Part 22 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SLOOP UTRENNAJA SARIA. ]

[Footnote 159: Compare: ”The names of the places that the Russes sayle by, from Pechorskoie Zauorot to Mongozey” (_Purchas_, III. p.

539): ”The voyage of Master Josias Logan to Pechora, and his wintering there with Master William Pursglove and Marmaduke Wilson, Anno 1611” (_loc. cit._ p. 541): ”Extracts taken out of two letters of Josias Logan from Pechora, to Master Hakluyt, Prebend of Westminster” (_loc. cit._ p. 546): ”Other obseruations of the sayd William Pursglove” (_loc. cit._ p. 550). The last paper contains good information regarding the Obi, Tas, Yenisej, Pjasina, Chatanga, and Lena. ]

[Footnote 160: The stringent regulations regarding fasting of the Russians, especially the Old Believers, if they be literally observed, form an insuperable obstacle to the colonisation of high-northern regions, in which, to avoid scurvy, man requires an abundant supply of fresh flesh. Thus, undoubtedly, religious prejudices against certain kinds of food caused the failure of the colony of Old Believers which was founded in 1767 on Kolgujev Island, in order that its members might undisturbed use their old church books and cross themselves in the way they considered most proper. The same cause also perhaps conduced to the failure of the attempts which are said to have been made after the destruction of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible in 1570 by fugitives from that town to found a colony on Novaya Zemlya (_Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden und den Lapplandern_, Riga und Mietau, 1769, p. 28). This book was first printed in French at Konigsberg in 1762. The author was Klingstedt, a Swede in the Russian service, who long lived at Archangel. ]

[Footnote 161: The statement is incredible, and probably originated in some mistake. To form such a heap of walruses at least 50,000 animals would have been required, and it is certain that fifteen men could not have killed so many. If we a.s.sume that in the statement of the length and breadth, feet ought to stand in place of fathoms, we get the still excessive number of 1,500 to 3,000 killed animals.

Probably instead of 90 we should have 9, in which case the heap would correspond to about 500 walruses and seals killed. The walrus tusks collected weighed 40 pood, which again indicates the capture of 150 to 200 animals. ]

[Footnote 162: _Witsen_, p. 915. Klingstedt states that fifty soldiers with their wives and children were removed in 1648 to Pustosersk, and that the vojvode there had so large an income that in three or four years he could acc.u.mulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles (_Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden_, &c., p. 53). ]

[Footnote 163: According to Lutke, p. 70. Hamel, _Tradescant d.

altere_, gives the date 1742-44. ]

[Footnote 164: Thus on the first map in an atlas published in 1737 by the St. Petersburg Academy, Novaya Zemlya is delineated as a peninsula projecting from Taimur Land north of the Pjasina. ]

[Footnote 165: Properly ”Mate, with the rank of Lieutenant,” from which we may conclude that Rossmuislov wanted the usual education of an officer. ]

[Footnote 166: These remarkable voyages were described for the first time, after the accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K.E. v. Baer in _Bulletin scientifique publ. par l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St.

Petersburg_, t. ii. No. 9, 10, 11 (1837). Before this there does not appear to have been in St. Petersburg any knowledge of Pachtussov's voyages, the most remarkable which the history of Russian Polar Sea exploration has to show. ]

[Footnote 167: The carba.s.se was named, like the vessels of Lasarev and Lutke, the _Novaya Zemlya_. It was forty-two feet long, fourteen feet beam, and six feet deep, decked fore and aft, and with the open s.p.a.ce between protected by canvas from breakers. ]

[Footnote 168: The details of Pachtussov's voyages are taken partly from von Baer's work already quoted, partly from Carl Svenske, _Novaya Zemlya_, &c., St. Petersburg, 1866 (in Russian, published at the expense of M.K. Sidoroff), and J. Sporer, _Nowaja Semla in geographischer, naturhistorischer und volkswirthschaftlicher Beziehung, nach den Quellen bearbsitet_. Erganz-Heft. No. 21 zu Peterm. _Geogr. Mittheilungen_, Gotha, 1867. ]

[Footnote 169: _Bulletin scientifique publie par l'Academie Imp. de St. Petersburg_, t. ii. (1837), p. 315; iii. (1838), p. 96, and other places. ]

[Footnote 170: Paul von Krusenstern, _Skizzen aus sienem Seemannsleben. Seinen Freunden gewidmet_. Hirschberg in Silesia, without date. ]

[Footnote 171: Information regarding the mode of life of the Russian hunters on the coasts of Spitzbergen is to be found in P.A. le Roy, _Relation des avantures arrivees a quatre matelots Russes, &c._ 1766; Tschitschagov's _Reise nach dem Eismeer_, St. Petersburg, 1793; John Bacstrom, _Account of a voyage to Spitzbergen_, 1780, London, 1808 (as stated; I have not seen this work); B.M. Keilhau, _Reise i ost og Vest Finmarken, samt til Beeren-Eiland og Spetsbergen i Aarene 1827 og 1828_, Christiania, 1831; A. Erman, _Archiv fur wissenschastliche Kunde von Russland_, Part 13 (1854), p. 260; K. Chydenius, _Svenska expeditionen till Spetsbergen 1861_ (p. 435); Duner and Nordenskiold, _Svenska Expeditioner till Spetsbergen och Jan Mayen 1863 och 1864_ (p. 101). ]

[Footnote 172: Before 1858 there is to be found in Petermann's _Mittheilungen_ only a single notice of the Norwegian Spitzbergen hunting, the existence of which was at the time probably known to no great number of European geographers. ]

[Footnote 173: The first account of this voyage was published in _ofversigt af Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens forhandlingar_, 1870, p. 111. ]

[Footnote 174: _Athenoeum_, 1869, p. 498. Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1869, p. 391. ]

[Footnote 175: Palliser's game consisted of 49 walruses, 14 Polar bears and 25 seals; that of the working hunters was many times greater. All the vessels which went from Tromsoe that year captured 805 walruses, 2,302 seals, 53 bears, &c. ]

[Footnote 176: Sidoroff too started in 1869 on a north-east voyage in a steamer of his own, the _George_. However, he only reached the Petchora, and the statement that went the round of the press, that the _George_ actually reached the Ob, is thus one of the many mistakes which so readily find their way into the news of the day. ]

[Footnote 177: Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1871, p. 97. Along with Ulve's, Mack's, and Quale's voyages, Petermann refers to a voyage round Novaya Zemlya by T. Torkildsen. In this case, however, Petermann was exposed to a possibly unintended deception.

Torkildsen, who visited the Polar Sea for the first time in 1870, indeed made the voyage round Novaya Zemlya, but only as a rescued man on Johannesen's vessel. Torkildsen's own vessel, the _Alfa_, had been wrecked on the 13th July at the bottom of Kara Bay, after which the skipper and six men were saved by Johannesen, yet by no means so that Torkildsen, as is stated by Petermann, had the least command of the vessel that saved him. (Cf. _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_, 1871, No. 23.) ]

[Footnote 178: _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_, 1871, No. 83; Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1872, p. 384. ]

[Footnote 179: Cf. _The Three Voyages of William Barents_, by Gerrit de Veer, 2nd Edition, with an Introduction by Lieutenant Koolemans Beynen. London, 1876 (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, No. 54). ]

[Footnote 180: The sea in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen on the east was on the other hand very open that year, so that it was possible for the same time to reach and circ.u.mnavigate the large island situated to the east of Spitzbergen, which had been seen in 1864 by Duner and me from the top of White Mount in the interior of Stor Fjord. ]