as thickly wooded as that of Tartary. He landed at the Salmon river (50° 54′); the vegetation here was more vigorous than else- where. Celery and cresses in abundance, plenty of pines and willows, not quite so frequent were oak, maple, birch and medlar trees. 10 The Bay d'Es- taing (lat. 48° 59′ N.) and the Bay de Langle, where they landed before, of- fered the same aspect. Garlic and angelica were frequently seen growing on the borders of the woods. Everywhere on the coast abundance of fish, so that they killed with sticks twelve hundred salmons in one hour, and cod- fish as many as lasted the whole ship's company for eight days.
1. See Malte Brun's Précis, Vol. III. p. 458 and foll, and others.
2. La Peyrouse, Vol. III p. 54 and foll. & p. 83.-Broughton, p. 299. —Kru- senstern, Vol. II. 1 p. 245, &c. Doubts of Malte Brun, Vol. III, p. 461 &c.,
and others.
3. Siebold in the Nouv. Journal Asiatique, 1829, No. 18, page 393
4. Krusenstern, pp. 207 and 208. The longitude is west of Greenwich.
5. Krusenstern, p. 177.
6. Krusenstern laid down the north point of the bay in lat. 49° 19′; page 127. 7. Krusenstern, p. 81. La Peyrouse, Vol. III. p. 83, gives lat. 45° 57′ north, and long. 140° 34′ east of Paris.
8. Krusenstern, page 112. La Peyrouse has lat. 46 3′′ north. 9. See the chart of Sagalien in Krusenstern's atlas, plate 73. 10. La Peyrouse, Vol. III, page 50.
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