Chapter XIII (1)

The development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia--
Herodotus--Strabo--Pliny--Marco Polo--Herberstein's map--
The conquest of Siberia by the Russians--Deschnev's voyages--
Coast navigation between the Lena and the Kolyma--Accounts of
islands in the Polar Sea and old voyages to them--
The discovery of Kamchatka--The navigation of the Sea of Okotsk
is opened by Swedish prisoners-of-war--The Great Northern
Expedition--Behring--Schalaurov--Andrejev's Land--The New
Siberian islands--Hedenstroem's expeditions--Anjou and Wrangel
--Voyages from Behring's Straits westward--Fictitious Polar
voyages.

Now that the north-eastern promontory of Asia has been at last circumnavigated, and vessels have thus sailed along all the coasts of the old world, I shall, before proceeding farther in my sketch of the voyage of the _Vega_, give a short account of the development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia.

Already in primitive times the Greeks assumed that all the countries of the earth were surrounded by the ocean. STRABO, in the first century before Christ, after having shown that HOMER favoured this view, brings together in the first chapter of the First Book of his geography reasons in support of it in the following terms:--

"In all directions in which man has penetrated to the
uttermost boundary of the earth, he has met the sea, that
is, the ocean. He has sailed round the east coast towards
India, the west coast towards Iberia and Mauritia, and a
great part of the south and north coast. The remaining
portion which has not yet been sailed round in consequence
of the voyages which have been undertaken from both sides
not having been connected, is inconsiderable. For those who
have attempted to circumnavigate the earth and have turned,
declare that their undertaking did not fail in consequence
of their having met with land, but in consequence of want
of provisions and of complete timidity.

At sea they could always have gone further. This view (that
the earth is surrounded by water) also accords better with
the phenomena of the tides, for as the ebb and flow are
everywhere the same, or at least do not vary much, the
cause of this motion is to be sought for in a single
ocean."[289]

But if men were thus agreed that the north coast of Asia and Europe was bounded by the sea, there was for sixteen hundred years after the birth of Christ no actual knowledge of the nature of the Asiatic portion of this line of coast. Obscure statements regarding it, however, were current at an early period.

While HERODOTUS, in the forty-fifth chapter of his Fourth Book, expressly says that no man, so far as was then known, had discovered whether the eastern and northern countries of Europe are surrounded by the sea, he gives in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of the same book the following account of the countries lying to the north-east:--

"As far as the territory of the Scythians all the land
which we have described is an uninterrupted plain, with
cultivable soil, but beyond that the ground is stony and
rugged. And on the other side of this extensive stone-bound
tract there live at the foot of a high mountain-chain men
who are bald from their birth, both men and women, they are
also flat-nosed and have large chins. They speak a peculiar
language, wear the Scythian dress and live on the fruit of
a tree. The tree on which they live is called _Ponticon_,
is about as large as the wild fig-tree, and bears fruit
which resembles a bean, but has a kernel. When this fruit
is ripe, they strain it through a cloth, and the juice
which flows from it is thick and black and called _aschy_.
This juice they suck or drink mixed with milk, and of the
pressed fruits they make cakes which they eat, for they
have not many cattle because the pasture is poor. As far as
to these bald people the land is now sufficiently well
known, also the races on this side of them, because they
are visited by Scythians. From them it is not difficult to
collect information, which is also to be had from the
Greeks at the port of the Borysthenes and other ports in
Pontus. The Scythians who travel thither do business with
the assistance of seven interpreters in seven languages. So
far our knowledge extends. But of the land on the other
side of the bald men none can give any trustworthy account
because it is shut off by a separating wall of lofty
trackless mountains, which no man can cross. But these bald
men say--which, however, I do not believe--that men with
goat's feet live on the mountains, and on the other side of
them other men who sleep six months at a time. The latter
statement, however, I cannot at all admit. On the other
hand, the land east of the bald men, in which the Issedones
live, is well known, but what is farther to the north, both
on the other side of the bald men and of the Issedones, is
only known by the statements of these tribes. Above the
Issedones live the one-eyed men, and the gold-guarding
griffins. This information the Scythians have got from the
Issedones and we from the Scythians, and we call the
one-eyed race by the Scythian name Arimaspi, for in the
Scythian language _arima_ signifies one and _spou_ the eye.
The whole of the country which I have been speaking of has
so hard and severe a winter, that there prevails there for
eight months an altogether insupportable cold, so that if
you pour water on the ground you will not make mud, but if
you light a fire you will make mud. Even the sea freezes,
and the whole Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Scythians who
live within the trench travel on the ice and drive over it
in waggons. . . . Again, with reference to the feathers
with which the Scythians say the air is filled, and which
prevent the whole land lying beyond from being seen or
travelled through, I entertain the following opinion. In
the upper parts of this country it snows continually, but,
as is natural, less in summer than in winter. And whoever
has seen snow falling thick near him will know what I mean.
For snow resembles feathers, and on account of the winter
being so severe the northern parts of this continent cannot
be inhabited. I believe then that the Scythians and their
neighbours called snow feathers, on account of the
resemblance between them. This is what is stated regarding
the most remote regions."

