What a wonderful thing is the science of navigation.  One measures the sun’s height at meridian; looks at a chronometer; consults a book of mystical figures; makes a little slate work like a school-boy’s problem; and he knows his position at sea.  Twelve o’clock, if there be neither fog nor cloud, is the most important hour of a nautical day.  A few minutes before noon the captain is on deck with his quadrant.  The first officer is similarly provided, as he is supposed to keep a log and practice-book of his own.  Ambitious students of navigation are sure to appear at that time.  On the Wright we turned out four instruments, with twice as many hands to hold them.  A minute before twelve, conticuere omnes.

“Eight bells.”

“Eight bells, sir.”

The four instruments are briefly fixed on the sun and the horizon, the readings of the scale are noted, and the quartette descend to the practice of mathematics.  A few minutes later we have the result.

“Latitude 52 deg. 8’ North, Longitude 161 deg. 14’ East.  Distance in last twenty-four hours two hundred forty-six miles.”

The chart is unrolled, and a few measurements with dividers, rule and pencil, end in the registry of our exact position.  Unlike the countryman on Broadway or a doubting politician the day before election, we do know where we are.  The compass, the chronometer, the quadrant; what would be the watery world without them!

On the twenty-fourth of July we were just a month at sea.  In all that time we had spoken no ship nor had any glimpse of land, unless I except a trifle in a flower pot.  The captain made his reckoning at noon, and added to the reading—­

“Seventy-five miles from the entrance of Avatcha Bay.  We ought to see land before sunset.”

About four in the afternoon we discovered the coast just where the captain said we should find it.  The mountains that serve to guide one toward Avatcha Bay were exactly in the direction marked on our chart.  To all appearances we were not a furlong from our estimated position.  How easily may the navigator’s art appear like magic to the ignorant and superstitious.

The breeze was light, and we stood in very slowly toward the shore.  By sunset we could see the full outline of the coast of Kamchatka for a distance of fifty or sixty miles.  The general coast line formed the concavity of a small arc of a circle.  As it was too late to enter before dark, and we did not expect the light would be burning, we furled all our sails and lay to until morning.

By daybreak we were under steam, and at five o’clock I came on deck to make my first acquaintance with Asia.  We were about twenty miles from the shore, and the general appearance of the land reminded me of the Rocky Mountains from Denver or the Sierra Nevadas from the vicinity of Stockton.  On the north of the horizon was a group of four or five mountains, while directly in front there were three separate peaks, of which one was volcanic.  Most of these mountains were conical and sharp, and although it was July, nearly every summit was covered with snow.  Between and among these high peaks there were many smaller mountains, but no less steep and pointed.  As one sees it from, the ocean, Kamchatka appears more like a desolate than a habitable country.