It is now easy to see what was the cause of the unfortunate issue of these two attempts to sail to the eastward. The explorers had vessels which were unsuitable for cruising, they turned too early in the season, and in consequence of their unwillingness to go far from land they sailed into the great bays east of the Lena, from which no large river carries away the masses of ice that have been formed there during the winter, or that have been drifted thither from the sea. Dmitri Laptev and his companions besides appear to have had a certain dislike to the commission intrusted to them, and, differing from Deschnev, they thus wanted the first condition of success—the fixed conviction of the possibility of attaining their object.

By order of the Board of Admiralty Dmitri Laptev at all events began his second voyage, and now falsified his own prediction, by rounding the two capes which he believed to be always surrounded by unbroken ice. After he had passed them his vessel was frozen in on the 20th/9th September. Laptev had no idea at what point of the coast he was, or how far he was from land. He remained in this unpleasant state for eleven days, at the close of which one of the mates who had been sent out from the vessel in a boat on the 11th Sept./31st Aug. returned on foot over the ice and reported that they were not far from the mouth of the Indigirka. Several Yakuts had settled on the neighbouring coast, where was also a Russian simovie. Laptev and his men wintered there, and examined the surrounding country. The surveyor KINDAeKOV was sent out to map the coast to the Kolyma. Among other things he observed that the sea here was very shallow near the shore, and that driftwood was wanting at the mouth of the Indigirka, but was found in large masses in the interior, 30 versts from the coast.

The following year, 1740, Laptev repaired as well as he could his vessel, which had been injured during the voyage of the preceding year, and then went again to sea on the 11th Aug./31st July. On the 14th/3rd August he passed one of the Bear Islands, fixing its latitude at 71 deg. 0'. On the 25th/14th August, when Great Cape Baranov was reached, the progress of the vessel was arrested by masses of ice that extended as far as the eye could reach. Laptev now turned and sought for winter quarters on the Kolyma. On the 19th/8th July, 1741, this river became open, and Laptev went to sea to continue his voyage eastwards, but did not now succeed in rounding Great Cape Baranov. He was now fully convinced of the impossibility of reaching the Anadyr by sea, on which account he determined to penetrate to that river by land in order to survey it. This he did in the years 1741 and 1742. Thus ended the voyages of Dmitri Laptev, giving evidence if not of distinguished seamanship, of great perseverance, undaunted resolution, and fidelity to the trust committed to him.[326]

6. Voyage for the purpose of exploring and surveying the coast of America—For this purpose Behring fitted out at Okotsk two vessels, of which he himself took the command of one, St. Paul, while the other, St. Peter, was placed under CHIRIKOV. They left Okotsk in 1740, and being prevented by shoal water from entering Bolschaja Reka, they both wintered in Avatscha Bay, whose excellent haven was called, from the names of the ships, Port Peter-Paul. On the 15th/4th June they left this haven, the naturalist GEORG WILHELM STELLER having first gone on board Behring's and the astronomer LOUIS DE L'ISLE DE LA CROYERE Chirikov's vessel. The course was shaped at first for the S.S.E., but afterwards, when no land could be discovered in this direction, for the N.E. and E. During a storm on the 1st July/20th June the vessels were separated. On the 29th/18th July Behring reached the coast of America in 58 deg. to 59 deg. N.L. A short distance from the shore Steller discovered here a splendid volcano, which was named St. Elias. The coast was inhabited, but the inhabitants fled when the vessel approached. From this point Behring wished to sail in a north-westerly direction to that promontory of Asia which formed the turning-point of his first voyage. It was however only with difficulty that in the almost constant fog the peninsula of Alaska could be rounded and the vessel could sail forward among the Aleutian island groups. Scurvy now broke out among the crew, and the commander himself suffered severely from it, on which account the command was mainly in the hands of Lieut. WAXEL. At an island the explorers came into contact with the natives, who at first were quite friendly, until one of them was offered brandy. He tasted the liquor, and was thereby so terrified that no gifts could calm his uneasiness. On this account those of the crew who were on land were ordered to come on board, but the savages wished to detain their guests. At last the Russians were set free, but a Koryaek whom they had taken with them as an interpreter was kept behind. In order to get him set at liberty, Waxel ordered two musket salvos to be fired over the heads of the natives, with the result that they all fell flat down from fright, and the Koryaek had an opportunity of making his escape. Now the fire-water is a liquor in great request among these savages, and they are not frightened at the firing of salvos of musketry.

During the following months Behring's vessel drifted about without any distinct plan, in the sea between Alaska and Kamchatka, in nearly constant fog, and in danger of stranding on some of the many unknown rocks and islands which were passed. On the 5th November the vessel was anchored at an island afterwards called Behring Island. Soon however a great wave arose which threw the vessel on land and crushed it against the rocky coast of the island. Of the wintering there, which, through Steller's taking part in it, became of so great importance for natural history, I shall give an account further on in connection with the narrative of our visit to Behring Island. Here I shall only remind the reader that Behring died of scurvy on the 19th/8th December, and that in the course of the voyage great part of his crew fell a sacrifice to the same disease. In spring the survivors built a new vessel out of the fragments of the old, and on the 27th/16th of August they sailed away from the island where they had undergone so many sufferings, and came eleven days after to a haven on Kamchatka.

After parting from Behring, Chirikov on the 26th/15th July sighted the coast of America in 56 deg. N.L. The mate ABRAHAM DEMENTIEV was then sent ashore in the longboat, which was armed with a cannon and manned by ten well-armed men. When he did not return, another boat was sent after him. But this boat too did not come back. Probably the boats' crews were taken prisoners and killed by the Indians. After making another attempt to find his lost men, Chirikov determined to return to Kamchatka. He first sailed some distance northwards along the coast of America without being able to land, as both the vessel's boats were lost. Great scarcity of drinking-water was thus occasioned, which was felt the more severely as the return voyage was very protracted on account of head-winds and fog. During the voyage twenty-one men perished, among them de l'Isle de la Croyere, who died, as is said often to be the case with scurvy patients, on board ship, while he was being carried from his bed up on deck to be put on land.[327]

The voyages of Behring and Chirikov, attended as they were by the sacrifice of so many human lives, gave us a knowledge of the position of North-western America in relation to that of North-eastern Asia, and led to the discovery of the long volcanic chain of islands between the Alaska peninsula and Kamchatka.

7. Voyages to Japan—For these Captain SPANGBERG ordered a hucker, the Erkeengeln Michael, and a double sloop, the Nadeschda, to be built at Okotsk, the old vessel Gabriel being at the same time repaired for the same purpose. Spangberg himself took command of the Michael, that of the double sloop was given to Lieutenant WALTON, and of the Gabriel to Midshipman CHELTINGA. Drift-ice prevented a start until midsummer, and on that account nothing more could be done the first year (1738) than to examine the Kurile Islands to the 46th degree of latitude. From this point the vessels returned to Kamchatka, where they wintered at Bolschaja Reka. On the 2nd June/22nd May, 1739, Spangberg with his little fleet again left this haven. All the vessels kept together at first, until in a violent storm attended with fog Spangberg and Cheltinga were parted from Walton. Both made a successful voyage to Japan and landed at several places, being always well received by the natives, who appeared to be very willing to have dealings with the foreigners. During the return voyage Spangberg landed in 43 deg. 50' N.L. on a large island north of Nippon. Here he saw the Aino race, enigmatical as to its origin, distinguished by an exceedingly abundant growth of hair and beard which sometimes extends over the greater part of the body. Spangberg returned to Okotsk on the 9th November/20th October. Walton sailed along the coast in a southerly direction to 33 deg. 48' N.L. Here was a town with 1,500 houses, where the Russian seafarers were received in a very friendly way even in private houses. Walton subsequently landed at two other places on the coast, returning afterwards to Okotsk, where he anchored on the 1st September/21st August.[328]

The very splendid results of Spangberg's and Walton's voyages by no means corresponded with the maps of Asia constructed by the men who were at that time leaders of the Petersburg Academy. Spangberg therefore during his return journey through Siberia got orders to travel again to the same regions in order to settle the doubts that had arisen. A new vessel had to be built, and with this he started in 1741 from Okotsk to his former winter haven in Kamchatka. Hence he sailed in 1742 in a southerly direction, but he had scarcely passed the first of the Kurile Islands when the vessel became so leaky that he was compelled to turn. The second expedition of Spangberg to Japan was thus completely without result, a circumstance evidently brought about by the unjustified and offensive doubts which led to it, and the arbitrary way in which it was arranged at St. Petersburg.

8 Journeys in the interior of Siberia by Gmelin, Mueller, Steller, Krascheninnikov, de l'Isle de la Croyere, &c.—The voyages of these savants have indeed formed an epoch in our knowledge of the ethnography and natural history of North Asia, but the north coast itself they did not touch. An account of them therefore lies beyond the limits of the history which I have undertaken to relate here.