These and other similar statements, nowithstanding the absurdities mixed up with them, are founded in the first instance on the accounts of eye-witnesses, which have passed from mouth to mouth, from tribe to tribe, before they were noted down. Still several centuries after the time of Herodotus, when the Roman power had reached its highest point, little more was known of the more remote parts of north Asia. While Herodotus, in the two hundred and third chapter of his First Book, says that "the Caspian is a sea by itself having no communication with any other sea," Strabo, induced by evidence furnished by the commander of a Greek fleet in that sea, states (Book II. chapters i. and iv.) that the Caspian is a gulf of the Northern Ocean, from which it is possible to sail to India PLINY THE ELDER (_Historia Naturalis_, Book VI. chapters xiii. and xvii.) states that the north part of Asia is occupied by extensive deserts bounded on the north by the Scythian Sea, that these deserts run out to a headland, _Promontorium Scythicum_, which is uninhabitable on account of snow. Then there is a land inhabited by man-eating Scythians, then deserts, then Scythians again, then deserts with wild animals to a mountain ridge rising out of the sea, which is called _Tabin_. The first people that are known beyond this are the Seri. PTOLEMY and his successors again supposed, though perhaps not ignorant of the old statement that Africa had been circumnavigated under Pharaoh Necho, that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea, everywhere surrounded by land, which united southern Africa with the eastern part of Asia, an idea which was first completely abandoned by the chartographers of the fifteenth century after the circumnavigation of Africa by VASCO DA GAMA.

The knowledge of the geography of north Asia remained at this point until MARCO POLO,[290] in the narrative of his remarkable journeys among the peoples of Middle Asia, gave some information regarding the most northerly lands of this quarter of the world also. The chapters which treat of this subject bear the distinctive titles: "On the land of the Tartars living in the north," "On another region to which merchants only travel in waggons drawn by dogs," and "On the region where darkness prevails" (_De regione tenebrarum_). From the statements in these chapters it follows that hunters and traders already inhabited or wandered about in the present Siberia, and brought thence valuable furs of the black fox, sable, beaver, &c. The northernmost living men were said to be handsome, tall and stout, but very pale for want of the sun. They obeyed no king or chief, but were coarse and uncivilised and lived as beasts[291]. Among the products of the northern countries white bears are mentioned, from which it appears that at that time the hunters had already reached the coast of the Polar Sea. But Marco Polo nowhere says expressly that Asia is bounded on the north by the sea.

All the maps of North Asia which have been published down to the middle of the sixteenth century, are based to a greater or less extent on interpretations of the accounts of Herodotus, Pliny, and Marco Polo. When they do not surround the whole Indian Ocean with land, they give to Asia a much less extent in the north and east than it actually possesses, make the land in this direction completely bounded by sea, and delineate two headlands projecting towards the north from the mainland. To these they give the names _Promontorium Scythicum_ and _Tabin_, and they besides place in the neighbourhood of the north coast a large island to which they give the name that already occurs in Pliny, _Insula Tazata_, which reminds us, perhaps by an accidental resemblance of sound, of the name of the river and bay, Tas, between the Ob and the Yenisej. Finally, the borders of the maps are often adorned with pictures of wonderfully formed men, whose dwellings the hunters placed in those regions, the names being at the same time given of a larger or smaller number of peoples and cities mentioned by Marco Polo.

On the whole, the voyages of the Portuguese to India and the Eastern archipelago, the discovery of America and the first circumnavigation of the globe, exerted little influence on the current ideas regarding the geography of North Asia. A new period in respect of our knowledge of this part of the old world first began with the publication of HERBERSTEIN'S _Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii_, Vindobonae 1549[292]. This work has annexed to it a map with the title "Moscovia Sigismundi liberi baronis in Herberstein Neiperg et Gutnhag. Anno MDXLIX. Hanc tabulam absolvit AUG. HIRSFOGEL Viennae Austriae cum gra. et privi. imp.,"[293] which indeed embraces only a small part of Siberia, but shows that a knowledge of North Russia now began to be based on actual observations. A large gulf, marked with the name Mare Glaciale (the present White Sea) here projects into the north coast of Russia, from the south there falls into it a large river, called the Dwina. On the banks of the Dwina there are forts or towns with the names Solovoka (Solovets), Pinega, Colmogor, &c. There are to be found on the map besides, the names Mesen, Peczora, Oby,[294] Tumen, &c. Oby runs out of a large lake named Kythay lacus. In the text, mention is made of Irtisch and Papingorod, of walruses and white bears[295] by the coast of the Polar Sea, of the Siberian cedar-tree, of the word Samoyed signifying self-eaters, &c.[296] The walrus is described in great detail. It is mentioned further that the Russian Grand Duke sent out two men, SIMEON THEODOROVITSCH KURBSKI and Knes PIETRO UCHATOI, to explore the lands east of the Petchora, &c.

Herberstein's work, where the narrative of Istoma's circumnavigation of the northern extremity of Europe, which has been already quoted, is to be found, was published only a few years before the first north-east voyages of the English and the Dutch, of which I have before given a detailed account. Through these the northernmost part of European Russia and the westernmost part of the Asiatic Polar Sea were mapped, but an actual knowledge of the north coast of Asia in its entirety was obtained through the conquest of Siberia by the Russians. It is impossible here to give an account of the campaigns, by which the whole of this enormous territory was brought under the sceptre of the Czar of Moscow, or of the private journeys for sport, trade, and the collecting of tribute, by which this conquest was facilitated. But as nearly every step which the Russian invaders took forward, also extended the knowledge of regions previously quite unknown, I shall mention the years in which during this conquest the most important occurrences in a geographical point of view took place, and give a later more detailed account of the exploratory or military expeditions which led directly to important results affecting the extension of our knowledge of the geography of the region now in question.

