At noon on 12 August, we sailed out of Patience Bay, south to Manué Post, at the narrowest part of Sakhalin Island. Following a series of overcast and stormy days, clear and calm weather had emerged. Not wanting to enter in the dark the personally unfamiliar Manué Bay, whose two sides hide dangerous underwater rocks, we intentionally dawdled at sea. Only the following morning did the Shooter approach shore. We found a small post of soldiers and the foreman I— — v, a young, energetic man, also seconded to the Okhotsk seacoast to discover “a bit o’ coal.” There, the peaceful sea was more merciful to the local soldiers, and they were able to safely bring ashore the provisions (around 500 poods) that were brought for them.

Having completed my measurements and notes on the bay, I spent the entire day among unspoilt nature, in the company of the foreman and our administrator, I— — v. We visited the local aboriginals who lived near Manué— the Ainu. The first Ainu who greeted us was a pathetic old man with a heavily wrinkled face and long, thick hair. A thick beard and mustache are this Asian tribe's incomprehensible particularity. We saw the local women; they also seemed ugly to us. All youths of the male sex were away fishing.

In Korsakovsk Post, we’d happened to see, near the Japanese consul's home, some Ainu from Matsumae Island; they, by contrast, were strikingly handsome: an aquiline visage with large black eyes and a black mustache, and a solid, statuesque physique. They stood like heroes among the short, ugly Japanese.

It's said the Ainu on Sakhalin are dwindling: their free life there has been constrained by the newcomers and they are choosing to relocate to the Japanese islands.

Having departed Manué, we traveled south all night toward Cape Aniva, and in the morning entered the La Pérouse Strait.

The sea was completely still. Not a cloud in the sky. The distant coasts were obscured from view, yet the eye was not tired by the uniform watery expanse because it was enlivened by myriad seabirds. Not a single one was airborne; rather, the entire surface of the sea, smooth as glass, was covered by flocks of ducks, gulls, terns, cormorants, geese.