The Great Northern Expedition by these journeys both by sea and land had gained a knowledge of the natural conditions of North Asia based on actual researches, had yielded pretty complete information regarding the boundary of that quarter of the globe towards the north, and of the relative position of the east coast of Asia and the west coast of America, had discovered the Aleutian Islands, and had connected the Russian discoveries in the east with those of the West-Europeans in Japan and China[329]. The results were thus very grand and epoch-making. But these undertakings had also required very considerable sacrifices, and long before they were finished they were looked upon in no favourable light by the Siberian authorities, on account of the heavy burden which the transport of provisions and other equipment through desolate regions imposed upon the country. Nearly twenty years now elapsed before there was a new exploratory expedition in the Siberian Polar Sea worthy of being registered in the history of geography. This time it was a private person, a Yakutsk merchant, SCHALAUROV, who proposed to repeat Deschnev's famous voyage and to gain this end sacrificed the whole of his means and his life itself. Accompanied by an exiled midshipman, IVAN BACHOFF, and with a crew of deserters and deported men, he sailed in 1760 from the Lena out into the Polar Sea, but came the first year only to the Yana, where he wintered. On the 9th August/29th July, 1761, he continued his voyage towards the east, always keeping near the coast. On the 17th/6th September he rounded the dreaded Svjatoinos, sighting on the other side of the sound a high-lying land, Ljachoff's Island. At the Bear Islands, whither he was carried by a favourable wind over an open sea, he first met with drift-ice, although, it appears, not in any considerable quantity. But the season was already far advanced, and he therefore considered it most advisable to seek winter quarters at the mouth of the neigbouring Kolyma river. Here he built a spacious winter dwelling, which was surrounded by snow ramparts armed with cannon from the vessel, probably the whole house was not so large as a peasant's cabin at home, but it was at all events the grandest palace on the north coast of Asia, often spoken of by later travellers, and regarded by the natives with amazed admiration. In the neighbourhood there was good reindeer hunting and abundant fishing, on which account the winter passed so happily, that only one man died of scurvy, an exceedingly favourable state of things for that period.

The following year Schalaurov started on the 1st August/21st July, but calms and constant head-winds prevented him from passing Cape Schelagskoj, until he was compelled by the late season of the year to seek for winter quarters. For this he considered the neighbouring coast unsuitable on account of the scarcity of forests and driftwood, he therefore sailed back to the westward until after a great many mishaps he came again at last on the 23rd/12th September to the house which he had built the year before on the Kolyma.

He proposed immediately to make a renewed attempt the following spring to reach his goal. But now his stores were exhausted, and the wearied crew refused to accompany him. In order to obtain funds for a new voyage he travelled to Moscow, and by means of the assistance he succeeded in procuring there, he commenced in 1766 a voyage from which neither he nor any of his followers returned. COXE mentions several things which tell in favour of his having actually rounded Cape Deschnev and reached the Anadyr. But Wrangel believes that he perished in the neighbourhood of Cape Schelagskoj. For in 1823 the inhabitants of that cape showed Wrangel's companion Matiuschkin a little ruinous house, built east of the river Werkon on the coast of the Polar Sea. For many years back the Chukches travelling past had found there human bones gnawed by beasts of prey, and various household articles, which indicated that shipwrecked men had wintered there, and Wrangel accordingly supposes that it was there that Schalaurov perished a sacrifice to the determination with which he prosecuted his self-imposed task of sailing round the north-eastern promontory of Asia.[330]

In order to ascertain whether any truth lay at the bottom of the view, generally adopted in Siberia, that the continent of America extended along the north coast of Asia to the neighbourhood of the islands situated there, CHICHERIN, Governor of Siberia, in the winter of 1763 sent a sergeant, ANDREJEV with dog-sledges on an ice journey towards the north. He succeeded in reaching some islands of considerable extent, which Wrangel, who always shows himself very sceptical with respect to the existence of new lands and islands in the Polar Sea, considers to have been the Bear Islands. Now it appears to be pretty certain that Andrejev visited a south-westerly continuation of the land named on recent maps "Wrangel Land," which in that case, like the corresponding part of America, forms a collection of many large and small islands. Andrejev found everywhere numerous proofs that the islands which he visited had been formerly inhabited. Among other things he saw a large hut built of wood without the help of iron tools. The logs were as it were gnawed with teeth (hewed with stone axes), and bound together with thongs[331]. Its position and construction indicated that the house had been built for defence, it had thus been found impossible in the desolate legions of the Polar Sea to avoid the discord and the strife which prevail in more southerly lands. To the east and north-east Andrejev thought he saw a distant land, he is also clearly the true European discoverer of Wrangel Land, provided we do not consider that even he had a predecessor in the Cossack, FEODOR TATARINOV, who according to the concluding words of Andrejev's journal appears to have previously visited the same islands. It is highly desirable that this journal, if still in existence, be published in a completely unaltered form. How important this is appears from the following paragraph in the instructions given to Billings—"One Sergeant Andrejev saw from the last of the Bear Islands a large island to which they (Andrejev and his companions) travelled in dog-sledges. But they turned when they had gone twenty versts from the coast, because they saw fresh traces of a large number of men, who had travelled in sledges drawn by reindeer."[332]

In order to visit the large land in the north-east seen by Andrejev, there was sent out in the years 1769, 1770, and 1771 another expedition, consisting of the three surveyors, LEONTIEV, LUSSOV, and PUSCHKAREV, with dog-sledges over the ice to the north-east, but they succeeded neither in reaching the land in question, nor even ascertaining with certainty whether it actually existed or not. Among the natives, however, the belief in it was maintained very persistently, and they even knew how to give names to the tribes inhabiting it.

The New Siberian Islands, which previously had often been seen by travellers along the coast, were visited the first time in 1770 by LJACHOFF, who besides Ljachoff's island lying nearest the coast, also discovered the islands Maloj and Kotelnoj. On this account he obtained an exclusive right to collect mammoth tusks there, a branch of industry which since that time appears to have been earned on in these remote regions with no inconsiderable profit. The importance of the discovery led the government some years after to send thither a land surveyor, CHVOINOV,[333] by whom the islands were surveyed, and some further information obtained regarding the remarkable natural conditions in that region. According to Chvoinov the ground there consists at many places of a mixture of ice and sand with mammoth tusks, bones of a fossil species of ox, of the rhinoceros, &c. At many places one can literally roll off the carpet-like bed of moss from the ground, when it is found that the close, green vegetable covering has clear ice underlying it, a circumstance which I have also observed at several places in the Polar regions. The new islands were rich not only in ivory, but also in foxes with valuable skins, and other spoils of the chase of various kinds. They therefore formed for a time the goal of various hunters' expeditions. Among these hunters may be named SANNIKOV, who in 1805 discovered the islands Stolbovoj and Faddejev, SIROVATSKOJ, who in 1806 discovered Novaya Sibir, and BJELKOV, who in 1808 discovered the small islands named after him. In the meantime disputes arose about the hunting monopoly, especially after Bjelkov and others petitioned for permission to establish on Kotelnoj Island a hunting and trading station. (?)[334] This induced ROMANZOV, then Chancellor of Russia, to order once more these distant territories to be explored by HEDENSTROeM,[335] a Siberian exile, who had formerly been secretary to some eminent man in St. Petersburg. He started in dog-sledges on the 19th/7th March, 1809, from Ustjansk going over the ice to Ljachoff's Island, and thence to Faddejev Island, where the expedition was divided into two parts. Hedenstroem continued his course to Novaya Sibir, the south coast of which he surveyed. Here he discovered among other things the remarkable "tree mountain," which I have before mentioned. His companions KOSCHEVIN and SANNIKOV explored Faddejev, Maloj and Ljachoff's Islands. On Faddejev, Sannikov found a Yukagir sledge, stone skin-scrapers, and an axe made of mammoth ivory, whence he drew the conclusion that the island was inhabited before the Russians introduced iron among the savage tribes of Siberia.

The explorations thus commenced were continued in 1810. The explorers started on the 14th/2nd March from the mouth of the Indigirka, and after eleven days' journey came to Novaya Sibir. It had been Hedenstroem's original intention to employ reindeer and horses in exploring the islands, but he afterwards abandoned this plan, fearing that he would not find pasture for his draught animals. Both Hedenstroem and Sannikov believed that they saw from the north coast of the island bluish mountains on the horizon in the north-east. In order to reach this new land the former undertook a journey over the ice. It was so uneven, however, that in four days he could only penetrate about seventy versts. Here on the 9th April/28th March, he met with quite open water, which appeared to extend to the Bear Islands, i.e. for a distance of about 500 versts. He therefore turned southward, and reached the mainland after forty-three days' very difficult travelling over the ice. During the journey Hedenstroem was saved from famine by his success in killing eleven Polar bears. A new attempt, which he made the same spring to reach with dog-sledges the unknown land in the north-east, was also without result in consequence of his meeting with broad, impassable "leads" and openings in the ice, but even on this occasion he believed that he found many indications of the existence of an extensive land in the direction named. It was only with great difficulty that on the 20th/8th May he succeeded in reaching the mainland at Cape Baranov over very weak ice.