The way was prepared for the conquest of Siberia through peaceful commercial treaties[297] which a rich Russian peasant ANIKA, ancestor of the STROGANOV family, entered into with the wild races settled in Western Siberia, whom he even partially induced to pay a yearly tribute to the Czar of Moscow. In connection with this he and his sons, in the middle of the sixteenth century, obtained large grants of land on the rivers Kama and Chusovaja and their tributaries, with the right to build towns and forts there, whereby their riches, previously very considerable, were much increased. The family's extensive possessions, however, were threatened in 1577 by a great danger, when a host of Cossack freebooters, six to seven thousand strong, under the leadership of YERMAK TIMOFEJEV, took flight to the country round Chusovaja in order to avoid the troops which the Czar sent to subdue them and punish them for all the depredations they had committed on the Don, the Caspian Sea and the Volga. In order to get rid of the freebooters, MAXIM STROGANOV, Anika's grandson, not only provided Yermak and his men with the necessary sustenance, but supported in every way the bold adventurer's plan of entering on a campaign for the conquest of Siberia. This was begun in 1579. In 1580 Yermak passed the Ural, and after several engagements marched in particular against the Tartars living in Western Siberia, along the rivers Tagil and Tura to Tjumen, and thence in 1581 farther along the Tobol and Irtisch to Kutschum Khan's residence Sibir, situated in the neighbourhood of the present Tobolsk. It was this fortress, long since destroyed, which gave its name to the whole north part of Asia.

From this point the Russians, mainly following the great rivers, and passing from one river territory to another at the places where the tributaries almost met, spread out rapidly in all directions. Yermak himself indeed was drowned on the 16th August, 1584, in the river Irtisch, but the adventurers who accompanied him overran in a few decades the whole of the enormous territory lying north of the deserts of Central Asia from Ural to the Pacific, everywhere strengthening their dominion by building _Ostrogs_, or small fortresses, at suitable places. It was the noble fur-yielding animals of the extensive forests of Siberia which played the same part with the Russian _promyschleni_, as gold with the Spanish adventurers in South America.

At the close of the sixteenth century the Cossacks had already possessed themselves of the greater part of the river territory of the Irtisch-Ob, and sable-hunters had already gone as far north-east[298] as the river Tas, where the sable-hunting was at one time very productive and occasioned the founding of a town, Mangasej, which however was soon abandoned. In 1610 the Russian fur-hunters went from the river territory of the Tas to the Yenisej, where the town Turuchansk was soon after founded on the Turuchan, a tributary of the Yenisej. The attempt to row down in boats from this point to the Polar Sea, with the view of penetrating farther along the sea coast, failed in consequence of ice obstacles, but led to the discovery of the river Pjaesina and to the levying of tribute from the Samoyeds living there. To get farther eastward the tributaries of the Yenisej were made use of instead of the sea route. Following these the Russians on the upper course of the Tunguska met with the mountain ridge which separates the river territory of the Yenisej from that of the Lena. This ridge was crossed, and on the other side of it a new stream was met with, which in the year 1627 led the adventurers to the Lena, over whose river territory the Cossacks and fur-hunters, faithful to then customs, immediately spread themselves in order to hunt, purchase furs, and above all to impose "jassak" upon the tribes living thereabouts. But they were not satisfied with this. Already in 1636 the Cossack ELISEJ BUSA was sent out with an express commission to explore the rivers beyond, falling into the Polar Sea, and to render tributary the natives living on their banks. He was accompanied by ten Cossacks, to whose company forty fur-hunters afterwards attached themselves. In 1637 he came to the western mouth-arm of the Lena, from which he went along the coast to the river Olenek, where he passed the winter. Next year he returned by land to the Lena, and built there two "kotsches,"[299] in which he descended the river to the Polar Sea. After five days' successful rowing along the coast to the eastward he discovered the mouth of the Yana. After three days' march up the river he fell in with a Yakut tribe, from whom he got a rich booty of sable and other furs. Here he passed the winter of 1638-39, here too he built himself a new craft, and again starting for the Polar Sea, he came to another river falling into the eastern mouth-arm of the Yana, where he found a Yukagir tribe, living in earth huts, with whom he passed two years more, collecting tribute from the tribes living in the neighbourhood.

At the same time IVANOV POSTNIK discovered by land the river Indigirka. As usual, tribute was collected from the neighbouring Yukagir tribes, yet not without fights, in which the natives at first directed their weapons against the horses the Cossacks had along with them, thinking that the horses were more dangerous than the men. They had not seen horses before. A _simovie_ was established, at which sixteen Cossacks were left behind. They built boats, sailed down the river to the Polar Sea to collect tribute, and discovered the river Alasej.

