Part 51 (1/2)

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 pa.s.sed 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 KINDaKOV was sent out to map the coast to the Kolyma.

Among other things he observed that the sea here was very shallow near the sh.o.r.e, and that driftwood was wanting at the mouth of the Indigirka, but was found in large ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed one of the Bear Islands, fixing its lat.i.tude at 71 0'. On the 25th/14th August, when Great Cape Baranov was reached, the progress of the vessel was arrested by ma.s.ses 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 seamans.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 to 59 N.L. A short distance from the sh.o.r.e 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 Koryak 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 Koryak 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 pa.s.sed. On the 5th November the vessel was anch.o.r.ed 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 N.L. The mate ABRAHAM DEMENTIEV was then sent ash.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 j.a.pan_--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 Mids.h.i.+pman 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 lat.i.tude. 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 j.a.pan 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 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 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 pa.s.sed the first of the Kurile Islands when the vessel became so leaky that he was compelled to turn. The second expedition of Spangberg to j.a.pan was thus completely without result, a circ.u.mstance 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, Muller, 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 j.a.pan 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 mids.h.i.+pman, 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 quant.i.ty.

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 s.p.a.cious 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 fis.h.i.+ng, on which account the winter pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sistance he succeeded in procuring there, he commenced in 1766 a voyage from which neither he nor any of his followers returned. c.o.xE 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked 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 circ.u.mstance 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 s...o...b..voj 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 pet.i.tioned 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 HEDENSTRoM,[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. Hedenstrom 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-sc.r.a.pers, 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 Hedenstrom'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 Hedenstrom 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 Hedenstrom 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, impa.s.sable ”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 Hedenstrom expeditions” were concluded with the survey of the north coast of Novaya Sibir by CHENIZYN, and by a repet.i.tion 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 quant.i.ty of salt water which had acc.u.mulated upon it. The reindeer were exceedingly enfeebled, but recovered rapidly on reaching land, so that Sannikov was able under specially favourable circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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.