The same year Sannikov explored Kotelnoj Island, where he fell in with Bjelkov and several hunters, who had settled for the summer on the west coast of the island to collect mammoth tusks and hunt foxes there. He found also a Greek cross erected on the beach and the remains of a vessel, which, to judge from its construction and the hunting implements scattered about in the neighbourhood, appeared to have belonged to an Archangel hunter, who had been driven by wind or ice from Spitzbergen or Novaya Zemlya.

Next summer "the Hedenstroem expeditions" were concluded with the survey of the north coast of Novaya Sibir by CHENIZYN, and by a repetition of the attempt to penetrate from Cape Kamennoj over the ice in a north-easterly direction, this time carried out by the Cossack TATARINOV, and finally by a renewed exploration of Faddejev Island by Sannikov. Tatarinov found the ice, probably in the end of March, so thin, that he did not dare to proceed farther, and beyond the thin ice the sea was seen to be quite open. Sannikov first explored Faddejev Island. He thought he saw from the hills of the island a high land in the north-east, but when he attempted to reach it over the ice, he came upon open water twenty-five versts from land. He therefore returned the same spring to Ustjansk in order there to equip a caravan consisting of twenty-three reindeer, which started on the 14th/2nd May to go over the ice to Kotelnoj Island, which could be reached only with great difficulty in consequence of "leads" in the ice and the large quantity of salt water which had accumulated upon it. The reindeer were exceedingly enfeebled, but recovered rapidly on reaching land, so that Sannikov was able under specially favourable circumstances to make a large number of interesting excursions, among others one across the island. He stated that on the heights in the interior of it there were found skulls and bones of horses, oxen, "buffaloes" (Ovibos?) and sheep in so large numbers, that it was evident that whole herds of gramimvora had lived there in former times. Mammoth bones were also found everywhere on the island, whence Sannikov drew the conclusions, that all these animals had lived at the same time, and that since then the climate had considerably deteriorated. These suppositions he considered to be further confirmed by the fact that large, partially petrified tree-stems were found scattered about on the island in still greater numbers than on Novaya Sibir[336]. Besides he found here everywhere remains of old "Yukagir dwellings"; the island had thus once been inhabited. After Sannikov had fetched Chenitzyn from Faddejev Island, where he had passed the summer in great want of provisions, and ordered him, who was probably a greater adept at the pen, to draw up a report of his own interesting researches, he commenced his return journey on the 8th Nov./27th Oct. and arrived at Ustjansk on the 24th/12th November.



It may be said that through Hedenstroem's and Sannikov's exceedingly remarkable Polar journeys, the titles have been written of many important chapters in the history of the former and recent condition of our globe. But the inquirer has hitherto waited in vain for these chapters being completed through new researches carried out with improved appliances. For since then the New Siberian Islands have not been visited by any scientific expedition. Only in 1823 ANJOU, lieutenant in the Russian Navy, with the surgeon FIGURIN, and the mate ILGIN, made a new attempt to penetrate over the ice to the supposed lands in the north and north-east, but without success. Similar attempts were made at the same time from the Siberian mainland by another Russian naval officer, FERDINAND VON WRANGEL, accompanied by Dr. KUeBER, midshipman MATIUSCHKIN, and mate KOSMIN. They too were unsuccessful in penetrating over the ice far from the coast. Wrangel returned fully convinced that all the accounts which were current in Siberia of the land he wished to visit, and which now bears the name of Wrangel Land, were based on legends, mistake, and intentional untruths. But Anjou and Wrangel did an important service to Polar research by showing that the sea, even in the neighbourhood of the Pole of cold, is not covered with any strong and continuous sheet of ice, even at that season of the year when cold reaches its maximum. By the attempts made nearly at the same time by Wrangel and Parry to penetrate farther northwards, the one from the north coasts of Siberia, and the other from those of Spitzbergen, Polar travellers for the first time got a correct idea how uneven and impassable ice is on a frozen sea, how little the way over such a sea resembles the even polished surface of a frozen lake, over which we dwellers in the north are accustomed to speed along almost with the velocity of the wind. Wrangel's narrative at the same time forms an important source of knowledge both of preceding journeys and of the recent natural conditions on the north coast of Asia, as is only too evident from the frequent occasions on which I have quoted his work in my sketch of the voyage of the Vega.

It remains for me now to enumerate some voyages from Behring's Straits westward into the Siberian Polar Sea.

1778 and 1779—During the third of his famous circumnavigations of the globe JAMES COOK penetrated through Behring's Straits into the Polar Sea, and then along the north-east coast of Asia westwards to Irkaipij, called by him Cape North. Thus the honour of having carried the first seagoing vessel to this sea also belongs to the great navigator. He besides confirmed Behring's determination of the position of the East Cape of Asia, and himself determined the position of the opposite coast of America.[337] The same voyage was approximately repeated the year after Cook's death by his successor CHARLES CLARKE, but without any new discoveries being made in the region in question.

1785-94.—The success which attended Cook in his exploratory voyages and the information, unlooked for even by the Russian government, which Coxe's work gave concerning the voyages of the Russian hunters in the North Pacific, led to the equipment of a grand new expedition, having for its object the further exploration of the sea which bounds the great Russian Empire on the north and east. The plan was drawn up by Pallas and Coxe, and the carrying out of it was entrusted to an English naval officer in the Russian service, J. BILLINGS, who had taken part in Cook's last voyage. Among the many others who were members of the expedition, may be mentioned Dr. MERK, Dr. ROBECK, the secretary MARTIN SAUER, and the Captains HALL, SARYTCHEV, and BEHRING the younger, in all more than a hundred persons. The expedition was fitted out on a very large scale, but in consequence of Billings' unfitness for having the command of such an expedition the result by no means corresponded to what might reasonably have been expected. The expedition made an inconsiderable excursion into the Polar Sea from the 30th/19th June to the 9th Aug/29th July 1787, and in 1791 Billings sailed up to St. Lawrence Bay, from which he went over land with eleven men to Yakutsk. The rest of this lengthened expedition does not concern the regions now in question.[338]

Among voyages during the century it remains to give account of those which have been made by OTTO VON KOTZEBUE, who during his famous circumnavigation of the globe in 1815-18, among other things also passed through Behring's Straits and discovered the strata, remarkable in a geological point of view, at Eschscholz Bay; LUeTKE, who during his circumnavigation of the globe in 1826-29, visited the islands and sound in the neighbourhood of Chukotskoj-nos; MOORE, who wintered at Chukotskoj-nos in 1848-49, and gave us much interesting information as to the mode of life of the Namollos and Chukches; KELLET, who in 1849 discovered Kellet Land and Herald Island on the coast of Wrangel Land; JOHN RODGERS, who in 1855 carried out for the American government much important hydrographical work in the seas on both sides of Behring's Straits; DALLMANN, who during a trading voyage in the Behring Sea landed at various points on Wrangel Land; LONG, who in 1867, as captain of the whaling barque Nile, discovered the sound between Wrangel Land and the mainland (Long Sound) and penetrated from Behring's Straits westwards farther than any of his predecessors, DALL, who, at the same time that we are indebted to him for many important contributions to the knowledge of the natural conditions of the Behring Sea, also anew examined the ice-strata at Eschscholz Bay, and many others—but as the historical part of the sketch of the voyage of the Vega has already occupied more space than was calculated upon, I consider myself compelled with respect to the voyages of these explorers to refer to the numerous and for the most part accessible writings which have already been published regarding them.[339]

Was the Vega actually the first, and is she at the moment when this is being written, the only vessel that has sailed from the Atlantic by the north to the Pacific? As follows from the above narrative, this question may perhaps be answered with considerable certainty in the affirmative, as it may also with truth be maintained that no vessel has gone the opposite way from the Pacific to the Atlantic.[340] But the fictitious literature of geography at all events comprehends accounts of various voyages between those seas by the north passage, and I consider myself obliged briefly to enumerate them.

The first is said to have been made as early as 1555 by a Portuguese, MARTIN CHACKE, who affirmed that he had been parted from his companions by a west wind, and had been driven forward between various islands to the entrance of a sound which ran north of America in 59 deg. N.L.; finally that he had come S.W. of Iceland, and thence sailed to Lisbon, arriving there before his companions, who took the "common way," i.e. south of Africa. In 1579 an English pilot certified that he had read in Lisbon in 1567 a printed account of this voyage, which however he could not procure afterwards because all the copies had been destroyed by order of the king, who considered that such a discovery would have an injurious effect on the Indian trade of Portugal (Purchas, iii. p. 849). We now know that there is land where Chacke's channel was said to be situated, and it is also certain that the sound between the continent of America and the Franklin archipelago lying much farther to the north was already in the sixteenth century too much filled with ice for its being possible that an account of meeting with ice could be omitted from a true sketch of a voyage along the north coast of America.