Some years after the river Kolyma appears to have been discovered, and in 1644 the Cossack, MICHAILO STADUCHIN, founded on that river a _simovie_, which afterwards increased to a small town, Nischni Kolymsk. Here Staduchin got three pieces of information which exerted considerable influence on later exploratory expeditions, for he acquired knowledge of the Chukches, at that time a military race, who possessed the part of North Asia which lay a little further to the east. Further, the natives and the Russian hunters, who swarmed in the region before Staduchin, informed him that in the Polar Sea off the mouths of the Yana and the Indigirka there was a large island, which in clear weather could be seen from land, and which the Chukches reached in winter with reindeer sledges in one day from Chukotska, a river debouching in the Polar Sea east of the Kolyma. They brought home walrus tusks from the island, which was of considerable size, and the hunters supposed "that it was a continuation of Novaya Zemlya, which is visited by people from Mesen." Wrangel is of opinion that this account refers to no other than Krestovski Island, one of the Bear Islands. This, however, appears to me to be improbable. It is much more likely that it refers partly to the New Siberian Islands, partly to Wrangel Land, and perhaps even to America. That the Russians themselves had not then discovered Ljachoff's, or as it was then also called, Blischni Island, which lies so near the mainland, and is so high that it is impossible to avoid seeing it when one in clear weather sails past Svjatoinos, which lies east of the Yana, is a proof that at that time they had not sailed along the coast between the mouths of the Yana and the Indigirka. Finally, a great river, the Pogytscha, was spoken of, which could be reached in three or four days' sailing eastward from the mouth of the Kolyma. This was the first account which reached the conquerors of Siberia of the great river Anadyr which falls into the Pacific.

These accounts were sufficient to incite the Cossacks and hunters to new expeditions. The beginning was made by ISAI IGNATIEV from Mesen, who, along with several hunters, travelled down the Kolyma in 1646 to the Polar Sea, and then along the coast eastwards. The sea was full of ice, but next the land there was an open channel, in which the explorers sailed two days. They then came to a bay, near whose shore they anchored. Here the Russians had their first meeting with the Chukches, to which reference has already been made. Hence Ignatiev returned to the Kolyma, and the booty was considered so rich and his account of his journey so promising, that preparations were immediately made in order next year to send off a new maritime expedition fitted out on a larger scale to the coast of the Polar Sea.

This time FEODOT ALEXEJEV from Kolmogor was chief of the expedition, but along with him was sent, at the request of the hunters, a Cossack in the Russian service in order to guard the rights of the crown. His name was SIMEON IVANOV SIN DESCHNEV; in geographical writings he is commonly known under the name of DESCHNEV. It was intended to search for the mouth of the great river lying towards the east, regarding which some information had been obtained from the natives, and which was believed to fall into the Polar Sea. The first voyage in 1647, with four vessels, was unsuccessful, it is said, because the sea was blocked with ice. But that this was not the real reason is shown by the fact that a new and larger expedition was fitted out the following year with full expectation of success. The crews of the four boats had more probably been considered too weak a force to venture among the Chukches, and the ice had to bear the blame of the retreat. What man could not reproach the conquerors of Siberia with, was pusillanimity and want of perseverance in carrying out a plan which had once been sketched. Resistance always increased their power of action; so also now. Seven boats were fitted out the following year, 1648, all which were to sail down to the Polar Sea, and then along the coast eastwards. The object was to examine closely the unknown land and people there, and to their own advantage and the extension of the Russian power, to collect tribute from the tribes met with during the expedition. Mueller states that every boat was manned with about thirty men--a number which appears to me somewhat exaggerated, if we consider the nature of the Siberian craft and the difficulty of feeding so large a number either with provisions earned along with them or obtained by hunting.

Four of the boats are not mentioned further in the narrative; they appear to have returned at an early period. The three others, on the contrary, made a highly remarkable journey. The commanders of them were the Cossacks, GERASIM ANKUDINOV and SIMEON DESCHNEV, and the hunter FEODOT ALEXEJEV. Deschnev entertained such hopes of success that before his departure he promised to collect a tribute of seven times forty sable skins. The Siberian archives, according to Miller, contain the following details.[300]

On 30/20th June, 1648, a start was made from the Kolyma. The sea was open, at least the boats came without any adventure which Deschnev thought worth the trouble of noting in his narrative to Great Chukotskojnos. Of this cape Deschnev says that it is quite different from the cape at the river Chukotskaja. For it lies between north and north-east, and bends with a rounding towards the Anadyr. On the Russian side a rivulet runs into the sea, at which the Chukches had raised a heap of whales' bones. Right off the cape lie two islands, on which people of Chukch race with perforated lips were seen. From this cape it is possible with a favourable wind to sail to the Anadyr in three days, and the way is not longer by land, because the Anadyr falls into a gulf of the sea. At Chukotskojnos or, according to Wrangel at a "holy promontory," Svjatoinos (Serdze Kamen?) previously reached, Ankudinov's craft was shipwrecked. The crew were saved, and distributed on Deschnev's and Alexejev's boats. On the 30/20th September the Russians had a fight with the Chukches living on the coast, in which fight Alexejev was wounded. Soon after Deschnev's and Alexejev's "kotsches" were parted never to meet again.

Deschnev was driven about by storms and head-winds until past the beginning of October. Finally his vessel stranded near the mouth of the river Olutorsk, in 61 deg. N.L. Hence he marched with his twenty-five men to the Anadyr. He had expected to meet with some natives in its lower course, but the region was uninhabited, which caused the invaders much trouble, because they suffered from want of provisions. Although Deschnev could not obtain from the natives any augmentation of the certainly very small supply of food which he carried with him, he succeeded nevertheless in passing the winter in that region. First in the course of the following summer did he fall in with natives, from whom a large tribute was collected, but not without fierce conflicts. A _simovie_ was built at the place where afterwards Anadyrski Ostrog was founded. While Deschnev remained here, at a loss as to how, when the boats were broken up, he would be able to return to the Kolyma, or find a way thither by land, there came suddenly on the 5th May/25th April 1650, a new party of hunters to his winter hut.