In 1588 a still more remarkable voyage was said to have been made by the Portuguese, LORENZO FERRER MALDONADO. He is believed to have been a cosomographer who among other tilings concerned himself with the still unsolved problem, of making a compass free from variation, and with the question, very difficult in his time, of finding a method of determining the longitude at sea (see the work of AMORETTI quoted below, p. 38). Of his imaginary voyage he has written a long narrative, of which a Spanish copy with some drawings and maps was found in a library at Milan. The narrative was published in Italian and French translations by the superintendent of the library, Chevalier CARLO AMORETTI,[341] who besides added to the work a number of his own learned notes, which however do not give evidence of experience in Arctic waters. The same narrative has since been published in English by J. BARROW (A Cronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, &c., London, 1818 App. p. 24.) The greater part of Maldonado's report consists of a detailed plan as to the way in which the new sea route would be used and fortified by the Spanish-Portuguese government.[342] The voyage itself is referred to merely in passing. Maldonado says that, in the beginning of March he sailed from Newfoundland along the north coast of America in a westward direction. Cold, storm, and darkness, were at first very inconvenient for navigation, but at all events he reached without difficulty "Anian Sound," which separates Asia from America. This is described in detail. Here various ships were met with prepared to sail through the sound, laden with Chinese goods. The crews appeared to be Russian or Hanseatic. Conversation was carried on with them in Latin. They stated that they came from a very large town, situated a little more than a hundred leagues from the sound. In the middle of June Maldonado returned by the way he came to the Atlantic, and on this occasion too the voyage was performed without the least difficulty. The heat at sea during the return journey was as great as when it was greatest in Spain, and meeting with ice is not mentioned. The banks of the river which falls into the haven at Anian Sound (according to Amoretti, identical with Behring's Straits) were overgrown with very large trees, bearing fruit all the year round among the animals met with in the regions seals are mentioned, but also two kinds of swine, buffaloes, &c. All these absurdities show that the whole narrative of the voyage was fictitious, having been probably written with the view of thereby giving more weight to the proposal to send out a north-west expedition from Portugal, and in the full belief that the supposed sound actually existed, and that the voyage along the north coast of America would be as easy of accomplishment as one across the North Sea.[343] The way in which the icing down of a vessel is described indicates that the narrator himself or his informant had been exposed to a winter storm in some northern sea, probably at Newfoundland, and the spirited sketch of the sound appears to have been borrowed from some East Indian traveller, who had been driven by storm to northern Japan, and who in a channel between the islands in that region believed that he had discovered the fabulous Anian Sound.

Of a third voyage in 1660 a naval officer named DE LA MADELENE gave in 1701 the following short account, probably picked up in Holland or Portugal, to Count DE PONTCHARTRIN: "The Portuguese, DAVID MELGUER, started from Japan on the 14th March, 1660, with the vessel le Pere eternel, and following the coast of Tartary, i.e. the east coast of Asia, he first sailed north to 84 deg. N.L. Thence he shaped his course between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and passing west of Scotland and Ireland came again to Oporto in Portugal." M. de la Madelene's narrative is to be found reproduced in M. BUACHE'S excellent geographical paper "Sui les differentes idees qu'on a eues de la traversee de la Mere Glaciale arctique et sur les communications ou jonctions qu'on a supposees entre diverses rivieres." (Historie de l'Academie, Annee 1754, Paris, 1759, Memoires, p. 12) The paper is accompanied by a Polar map constructed by Buache himself, which, though the voyage which led to its construction was clearly fictitious, and though it also contains many other errors—for instance, the statement that the Dutch penetrated in 1670 to the north part of Taimur Land—is yet very valuable and interesting as a specimen of what a learned and critical geographer knew in 1754 about the Polar regions. That Melguer's voyage is fictitious is shown partly by the ease with which he is said to have gone from the one sea to the other, partly by the fact that the only detail which is to be found in his narrative, viz. the statement that the coast of Tartary extends to 84 deg. N.L., is incorrect.

All these and various other similar accounts of north-east, north-west, or Polar passages achieved by vessels in former times have this in common, that navigation from the one ocean to the other across the Polar Sea is said to have gone on as easily as drawing a line on the map, that meeting with ice and northern animals of the chase is never spoken of, and finally that every particular which is noted is in conflict with the known geographical, climatal, and natural conditions of the Arctic seas. All these narratives therefore can be proved to be fictitious, and to have been invented by persons who never made any voyages in the true Polar Seas.

The Vega is thus the first vessel that has penetrated by the north from one of the great world-oceans to the other.

[Footnote 289: I quote this because the movement of the tides is still, in our own time, made use of to determine whether certain parts of the Polar seas are connected with each other or not. ]

[Footnote 290: Marco Polo, in 1271, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, accompanied his father Nicolo, and his uncle Maffeo Polo, to High Asia. He remained there until 1295 and during that time came into great favor with Kubla Khan, who employed him, among other things, in a great number of important public commissions, whereby he became well acquainted with the widely extended lands which lay under the sceptre of that ruler. After his return home he caused a great sensation by the riches he brought with him, which procured him the name il Millione, a name however which, according to others, was an expression of the doubts that were long entertained regarding the truthfulness of his, as we now know, mainly true accounts of the number of the people and the abundance of wealth in Kublai Khan's lands. "Il Millione," in the meantime, became a popular carnival character, whose cue was to relate as many and as wonderful "yarns" as possible, and in his narratives to deal preferably with millions. It is possible that the predecessor of Columbus might have descended to posterity merely as the original of this character if he had not, soon after his return home, taken part in a war against Genoa, in the course of which he was taken prisoner, and, during his imprisonment, related his recollections of his travels to a fellow-prisoner, who committed them to writing, in what language is still uncertain. The work attracted great attention and was soon spread, first in written copies, then by the press in a large number of different languages. It has not been translated into Swedish, but in the Royal Library in Stockholm there is a very important and hitherto little known manuscript of it from the middle of the fourteenth century, of which an edition is in course of publication in photo-lithographic facsimile. ]

[Footnote 291: Homines illius regionis sunt pulchri, magni, et corpulenti, sed sunt multum pallidi. . . . et sunt homines inculti, et immorigerati et bestialiter viventes. ]

[Footnote 292: See note at page 54, vol i., for an account of von Herberstein and his works. ]

[Footnote 293: As the copy of the original map to which I have had access, being coloured, is unsuitable for photo-lithographing, I give here instead a photo-lithographic reproduction of the map in the Italian edition printed in 1550. The map itself is unchanged in any essential particular, but the drawing and engraving are better. There is, besides, a still older map of Russia in the first edition of Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia Universalis. I have not had access to this edition, but have had to the third edition of the same work printed at Basel in 1550. A very incomplete map of Russia engraved on wood, on which, however, the Obi and the "Sybir" are to be found, is inserted in this work at page 910. The Dwina here falls not into the White Sea but into the Gulf of Finland, through a lake to which the name Ladoga is now given; places like Astracan, Asof, Viborg, Calmahori (Kolmogor), Solowki (Solovets), &c., are indicated pretty correctly, and in the White Sea there is to be seen a very faithful representation of a walrus swimming. ]

[Footnote 294: The river Ob is mentioned the first time in 1492, in the negotiations which the Austrian ambassador, Michael Snups, carried on in Moscow in order to obtain permission to travel in the interior of Russia (Adelung, Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland, p. 157). ]

[Footnote 295: As before stated, Marco Polo mentions Polar bears but not walruses. ]

[Footnote 296: Herodotus places Andropagi in nearly the same regions which are now inhabited by the Samoyeds. Pliny also speaks of man-eating Scythians. ]

[Footnote 297: Arctic literature contains a nearly contemporaneous sketch of the first Russian-Siberian commercial undertakings, Beschryvinghe vander Samoyeden Landt in Tartarien, nieulijcks onder't ghebiedt der Moscoviten gebracht. Wt de Russche tale overgheset, Anno 1609. Amsterdam, Hessel Gerritsz, 1612; inserted in Latin, in 1613, in the same publisher's Descriptio ac Delineatio Geographica Detectionis Freti (Photo-lithographic reproduction, by Frederick Mueller, Amsterdam, 1878). The same work, or more correctly, collection of small geographical pamphlets, contains also Isak Massa's map of the coast of the Polar Sea between the Kola peninsula and the Pjaesina, which I have reproduced. ]

[Footnote 298: It is a peculiar circumstance that the vanguard of the Russian stream of emigration which spread over Siberia, advanced along the northernmost part of the country by the Tas, Turuchansk, Yakutsk, Kolyma, and Anadyrsk. This depended in the first place upon the races living there having less power of resistance against the invaders, who were often very few in number, than the tribes in the south, but also on the fact that the most precious and most transportable treasures of Siberia—sable, beaver, and fox-skins—were obtained in greatest quantity from these northern regions. ]

[Footnote 299: Flat-bottomed, half-decked boats, twelve fathoms in length. The planks were fastened by wooden pins, the anchors were pieces of wood with large stones bound to them, the rigging of thongs, and the sails often of tanned reindeer hides (J.E. Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, St. Petersburg, 1768, i. p. 517). ]

[Footnote 300: G.P. Mueller, Sammlung Russischer Geschichte, St. Petersburg, 1758 Mueller asserts in this work that it was he who, in 1736, first drew from the repositories of the Yakutsk archives the account of Deschnev's voyage, which before that time was known neither at the court of the Czar nor in the remotest parts of Siberia. This, however, is not quite correct, for long before Mueller, the Swedish prisoner-of-war, Strahlenberg, knew that the Russians travelled by sea from the Kolyma to Kamchatka, which appears from his map of Asia, constructed during his stay in Siberia, and published in Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, Stockholm, 1730. On this map there is the following inscription in the sea north of the Kolyma—"Hie Rutheni ab initio per Moles glaciales, quae flante Borea ad Littora, flanteque Anstro versus Mare iterum pulsantur, magno Labore et Vitae Discrimine transvecti sunt ad Regionem Kamtszatkam." ]

[Footnote 301: Selivestrov had accompanied Staduchin during his Polar Sea voyage, and had, at his instance, been sent out to collect walrus tusks on account of the State. He appears to have come to the Anadyr by land. ]

[Footnote 302: Strahlenberg must have collected the main details of this voyage by oral communications from Russian hunters and traders. ]

[Footnote 303: According to Mueller Krascheninnikov (Histoire et description du Kamtschatka, Amsterdam, 1770, ii. p. 292) states, evidently from information obtained in Kamchatka, that the river Nikul is called Feodotovchina after Feodot Alexejev, who not only penetrated thither, but also sailed round the southern promontory of Kamchatka to the River Tigil where he and his followers perished in the way described by Mueller. ]

[Footnote 304: But we ought to remember that the oldest accounts of islands in the Polar Sea relate to no fewer than four different lands, viz, 1. The New Siberian Islands lying off the mouth of the Lena and Svjatoinos; 2. The Bear Islands; 3. Wrangel Land; 4. The north-western part of America. Contradictions in accounts of the islands in the Polar Sea probably depend on the uninhabited and treeless New Siberian islands being confused with America, which, in comparison with North Siberia, is thickly peopled and well wooded, with the small Bear Islands, with Wrangel Land, &c. ]

[Footnote 305: Nouvelle carte des decouvertes faites par des vaisseaux russiens aux cotes inconnues de l'Amerique, Septentrionale avec les pais adiacentes, dressee sur des memoires authentiques des ceux qui ont assiste a ces decouvertes et sur d'autres connoissances dont on rend raison dans un memoire separe St. Petersbourg, l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences, 1758. ]

[Footnote 306: In this sketch of the discovery and conquest of Siberia I have followed J.E. Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, St. Petersburg, 1768, and G.P. Mueller, Sammlung Russischer Geschichte, St. Petersburg, 1758. ]

[Footnote 307: In the twentieth chapter of Dreyjaehrige Reise nach China, &c., Frankfort, 1707. The first edition came out at Hamburg in 1698. ]

[Footnote 308: Mueller, iii. p. 19. An account of Atlassov's conquest of Kamchatka (Bericht gedaen door zeker Moskovisch krygs-bediende Wolodimer Otlasofd, hoofl-man over vyftig, &c.) is besides to be found in Witsen (1705, Nieuwe uitguaf, 1785, p. 670) An account, written from oral communication by Atlassov himself, is to be found inserted in Strahlenberg's Travels, p. 431. Strahlenberg considers Kamchatka and Yezo to be the same land. A history of the conquest of Kamchatka, evidently written according to traditions current in the country, is to be found in Krascheninnikov (French edition of 1770, ii. p. 291). In this account 1698 and 1699 are given as the years of Morosko's and Atlassov's expeditions. ]

[Footnote 309: Complaints were made, among other things, that in order to obtain metal for making a still, he ordered all the copper belonging to the crown which he carried with him, to be melted down. When the Cossacks first came to Kamchatka and were almost without a contest, acknowledged as masters of the country, they found life there singularly agreeable, with one drawback—there were no means of getting drunk. Finally, necessity compelled the wild adventurers to betake themselves to what we should now call chemico-technical experiments, which are described in considerable detail by Krascheninnikov (loc. cit. ii. p. 369). After many failures they finally succeeded in distilling spirits from a sugar-bearing plant growing in the country, and from that time this drink, or raka, as they themselves call it, has been found in great abundance in that country. ]

[Footnote 310: He afterwards became a monk under the name of Ignatiev, came to St. Petersburg in 1730, and himself wrote a narrative of his adventures, discoveries, and services, which was printed first in the St. Petersburg journals of the 26th March, 1730, and likewise abroad (Mueller, iii. p. 82) ]

[Footnote 311: Von Baer, Beitraege zur Kentniss des Russischen Reiches, xvi. p. 33. ]

[Footnote 312: Ambjoern Molin, lieutenant in the Scanian cavalry regiment, who was taken prisoner at the Dnieper in 1709, also took part in these journeys. Compare Beraettelse om de i Stora Tartariet boende tartarer, som traeffats laengst nordost i Asien, pa aerkebiskop E. Benzelii begaeran upsatt af Ambjoern Molin (Account of the Tartars dwelling in Great Tartary who were met with at the north east extremity of Asia, written at the request of Archbishop E. Benzelius by Ambjoern Molin), published in Stockholm in 1880 by Aug. Strindberg, after a manuscript in the Linkoeping library. ]

[Footnote 313: Mueller, iii. p. 102. According to an oral communication by Busch, Strahlenberg's account (p. 17) of this voyage appears to contain several mistakes. The year is stated as 1713, the return voyage is said to have occupied six days. ]

[Footnote 314: As late as 1819, James Burney, first lieutenant on one of Captain Cook's vessels during his voyage north of Behring's Straits, afterwards captain and member of the Royal Society, considered it not proved that Asia and America are separated by a sound. For he doubted the correctness of the accounts of Deschnev's voyage. Compare James Burney, A Chronological History of North eastern Voyages of Discovery London, 1819, p. 298; and a paper by Burney in the Transactions of the Royal Society, 1817. Burney was violently attacked for the views there expressed by Captain John Dundas Cochrane. Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, 2nd ed. London, 1824, Appendix. ]

[Footnote 315: The first astronomical determinations of position in Siberia were, perhaps, made by Swedish prisoners of war; the first in China by Jesuits (Cf. Strahlenberg, p. 14). ]

[Footnote 316: A short, but instructive account of Behring's first voyage, based on an official communication from the Russian Government to the King of Poland, is inserted in t. iv. p. 561 of Description geographique de l'Empire de la Chine, par le P.J.B. Du Halde, La Haye, 1736. The same official report was probably the source of Mueller's brief sketch of the voyage (Mueller, iii. p. 112). A map of it is inserted in the 1735 Paris edition of Du Halde's work, and in Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, par M. D'Anville, La Haye, 1737. ]

[Footnote 317: Histoire genealogique des Tartares (note, p. 107), and Strahlenberg's oft-quoted work (map, text, pp. 31 and 384). ]

[Footnote 318: This expedition was under the command of the Admiralty; the others under that of Behring. In my account I have followed partly Mueller and partly Wrangel, of whom the latter, in his book of travels, gives a historical review of previous voyages along the coasts of the Asiatic Polar Sea. The accounts of the voyages between the White Sea and the Yenisej properly belong to a foregoing chapter in this work, but I quote them first here in order that I may treat of the different divisions of the Great Northern Expedition in the same connection. ]

[Footnote 319: Wrangel, i. p. 36. ]

[Footnote 320: Wrangel, i. p. 38. ]

[Footnote 321: According to P. von Haven (Nye og forbedrede Efterretningar om det Russiske Rige, Kjoebenhavn, 1747, ii. p. 20), "it was the custom in Petersburg to send away those whose presence was inconvenient to help Behring to make new discoveries". It also went very ill with many of the gallant Russian Polar travellers, and many of them were repaid with ingratitude. Behring was received on his return from his first voyage, so rich in results, with unjustified mistrust. Steller was exposed to continual trouble, was long prevented from returning from Siberia, and finally perished during his journey home, broken down in body and soul. Prontschischev and Lassinius succumbed to hardships and sufferings during their voyages in the Polar Sea. Owzyn was degraded, among other things, because he used to be too intimate at Obdorsk with exiles formerly of distinction. A few years before the voyage of the Vega, Chelyuskin's trustworthiness was still doubted. All the accounts of discoveries of islands and land in the Polar Sea by persons connected with Siberia, have till the most recent times, been considered more or less fictitious, yet they are clearly in the main true. ]

[Footnote 322: Wrangel, i. p. 46. ]

[Footnote 323: According to Wrangel (i., note at p. 38 and 48), probably after a quotation from Prontschischev's journal. The Lena must be a splendid river, for it has since made the same powerful impression, as on the seamen of the Great Northern Expedition, on all others who have traversed its forest-crowned river channel. ]

[Footnote 324: These all perished "for want of fodder." This, however, is improbable. For, in 1878, we saw numerous traces of these animals as far to the northward as Cape Chelyuskin, and very fat reindeer were shot both in 1861 and 1873, on the Seven Islands, the northernmost of all the islands of the Old World, where vegetation is much poorer than in the regions now in question. ]