For the accounts of islands in the Polar Sea, and of the river Pogytscha, which was said to fall into the sea three or four days' journey beyond the Kolyma, had led to the sending out of another expedition under the Cossack STADUCHIN. He started from Yakutsk in boats on the 15th/5th June, 1647, wintered on the Yana, travelled thence in sledges to Indigirka, and there again built boats in which he rowed to the Kolyma. It is to be observed that Staduchin, just because he preferred the land-route to the sea-route between the Yana and the Indigirka, missed discovering the large island in the Polar Sea, of which so much has been said. Next summer (1649) Staduchin again sailed down the river Kolyma to the sea, and then for seven days along its coast eastwards, without finding the mouth of the river sought for by him. He therefore returned with his object unaccomplished, carrying with him a heap of walrus-tusks, which were sent to Yakutsk as an appendix to a proposal to send out hunters to the Polar Sea to hunt for these animals. In the meantime a true idea of the course of the Anadyr had been obtained through statements collected from the natives, and a land-route had become known between its territory and that of the Kolyma. Several Cossacks and hunters now petitioned for the right to settle on the Anadyr, and collect tribute from the tribes in that neighbourhood. This was granted. Some natives were forced to act as guides. The party started under the command of SIMEON MOTORA, and came finally to Deschnev's _simovie_ on the Anadyr. Staduchin followed, and traversed the way in seven weeks. He however soon quarrelled with Deschnev and Motora, and parting from them on that account, betook himself to the river Penschina. Deschnev and Motora built themselves boats on the Anadyr in order to prosecute exploratory voyages, but the latter was killed in 1651 in a fight with natives called Anauls. They had been the first of all the natives of the Pacific coast of North Asia to pay "jassak" to Deschnev, and he had already at that time come into collision with them and extirpated one of their tribes.

In 1652 Deschnev travelled down the Anadyr to the river mouth, where he discovered a walrus-bank, whence he brought home walrus-tusks. There afterwards arose a dispute between Deschnev and Selivestrov[301] regarding the rights founded on the discovery of this walrus bank, which came before the authorities at Yakutsk, and it was from the documents relating to it that Mueller obtained the information that enabled him to give a narrative of Deschnev's expedition. Only in this way have the particulars of this remarkable voyage been rescued from complete oblivion.[302]

In 1653 Deschnev gave orders to collect wood to build craft in which he intended to carry home by sea the tribute he had collected to the Kolyma, but he was compelled to desist from want of the necessary materials for the building and equipment of the boats, comforting himself with the statement of the natives that the sea was not always so open as during his first voyage. Compelled by necessity, he remained a year longer at the Anadyr, and in 1654 undertook a new hunting voyage to the walrus-bank, where he met with the before-mentioned Selivestrov. He here came in contact with the natives (Koryaeks), and found among them a Yakut woman, who had belonged to Ankudinov. On asking her where her master had gone to, she answered that Feodot and Gerasim (Ankudinov) had died of scurvy, and that their companions had been killed with the exception of some few, who had saved themselves in boats. It appears as if the latter had penetrated along the coast as far as to the river Kamchatka. For when Kamchatka was conquered by Atlassov in 1697 the natives stated that a long time before one FEODOTOV (probably a son of Feodot Alexejev) had lived among them along with some companions, and had married their women. They were venerated almost as gods. They were believed to be invulnerable until they struck another, when the Kamchadals saw their mistake and killed them.[303]

By the expeditions of Deschnev, Staduchin, and their companions, the Russians had by degrees become acquainted with the course of the Anadyr and with the tribes living on its banks. But it still remained for them to acquire a more complete knowledge of the islands which were said to be situated in the Polar Sea, and one must be surprised at the extreme difficulties which were encountered in attempting the solution of this apparently very simple geographical problem. The reason indeed was that the Siberian seamen never ventured to leave the immediate neighbourhood of the coast, a precaution which besides is very easily explained when the bad construction of their craft is considered. Along the shore of the Polar Sea on the other hand, a very active communication appears to have taken place between the Lena and the Kolyma, though of those voyages we only know such as in one way or another gave rise to actions before the courts or were characterised by specially remarkable dangers or losses.

In 1650 ANDREJ GORELOJ was sent by sea from Yakutsk to impose tribute on the tribes that lived at the sources of the Indigirka, and on the Moma, a tributary of the Indigirka. He passed Svjatoinos successfully, and reached the mouth of the Kroma, but was there beset by ice, with which he drifted out to sea. After drifting about ten days he was compelled to abandon the vessel, which was soon after nipped, and go on foot over the ice to land. On the 22nd/12th November he came to the _simovie_ Ujandino, where famine prevailed during the winter, _because the vessels, that should have brought provisions to the place, had either been lost or been compelled to turn_; a statement which proves that at that time a regular navigation took place between certain parts of the coast of the Polar Sea.