[Footnote 325: Wrangel, i. pp. 48 and 72. Of the journey round the northernmost point of Asia, Wrangel says—"Von der Tajmur-Muendung bis an das Kap des heiligen Faddej konnte die Kueste nicht beschifft werden, und die Aufnahme, die der Steuermann Tschemokssin (Chelyuskin) auf dem Eise in Narten vornahm, ist so oberflaechlich und unbestimmt, dass die eigentliche Lage des nordoestlichen oder Tajmur-Kaps, welches die noerdlichste Spitse Asiens ausmacht, noch gar nicht ausgemittelt ist." ]

[Footnote 326: Wrangel, i, p. 62. I have sketched the voyages between the White Sea and the Kolyma, principally after Engelhardt's German translation of Wrangel's Travels. It is, unfortunately, in many respects defective and confused, especially with respect to the sketch of Chariton Laptev and his followers, sledge journeys, undertaken in order to survey the coast between the Chatanga and the Pjaesina. Mueller mentions these journeys only in passing. Wrangel gives as sources for his sketch (i. note at p. 38) Memoirs of the Russian Admiralty, also the original journals of the journeys. Chelyuskin he calls Chemokssin. ]

[Footnote 327: In this account of Behring's and Chirikov's voyages, I have followed Mueller (iii. pp. 187-268). More complete original accounts of Behring's voyage are quoted further on in the sketch of our visit to Behring Island. ]

[Footnote 328: Mueller, iii. p. 164. ]

[Footnote 329: It deserves to be noted as a literary curiosity that the famous French savant and geographer, Vivien do Saint Martin, in his work, Histoire de la Geographie et des Decouvertes geographiques, Paris, 1873, does not say a single word regarding all those expeditions which form an epoch in our knowledge of the Old World. ]

[Footnote 330: An account of Schalaurov is given by COXE (Russian Discoveries, &c., 1780, p. 323) and Wrangel (i. p. 73). That the hut seen by Matiuschkin actually belonged to Schalaurov appears to me highly improbable, for the traditions of the Siberian savages seldom extend sixty years back. ]

[Footnote 331: Wrangel, i. p. 79. ]

[Footnote 332: Sauer, An Account, &c., Appendix, p. 48. ]

[Footnote 333: Sauer, loc. cit. p. 103, according to an oral communication by Ljachoff's follower Protodiakonov. ]

[Footnote 334: Compare Wrangel, i. p. 98. ]

[Footnote 335: Matthias Hedenstroem, Aulic Councillor, whose name indicates that he was of Swedish birth, died at the village Hajdukovo, seven versts from Tomsk, on the 2nd October (20th September), 1845, at the age of sixty-five. Biographical notes regarding Hedenstroem are to be found in the Calendar for the Irkutsh government for the year 1865, pp. 57-60; I have not, however, succeeded in procuring this work, or in finding any other notices of Hedenstroem's birthplace and life. ]

[Footnote 336: A very remarkable geological fact is the number of tree-stems in all stages of decay and petrifaction, which are embedded in the rocks and earthy strata of Siberia, having their origin all along from the Jurassic age till now. It appears as if Siberia, during the whole of this immense period of time, has not been subjected to any great changes in a purely geographical respect, whereas in Europe there have been innumerable alternations of sea and land, and alps have been formed and disappeared. The Siberians call the tree-stems found on the tundra far from the sea and rivers Adam's wood, to distinguish them from more recent sub fossil trees, which they call Noah's wood. ]

[Footnote 337: The first European who visited the part of America lying right opposite to Asia was Schestakov's companion, the surveyor Gvosdev. He crossed Behring's Straits to the American side as early as 1730 (Mueller, iii. p. 131), and therefore ought properly to be considered as the discoverer of this sound. The north-westernmost part of America, Behring's Straits and the islands situated in it, are besides shown in Strahlenberg's map, which was made at least a decade before Gvosdev's voyage. There north-western America is delineated as a large island, inhabited by a tribe, the Pucho-chotski, who lived in a constant state of warfare with the Giuchieghi, who inhabited the islands in the sound. Wrangel Land is also shown in this remarkable map. In 1767, eleven years before Cook's voyage in the Polar Sea, the American side of Behring's Straits was also visited by Lieut. SYND with a Russian expedition, that started from Okotsk in 1764. In the short account of the voyage which is to be found in William Coxe's, Account of the Russian Discoveries, &c., London, 1780, p. 300, it is said expressly that Synd considered the coast on which he landed to belong to America. On Synd's map, published by Coxe, the north part of the Behring Sea is enriched with a number of fictitious islands (St. Agaphonis, St. Myronis, St. Titi, St. Samuels, and St. Andreae). As Synd, according to Sarytchev in the work quoted below, p. 11, made the voyage in a boat, it is probable that by these names islands were indicated which lay quite close to the coast and were not so far from land as shown in the map, besides, the mountain-summits on St. Lawrence Island, which are separated by extensive low lands, may perhaps have been taken for separate islands. ]

[Footnote 338: Billings' voyage is described in Martin Sauer's Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Asia, &c., by Commodore Joseph Billings, London, 1802, and Gavrila Sarychev's Achtjaehrige Reise im noerdlichen Siberien, auf dem Eismeere und dem nordoestlichen Ocean. Aus dem Russischen uebersetzt von J.H. Busse, Leipzig, 1805-1806. As interesting to our Swedish readers it may be mentioned that the Russian hunter Prybilov informed Sauer that a Swedish brigantine, Merkur, coppered, carrying sixteen cannon, commanded by J.H. Coxe, in 1788, cruised in the Behring Sea in order to destroy the Russian settlements there. They however, according to Prybilov's statement to Sauer, "did no damage, because they saw that we had nothing worth taking away. They instead gave us gifts, because they were ashamed to offer violence to such poor fellows as we" (Sauer, p. 213). ]

[Footnote 339: Otto von Kotzebue, Entdeckungs-Reise in die Sud-See und nach der Behrings Strasse, Weimar, 1821 (Part III., Contributions in Natural History, by Adelbert von Chamisso)—Louis Choris, Voyage pittoresque autour du monde, Paris, 1822.

Frederik Luetke, Voyage autour du monde, Paris, 1835-36.—F.H. von Kittlitz, Denkuuerdigkeiten einer Reise nach dem russischen Amerika, nach Mikronesien und durch Kamtschatka, Gotha, 1858.

Kellet, Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald," 1845-51, London, 1853 (Discovery of Herald Island and the east coast of Wrangel Land).

W.H. Hooper, Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski, London, 1853 (Moore's wintering at Chukotskoj-nos).

John Rodgers, Behring's Sea and Arctic Ocean, from Surveys of the North Pacific Surveying Expedition, 1855 (only charts).—W. Heine, Die Expedition in die Seen von China, Japan und Ochotsk, unter Commando von Commodore Colin Ringgold und Commodore John Rodgers, Leipzig, 1858 (the expedition arrived at the result that Wrangel Land did not exist).

(Lindemann) Wrangels Land im Jahre 1866, durch Kapiten Dallmann besucht (Deutsche Geograph. Blaetter, B. iv. p. 54, 1881).

Petermann, Entdeckung eines neuen Polar-Landes durch den amerikan, Capt Long, 1867 (Mittheil. 1868, p. 1).—Das neu-entdeckte Polar-Land, &c. (Mittheil 1869, p. 26). ]

[Footnote 340: It ought to be remembered that the voyage of the distinguished Arctic explorer, McClure, carried out with so much gallantry and admirable perseverance, from the Pacific to the Atlantic along the north coast of America, took place to no inconsiderable extent by sled journeys over the ice, and that no English vessel has ever sailed by this route from the one sea to the other. The North-west Passage has thus never been accomplished by a vessel. ]

[Footnote 341: Amoretti, Viaggio del mare Atlantico al Pasifico per la via del Nord-Ovest, &c. Fatto del capitano Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, l'anno MDLXXXVIII. Milano, 1811. ]

[Footnote 342: At the date of Maldonado's voyage Spain and Portugal were united. ]

[Footnote 343: The narratives of the Russian voyagers in the Polar Seas bear a quite different stamp. Details are seldom wanting in these, and they correspond with known facts, and the discoveries made are of reasonably modest dimensions. I therefore consider, as I have said already, that the doubts of the trustworthiness of Deschnev, Chelyuskin, Andrejev, Hedenstroem, Sannikov, &c., are completely unfounded, and it is highly desirable that all journals of Russian explorers in the Polar Sea yet in existence be published as soon as possible, and not in a mutilated shape, but in a complete and unaltered form. ]



CHAPTER XIV.

Passage through Behring's Straits—Arrival at Nunamo— Scarce species of seal—Rich vegetation—Passage to America— State of the ice—Port Clarence—The Eskimo—Return to Asia— Konyam Bay—Natural conditions there—The ice breaks up in the interior of Konyam Bay—St. Lawrence Island—Preceding visits to the Island—Departure to Behring Island.

After we had passed the easternmost promontory of Asia, the course was shaped first to St. Lawrence Bay, a not inconsiderable fjord, which indents the Chukch peninsula, a little south of the smallest part of Behring's Straits. It was my intention to anchor in this fjord as long as possible, in order to give the naturalists of the Vega expedition an opportunity of making acquaintance with the natural conditions of a part of Chukch Land which is more favoured by nature than the bare stretch of coast completely open to the winds of the Polar Sea, which we hitherto had visited. I would willingly have stayed first for some hours at Diomede Island, the market-place famed among the Polar tribes, situated in the narrowest part of the Straits, nearly half-way between Asia and America, and probably before the time of Columbus a station for traffic between the Old and the New Worlds. But such a delay would have been attended with too great difficulty and loss of time in consequence of the dense fog which prevailed here on the boundary between the warm sea free from drift-ice and the cold sea filled with drift-ice.



Even the high mountains on the Asiatic shore were still wrapped in a thick mist, from which only single mountain-summits now and then appeared. Next the vessel large fields of drift-ice were visible, on which here and there flocks of a beautifully marked species of seal (Histriophoca fasciata, Zimm) had settled. Between the pieces of ice sea-birds swarmed, mostly belonging to other species than those which are met with in the European Polar seas. The ice was fortunately so broken up that the Vega could steam forward at full speed to the neighbourhood of St. Lawrence Bay, where the coast was surrounded by some more compact belts of ice, which however were broken through with ease. First, in the mouth of the fjord itself impenetrable ice was met with, completely blocking the splendid haven of St. Lawrence Bay. The Vega was, therefore, compelled to anchor in the open road off the village Nunamo. But even here extensive ice-fields, though thin and rotten, drifted about; and long, but narrow, belts of ice passed the vessel in so large masses that it was not advisable to remain longer at the place. Our stay there was therefore confined to a few hours.

During the course of the winter Lieutenant Nordquist endeavoured to collect from the Chukches travelling past as complete information as possible regarding the Chukch villages or encampments which are found along the coast between Chaun Bay and Behring's Straits. His informants always finished their list with the village Ertryn, situated west of Cape Deschnev, explaining that farther east and south there lived another tribe, with whom they indeed did not stand in open enmity, but who, however, were not to be fully depended upon, and to whose villages they therefore did not dare to accompany any of us.[344] This statement also corresponds, as perhaps follows from what I have pointed out in the preceding chapter, with the accounts commonly found in books on the ethnography of this region. While we steamed forward cautiously in a dense fog in the neighbourhood of Cape Deschnev, twenty to thirty natives came rowing in a large skin boat to the vessel. Eager to make acquaintance with a tribe new to us, we received them with pleasure. But when they climbed over the side we found that they were pure Chukches, some of them old acquaintances, who during winter had been guests on board the Vega. "Ankali" said they, with evident contempt, are first met with farther beyond St. Lawrence Bay. When we anchored next day at the mouth of this bay we were immediately, as usual, visited by a large number of natives, and ourselves visited their tents on land. They still talked Chukch with a limited mixture of foreign words, lived in tents of a construction differing somewhat from the Chukches', and appeared to have a somewhat different cast of countenance. They themselves would not allow that there was any national difference between them and the old warrior and conqueror tribe on the north coast, but stated that the race about which we inquired were settled immediately to the south. Some days after we anchored in Konyam Bay (64 deg. 49' N.L., 172 deg. 53' W.L. from Greenwich). We found there only pure reindeer-owning Chukches; there was no coast population living by hunting and fishing. On the other hand, the inhabitants near our anchorage off St. Lawrence Island consisted of Eskimo and Namollo. It thus appears as if a great part of the Eskimo who inhabit the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits, had during recent times lost their own nationality and become fused with the Chukches. For it is certain that no violent expulsion has recently taken place here. It ought besides to be remarked that the name Onkilon which Wrangel heard given to the old coast population driven out by the Chukches is evidently nearly allied to the word Ankali, with which the reindeer-Chukch at present distinguishes the coast-Chukch, also that, in the oldest Russian accounts of Schestakov's and Paulutski's campaigns in these regions, there never is any mention of two different tribes living here. It is indeed mentioned in these accounts that among the slain Chukches there were found some men with perforated lips, but probably these were Eskimo from the other side of Behring's Straits, previously taken prisoners by the Chukches, or perhaps merely Eskimo who had been paying a friendly visit to the Chukches and who had taken part as volunteers in their war of freedom. It therefore appears to me to be on the whole more probable that the Eskimo have migrated from America to Asia, than that, as some authors have supposed, this tribe has entered America from the west by Behring's Straits or Wrangel Land.

The tent-village Nunamo, or, as Hooper writes, "Noonahmone," does not lie low, like the Chukch villages we had formerly seen, on the sea-shore, but pretty high up on a cape between the sea and a river which debouches immediately to the south-west of the village, and now during the snow-melting season was much flooded. At a short distance from the coast the land was occupied by a very high chain of mountains, which was split up into a number of summits and whose sides were formed of immense stone mounds distributed in terraces. Here a large number of marmots and lagomys had their haunt. The lagomys, a species of rodent that does not occur in Sweden, of the size of a large rat, is remarkable for the care with which in summer it collects great stores for the winter. The village consisted of ten tents built without order on the first high strand bank. The tents differed somewhat in construction from the common Chukch tents, and as drift-wood appears to be met with on the beach only in limited quantity, whale-bones had been used on a very large scale in the frame of the tent. Thus, for instance, the tent-covering of seal-skin was stretched downwards over the ribs or lower jawbones of the whale which were fixed in the ground like poles. These were united above with slips of whale-bones, from which other slips of the same sort of bones or of whalebone rose to the summit of the tent, and finally, to prevent the blast from raising the tent-covering from the ground, its border was loaded with masses of large heavy bones. Eleven shoulder-blades of the whale were thus used round a single tent. In the absence of drift-wood, whale and seal bones drenched in train-oil are also used as fuel in cooking in the open air during summer; a large curved whale rib was placed over the fire-place to serve as a pot-holder; the vertebrae of the whale were used as mortars; the entrances to the blubber-cellars were closed with shoulder-blades of the whale; hollowed whale-bones were used as lamps; shoes of whale-bone or pieces of the under-jaw and the straighter ribs were used for shoeing the sledges, for spades and ice-mattocks, the different parts of the implement being bound together with whale-bone fibres, &c. [345]

Masses of black seal-flesh, and long, white, fluttering strings of inflated intestines, were hung up between the tents, and in their interior there were everywhere to be seen bloody pieces of flesh, prepared in a disgusting way or lying scattered about, whereby both the dwellings and their inhabitants, who were occupied with hunting, had a more than usually disagreeble appearance. A pleasant interruption was formed by the heaps of green willow branches which were placed at the entrance of nearly every tent, commonly surrounded by women and children, who ate the leaves with delight. At some places whole sacks of Rhodiola and various other plants had been collected for food during winter. As distinctive of the Chukches here it may be mentioned in the last place that they were abundantly provided with European household articles, among them Remington guns, and that none of them asked for spirits.

Most of the seals which were seen in the tents were the common Phoca hispida, but along with them we found several skins of Histriophoca fasciata, Zimm., and I even succeeded, though with great difficulty, in inducing the Chukches to part with the skin and skull of this uncommon species, distinguished by its peculiar marking. The natives appeared to set a special value on its skin, and parted with it unwillingly. We had ourselves, as I have already stated, seen during our passage from Behring's Straits a number of these seals on the ice-floes drifting south, but the limited time at our disposal did not permit us to hunt them.



When we left Pitlekaj, vegetation there was still far from having reached its full development, but at Nunamo the strand-bank was gay with an exceedingly rich magnificence of colour. On an area of a few acres Dr. Kjellman collected here more than a hundred species of flowering plants, among which were a considerable number that he had not before seen on the Chukch Peninsula. Space does not permit me to give another list of plants, but in order that the reader may have an idea of the great difference in the mode of growth which the same species may exhibit under the influence of different climatal conditions, I give here a drawing of the Alpine whitlow grass (Draba alpina, L.) from St. Lawrence Bay. It would not, perhaps, be easy to recognise in this drawing the species delineated on page 341 of vol. i,; the globular form which the plant assumed on the shore of Cape Chelyuskin exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, has here, in a region protected from them, completely disappeared.

At the rocky headlands there were still, however, considerable snowdrifts, and from the heights we could see that considerable masses of ice were still drifting along the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits. During an excursion to the top of one of the neighbouring mountains, Dr. Stuxberg found the corpse of a native laid out on a stone-setting of the form common among the Chukches. Alongside the dead man lay a broken percussion gun, spear, arrows, tinder-box, pipe, snow-shade, ice-sieve, and various other things which the departed was considered to be in want of in the part of the Elysian fields set apart for Chukches. The corpse had lain on the place at least since the preceding summer, but the pipe was one of the clay pipes that I had caused to be distributed among the natives. It had thus been placed there long after the proper burial.