The same year, the Cossack, TIMOFEJ BULDAKOV travelled by sea from the Lena to the Kolyma to take over the command of the neighbouring region. He reached the Kroma successfully, but was beset there and drifted out to sea. He then determined to endeavour to get to land over the ice. But this was no easy matter. The ice, which already was three feet thick, went suddenly into a thousand pieces, while the vessel drove before a furious gale farther and farther from the shore. This was repeated several times. When the sea at last froze over, the vessel was abandoned, and the party finally succeeded, worn out as they were by hunger, scurvy, work, and cold, in reaching land at the mouth of the Indigirka. The narrative of Buldakov's voyage is, besides, exceedingly remarkable, because a meeting is there spoken of with twelve "kotsches," filled with Cossacks, traders, and hunters, bound partly from the Lena to the rivers lying to the eastward, partly from the Kolyma and Indigirka to the Lena, a circumstance which shows how active the communication then was in the part of the Siberian Polar Sea in question. This is further confirmed by a narrative of NIKIFOR MALGIN. While Knes IVAN PETROVITSCH BARJATINSKY was _vojvode_ at Yakutsk (1667-75), Malgin travelled along with a trader, ANDREJ WORIPAJEV, by sea from the Lena to the Kolyma. During this voyage the pilot directed the attention of all on board to an island, lying far out at sea, west of the mouth of the Kolyma. In course of a conversation regarding it, after Malgin had succeeded in reaching the Kolyma, another trader, JAKOB WIAeTKA, stated that on one occasion when he was sailing with nine "kotsches" between the Lena and the Kolyma, three of them had been driven by wind to this island, and that the men who had been sent ashore there, found traces of unknown animals, but no inhabitants.

All these narratives, however, do not appear to have met with full credence. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, accordingly, new explorations and new expeditions were undertaken. A Cossack, JAKOB PERMAKOV, stated that during a voyage between the Lena and the Kolyma, he had seen off Svjatoinos an island, of which he knew not whether it was inhabited or not, and likewise, that off the mouth of the Kolyma there was an island which could be seen from land. In order to make sure of the correctness of this statement, a Cossack, MERCUREJ WAGIN, was sent out. He travelled along with Permakov, in the month of May, in dog-sledges over the ice from Svjatoinos to the island lying off it, that Permakov had seen. They landed there, found it uninhabited and treeless, and fixed its circumference at nine to twelve days' journey. Beyond this island Wagin saw another, which, however, he could not reach for want of provisions. He therefore determined to turn, in order to undertake the journey the following year in a better state of preparation. During the return journey the party suffered severely from hunger, and in order to avoid a renewal of the dangerous and difficult journey of exploration, the men at last murdered Permakov, Wagin, and his son. The crime was discovered, and the knowledge we possess of this expedition is founded on the confused information obtained during the examination of the murderers. Mueller even throws doubts on the truth of the whole narrative.

The attempts which were afterwards made to reach those islands, partly by sea in 1712, by WASILEJ STADUCHIN, partly by dog-sledges in 1714 by ALEXEJ MARKOV and GRIGOREJ KUSAKOV, yielded no result. Ten years afterwards, "the old saga" of the islands in the Polar Sea, induced one SIN BAJORSKI FEODOT AMOSSOV to undertake an expedition with a view to impose tribute on their inhabitants, but he was prevented by ice from reaching his goal. On the way he met with a hunter, IVAN WILLEGIN, who said, that along with another hunter, GRIGOREJ SANKIN, he had travelled over the ice to these islands from the mouth of the river Chukotskaja. He had seen neither men nor trees, but some abandoned huts "Probably this land extends all the way from the mouth of the Yana, past the Indigirka and Kolyma to the region which is inhabited by the Schelags, a Chukch tribe." He had learned this from a Schelag named Kopai, at whose home he had been the preceding year. In order to reach this land by sea it was necessary to start from the coast which the Schelags inhabited, because the sea was less covered by ice there.

As Amossov could not reach his goal by sea he travelled thither the same year, in November, 1724, over the ice, but his description of the land differs widely from that of his predecessor, and Mueller appears to entertain great doubts of the truthfulness of the narrative[304]. On the ground of a map constructed by the Cossack, Colonel SCHESTAKOV, who, however, according to Mueller, could neither read nor write, this new land was introduced into DELISLE and BUACHE'S map, with the addition that the Schelag Kopai lived there, and had there been taken prisoner by the Russians. This is so far incorrect, as Kopai did not live on any island, but on the mainland, and never was prisoner with the Russians, although after having paid tribute to them, he tired of doing so, and killed some of Amossov's people, after which no more was heard of him. Mueller complains loudly of the incorrect statement regarding Kopai, but the learned academician commits a much greater mistake, inasmuch as he considers that he ought to leave the numerous accounts of hunters and Cossacks about land and islands in the Siberian Polar Sea completely out of account. All these lands are therefore left out of the map published by the Petersburg Academy in the year 1758[305]. It is in this respect much more incomplete than the map which accompanies Strahlenberg's book.[306]

Before I begin to sketch the explorations of the great northern expedition, some account remains to be given of the discovery of Kamchatka. It appears from the preceding that Kamchatka was already reached by some of Deschnev's followers, but their important discovery was completely unknown in Moscow. Kamchatka is, however, already mentioned in the narrative of Evert Ysbrants Ides' embassy to China in 1693-95,[307] accounts of it had probably been obtained from the Siberian natives, who are accustomed to wander far and near. These accounts, however, are exceedingly incomplete, and therefore, VOLODOMIR ATLASSOV, _piaetidesaetnik_ (_i.e._, commander of fifty men) at Anadyrsk, is considered the proper discoverer of Kamchatka.

While Atlassov was commander at Anadyrsk, he sent out in 1696, the Cossack LUCAS SEMENOV SIN MOROSKO with sixteen men to bring the tribe living to the south under tribute. The commission was executed, and on his return Morosko stated that he not only was among the Koryaeks, but had also penetrated to the neighbourhood of the river Kamchatka, and that he took a Kamchadal "ostrog," and found in it some manuscripts in an unknown language, which, according to information afterwards obtained, had belonged to some Japanese who had stranded on the coast of Kamchatka.[308] It was the first hint the conquerors of Siberia obtained of their being in the neighbourhood of Japan.

The year after Atlassov, with a larger force, followed the way which Morosko had opened up, and penetrated to the river Kamchatka, where as a sign that he had taken possession of the land, he erected a cross with an inscription, which when translated runs thus: _In the, year_ 7205 (i.e. 1697) _on the 13th July this cross was erected by the piaetidesaetnik Volodomir Atlassov and his followers_, 55 _men_. Atlassov then built on the Kamchatka river a _simovie_, which was afterwards fortified and named Verchni Kamtschatskoj Ostrog. Hence the Russians extended their power over the land, yet not without resistance, which was first completely broken by the cruel suppression of the rebellion of 1730.

In 1700 Atlassov travelled to Moscow, carrying with him a Japanese, who had been taken prisoner after being shipwrecked on the coast of Kamchatka, and the collected tribute which consisted of the skins of 3,200 sables, 10 sea-otters, 7 beavers, 4 otters, 10 grey foxes and 191 red foxes. He was received graciously, and sent back as commander of the Cossacks in Yakutsk with orders to complete the conquest of Kamchatka. An interruption however happened for some time in the path of Atlassov as a warrior and discoverer, in consequence of his having during his return journey to Yakutsk plundered a Russian vessel laden with Chinese goods, an accessory circumstance which deserves to be mentioned for the light which it throws on the character of this Pizarro of Kamchatka. He was not set free until the year 1706, and then recovered his command in Kamchatka, with strict orders to desist from all arbitrary proceedings and acts of violence, and to do his best for the discovery of new lands. The first part of this order he however complied with only to a limited extent, which gave occasion to repeated complaints[309] and revolts among the already unbridled Cossacks. Finally, in 1711, Atlassov and several other officers were murdered by their own countrymen. In order to atone for this crime, and perhaps to get a little farther from the arm of justice, their murderers, ANZIPHOROV and IVAN KOSIREVSKOJ,[310] undertook to subdue the not yet conquered part of Kamchatka, and the two northernmost of the Kurile Islands. Further information about the countries lying farther south was obtained from some Japanese who were shipwrecked in 1710 on Kamchatka.

At first in order to get to Kamchatka the difficult detour by Anadyrsk was taken. But in the year 1711 the commander at Okotsk, SIN BOJARSKI PETER GUTUROV, was ordered, by the energetic promoter of exploratory expeditions in Eastern Siberia, the Yakutsk _voivode_, DOROFEJ TRAUERNICHT, to proceed by sea from Okotsk to Kamchatka. But this voyage could not come off because at that time there were at Okotsk neither seagoing boats, seamen, nor even men accustomed to the use of the compass. Some years after the governor Prince GAGARIN sent to that town IVAN SOROKAUMOV with twelve Cossacks to make arrangements for this voyage. For want of ships and seamen however this could not now be undertaken, and after Sorokaumov had created great confusion he was imprisoned by the authorities of the place, and sent back to the Governor. Peter I. now commanded _that men acquainted with navigation should be sought for among the Swedish prisoners of war and sent to Okotsk, that they should build a boat there and, provided with a compass, go by sea along with some Cossacks to Kamchatka and return_.[311] Thus navigation began on the Sea of Okotsk Among the Swedes who opened it, is mentioned HENRY BUSCH,[312] according to Strahlenberg a Swedish corporal, who had previously been a ship-carpenter. According to Mueller, who met with him at Yakutsk as late as 1736, he was born at Hoorn in Holland, had served at several places as a seaman, and finally among the Swedes as a trooper, until he was taken prisoner at Viborg in 1706. He gave Mueller the following account of his first voyage across the Sea of Okotsk.

After arriving at Okotsk they had built a vessel, resembling the _lodjas_ used at Archangel and Mesen for sailing on the White Sea and to Novaya Zemlya. The vessel was strong; its length was eight and a half fathoms, its breadth three fathoms, the freeboard, when the vessel was loaded, three and a half feet. The first voyage took place in June 1716. The voyagers began to sail along the coast towards the north-east, but an unfavourable wind drove the vessel, almost against the will of the seafarers, right across the sea to Kamchatka. The first land sighted was a cape which juts out north of the river Tigil. Being unacquainted with the coast the seafarers hesitated to land. During the delay a change of wind took place, whereby the vessel was driven back towards the coast of Okotsk. The wind again becoming favourable, the vessel was put about and anchored successfully in the Tigil. The men who were sent ashore found the houses deserted. For the Kamchadales being terrified at the large ship had made their escape to the woods. The seafarers sailed on along the coast and landed at several places in order that they might meet with the inhabitants, but for a long time without success, until at last they fell in with a Kamchadal girl, who was collecting edible roots. With her as a guide they soon found dwellings, and even Cossacks, who had been sent out to collect tribute. They wintered at the river Kompakova. During the winter the sea cast up a whale, which had in its carcase a harpoon of European manufacture and with Latin letters. The vessel left the winter haven in the middle of May (new style) 1717, but meeting with ice-fields was beset in them for five and a half weeks. This occasioned great scarcity of provisions. In the end of July the seafarers were again back at Okotsk. From this time there has been regular communication by sea between this town and Kamchatka. The master of the vessel during the first voyage across the Sea of Okotsk was the Cossack SOKOLOV.[313]