Anxious as I was to send off soon from a telegraph station some re-assuring lines to the home-land, because I feared that a general uneasiness had already begun to be felt for the fate of the Vega, I would willingly have remained at this place, so important and interesting in a scientific point of view, at least for some days, had not the ice-belts and ice-fields drifting about in the offing been so considerable that if a wind blowing on land had risen unexpectedly, they might readily have been dangerous to our vessel, which even now was anchored in a completely open road, for the splendid haven situated farther in in St. Lawrence Bay was still covered with ice, and consequently inaccessible. On the afternoon of 21st July, accordingly, when all were assembled on board pleased and delighted with the results of the morning visit to land, I ordered the anchor to be weighed that the Vega might steam across to the American side of Behring's Straits. As in all the Polar seas of the northern hemisphere, so also here, the eastern side of the Straits was ice-bestrewn, the western, on the other hand, clear of ice. The passage was at all events a rapid one, so that by the afternoon of the 21st July we were able to anchor in Port Clarence, an excellent haven south of the westernmost promontory of Asia, Cape Prince of Wales. It was the first time the Vega anchored in a proper haven, since on the 18th August 1878 she left Actinia, Haven on Taimur Island. During the intermediate time she had been constantly anchored or moored in open roads without the least land shelter from sea, wind, and drift-ice. The vessel was, however, thanks to Captain Palander's judgment and thoughtfulness, and the ability of the officers and crew, still not only quite free from damage, but even as seaworthy as when she left the dock at Karlskrona, and we had still on board provisions for nearly a year, and about 4,000 cubic feet of coal.

Towards the sea Port Clarence is protected by a long low sandy reef, between the north end of which and the land there is a convenient and deep entrance. There a considerable river falls into the interior of the harbour, the mouth of which widens to a lake, which is separated from the outer harbour by a sandy neck of land. This lake also forms a good and spacious harbour, but its entrance is too shallow for vessels of any considerable draught. The river itself, on the contrary, is deep, and about eighteen kilometres from its mouth flows through another lake, from the eastern shore of which rugged and shattered mountains rise to a height which I estimate at 800 to 1000 metres; but it is quite possible that their height is twice as great, for in making such estimates one is liable to fall into error. South of the river and the harbour the land rises abruptly from the river bank, which is from ten to twenty metres high. On the north side, on the other hand, the bank is for the most part low, but farther into the interior the ground rises rapidly to rounded hills from 300 to 400 metres high. Only in the valleys and at other places where very large masses of snow had collected during the winter, were snow-drifts still to be seen. On the other hand, we saw no glaciers, though we might have expected to find them on the sides of the high mountains which bound the inner lake on the east. It was also clear that during the recent ages no widely extended ice-sheet was to be found here, for in the many excursions we made in different directions, among others up the river to the lake just mentioned, we saw nowhere any moraines, erratic blocks, striated rock-surfaces, or other traces of a past ice-age. Many signs, on the other hand, indicate that during a not very remote geological period glaciers covered considerable areas of the opposite Asiatic shore, and contributed to excavate the fjords there—Kolyutschin Bay, St. Lawrence Bay, Metschigme Bay, Konyam Bay, &c.

When we approached the American side we could see that the shore cliffs were formed of stratified rocks. I therefore hoped to be able, at last, to make a rich collection of fossils, something that I had no opportunity of doing during the preceding part of the voyage. But I found, on reaching them, that the stratified rocks only consisted of crystalline schists without any traces of animal or vegetable remains. Nor did we find on the shore any whale-bones or any of the remarkable mammoth-bearing ice-strata which were discovered in the bay situated immediately north of Behring's Straits, which was named after Dr. Eschscholz, medical officer during Kotzebue's famous voyage.[346]

Immediately after the anchor fell we were visited by several very large skin boats and a large number of kayaks. The latter were larger than the Greenlanders', being commonly intended for two persons, who sat back to back in the middle of the craft. We even saw boats from which, when the two rowers had stepped out, a third person crept who had lain almost hermetically sealed in the interior of the kayak, stretched on the bottom without the possibility of moving his limbs, or saving himself if any accident should happen. It appeared to be specially common for children to accompany their elders in kayak voyages in this inconvenient way.

After the natives came on board a lively traffic commenced, whereby I acquired some arrow-points and stone fishing-hooks. Anxious to procure as abundant material as possible for instituting a comparison between the household articles of the Eskimo and the Chukches, I examined carefully the skin-bags which the natives had with them. In doing so I picked out one thing after the other, while they did not object to me making an inventory. One of them, however, showed great unwillingness to allow me to get to the bottom of the sack, but this just made me curious to ascertain what precious thing was concealed there. I was urgent, and went through the bag half with violence, until at last, in the bottom, I got a solution of the riddle—a loaded revolver. Several of the natives had also breechloaders. The oldest age with stone implements, and the most recent period with breechloaders, thus here reach hands one to the other.



Many natives were evidently migrating to more northerly hunting-grounds and fishing places, perhaps also to the markets and play-booths, which Dr. John Simpson describes in his well-known paper on the West Eskimo.[347] Others had already pitched their summer tents on the banks of the inner harbour, or of the river before mentioned. On the other hand, there was found in the region only a small number of winter dwellings abandoned during the warm season of the year. The population consisted, as has been said, of Eskimo. They did not understand a word of Chukch. Among them, however, we found a Chukch woman, who stated that true Chukches were found also on the American side, north of Behring's Straits. Two of the men spoke a little English, one had even been at San Francisco, another at Honolulu. Many of their household articles reminded us of contact with American whalers, and justice demands the recognition of the fact that in opposition to what we commonly see stated, contact with men of civilised race appears to have been to the advantage and improvement of the savage in an economical and moral point of view. Most of them now lived in summer-tents of thin cotton cloth, many wore European clothes, others were clad in trousers of seal or reindeer-skin and a light, soft, often beautifully ornamented pesk of marmot skin, over which in rainy weather was worn an overcoat made of pieces of gut sewn together. The arrangement of the hair resembled that of the Chukches. The women were tattooed with some lines on the chin. Many of the men wore small moustaches, some even a scanty beard, while others had attempted the American goatee. Most of them, but not all, had two holes from six to seven millimetres in length, cut in the lips below the corners of the mouth. In these holes were worn large pieces of bone, glass, or stone (figure 9, page 237). But these ornaments were often removed, and then the edges of the large holes closed so much that the face was not much disfigured. Many had in addition a similar hole forward in the lip. It struck me, however, that this strange custom was about to disappear completely, or at least to be Europeanised by the exchange of holes in the ears for holes in the mouth. An almost full-grown young woman had a large blue glass bead hanging from the nose, in whose partition a hole had been made for its suspension, but she was very much embarrassed and hid her head in a fold of mama's pesk, when this piece of grandeur attracted general attention. All the women had long strings of beads in the ears. They wore bracelets of iron or copper, resembling those of the Chukches. The colour of the skin was not very dark, with perceptible redness on the cheeks, the hair black and tallow-like, the eyes small, brown, slightly oblique, the face flat, the nose small and depressed at the root. Most of the natives were of average height, appeared to be healthy and in good condition, and were marked neither by striking thinness nor corpulence. The feet and the hands were small.



A certain elegance and order prevailed in their small tents, the floor of which was covered with mats of plaited plants. In many places vessels formed of cocoa-nut shells were to be seen, brought thither, like some of the mats, by whalers from the South Sea Islands. For the most part their household and hunting implements, axes, knives, saws, breechloaders, revolvers, &c., were of American origin, but they still used or preserved in the lumber repositories of the tent, bows and arrows, bird-darts, bone boat-hooks, and various stone implements. The fishing implements especially were made with extraordinary skill of coloured sorts of bone or stone, glass beads, red pieces of the feet of certain swimming birds, &c. The different materials were bound together by twine made of whalebone in such a manner that they resembled large beetles, being intended for use in the same way as salmon-flies at home.



Fire was got partly with steel, flint, and tinder, partly by means of the fire-drill. Many also used American lucifers. The bow of the fire-drill was often of ivory, richly ornamented with hunting figures of different kinds. Their tools were more elegant, better carved and more richly coloured with graphite[348] and red ochre than those of the Chukches; the people were better off and owned a larger number of skin-boats, both kayaks and umiaks. This undoubtedly depends on the sea being here covered with ice for a shorter time and the ice being thinner than on the Asiatic side, and the hunting accordingly being better. All the old accounts however agree in representing that in former times the Chukches were recognised as a great power by the other savage tribes in these regions, but all recent observations indicate that that time is now past. A certain respect for them, however, appears still to prevail among their neighbours.

The natives, after the first mistrust had disappeared, were friendly and accommodating, honourable in their dealings though given to begging and to much haggling in making a bargain. There appeared to be no chief among them, complete equality prevailed, and the position of the woman did not appear to be inferior to that of the man. The children were what we would call in Europe well brought up, though they got no bringing up at all. All were heathens. The liking for spirits appeared to be less strong than among the Chukches. We learn besides that all selling of spirits to savages is not only forbidden on the American side, but forbidden in such a way that the law is obeyed.