From what I have stated it follows that, thanks to the fondness of the hunters and Cossacks for adventurous, exploratory expeditions, the current ideas regarding the distribution of the land and the courses of the rivers in north-eastern Asia were in the main correct. But, in consequence of want of knowledge of, or of doubts regarding, Deschnev's discoveries, there prevailed an uncertainty whether Asia at its north-east extremity was connected with America by a small neck of land, in the same way as it is with Africa, or as North and South America are connected with each other, a view which, in consequence of the unscientific necessity of generalising inherent in man, and the wish to have an explanation of how the population extended from the old to the new world, was long zealously defended[314]. No one, either European or native, had yet, so far as we know, extended his hunting journeys to the northernmost promontory of Asia, in consequence of which the position which it was assumed to occupy only depended on loose suppositions. It was possible for instance that Asia stretched with a cape as far as to the neighbourhood of the Pole, or that a broad isthmus between the Pjaesina and the Olenek connected the known portion of this quarter of the world with an Asiatic Polar continent. Nor had geographers a single actual determination of position or geographical measurement from the whole of the immense stretch between the mouth of the Ob and Japan, and there was complete uncertainty as to the relative position of the easternmost possessions of the Russians on the one side and of Japan on the other.[315] It was difficult to get the maps of the Russians to correspond with those of the Portuguese and the Dutch, at the point where the discoveries of the different nations touched each other, which also was exceedingly natural, as at that time too limited an extent east and west by 1700 kilometres was commonly assigned to Siberia. In order to investigate this point, in order to fill up the great blank which still existed in the knowledge of the quarter of the world first inhabited by man, and perhaps above all for the purpose of forming new commercial treaties and of discovering new commercial routes, Peter the Great during the latest years of his life arranged one of the greatest geographical expeditions which the history of the world can show. It was not until after his death, however, that it was carried out, and then it went on for a series of years on so large a scale that whole tribes are said to have been impoverished through the severe exactions of transport that were on its account imposed on the inhabitants of the Siberian deserts. Its many different divisions are now comprehended under the name--_the Great Northern Expedition_. Through the writings of Behring, Mueller, Gmelin, Steller, Krascheninnikov and others, this expedition has acquired an important place for all time in the history not only of geography but also of ethnography, zoology, and botany, and even now the inquirer, when the natural conditions of North Asia are in question, must return to these works. I shall therefore, before drawing this chapter to a close, give a brief account of its principal features.

The Great Northern Expedition was ushered in by "the first expedition to Kamchatka". The commander of this expedition was the Dane VITUS BEHRING, who was accompanied by Lieutenant MORTON SPANGBERG, also a Dane by birth, and ALEXEI CHIRIKOV They left St. Petersburg in February 1725, and took the land route across Siberia, carrying with them the necessary materials with which in Kamchatka to build and equip the vessel with which they should make their voyage of exploration. More than three years were required for this voyage, or rather for this geographico-scientific campaign, in which for the transport of the stores and the shipbuilding material that had to be taken from Europe the rivers Irtisch, Ob, Ket, Yenisej, Tunguska, Ilim, Aldan, Maja, Yudoma, and Urak were taken advantage of. It was not until the 15th/4th April that a beginning could be made at Nischni Kamchatskoj Ostrog of the building of the vessel, which was launched on the 21st/10th July, and on the 31st/20th of the same month Behring began his voyage.

He sailed in a north-easterly direction along the coast of Kamchatka, which he surveyed. On the 19th/8th August in 64 deg. 30' N.L. he fell in with Chukches, who had still a reputation among the Russians for invincible courage and ferocity. First one of them came to the vessel, swimming on two inflated seal-skins, "to inquire what was intended by the vessel's coming thither," after which their skin-boat lay to. Conversation was carried on with them by means of a Koryaek interpreter. On the 21st/10th August St. Lawrence Islands as discovered, and on the 26th/15th of the same month the explorers sailed past the north-eastern promontory of Asia in 67 deg. 18' and observed that the coast trends to the west from that point, as the Chukches had before informed them. Behring on this account considered that he had fulfilled his commission to ascertain whether Asia and America were separated, and he now determined to turn, "partly because if the voyage were continued along the coast ice might be met with, from which it might not be so easy to get clear, partly on account of the fogs, which had already begun to prevail, and partly because it would be impossible, if a longer stay were made in these regions, to get back the same summer to Kamchatka. There could be no question of passing the winter off the coast of the Chukch Peninsula, because that would have been to expose the expedition to certain destruction, either by being wrecked on the jagged rocks of the open unknown coast, or by perishing from want of fuel, or finally by dying under the hands of the fierce unconquered Chukches". On the 1st Oct/20th Sept the vessel returned to Nischni Kamchatskoj Ostrog.[316] It was during this voyage that the sound, which has since obtained the name of Behring's Straits, is considered to have been discovered. But it is now known that this discovery properly belongs to the gallant hunter Deschnev, who sailed through these straits eighty years before. I suppose therefore that the geographical world will with pleasure embrace the proposal to attach the name of Deschnev along with that of Behring to this part of our globe; which may be done by substituting Cape Deschnev, as the name of the easternmost promontory of Asia, for that of East Cape, an appellation which is misleading and unsuitable in in many respects. Several statements by Kamchadales regarding a great country towards the east on the other side of the sea, induced Behring the following year to sail away in order to ascertain whether this was the case. In consequence of unfavourable weather he did not succeed in reaching the coast of America, but returned with his object unaccomplished, after which he sailed to Okotsk, where he arrived on the 3rd Aug/23rd July 1729. Hence he betook himself immediately to St. Petersburg, which he reached after a journey of six months and nine days.