CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING GENESIS

HISTORY OF ALASKA.

CHAPTER II.

THE CENTURY-MARCH OF THE COSSACKS. 1578-1724.

While the maritime nations of north-western Europe were thus sending ship after ship into the Arctic ice-fields in the hope of finding a north-eastern passage to India, the Russians were slowly but surely forcing their way over Siberian rivers and steppes, and even along the Arctic coast from river-mouth to river­mouth, and that not in search of any India, or other grand attainment, but only after skins, and to get farther and farther from parental despotism. Their ancient homes had not been abodes of peace, and no tender reminiscences or patriotic ties bound them to tire soil of Russia. It was rather a yearning for personal freedom, next after the consideration of the sobol, that drew the poor Slav farther and farther through forests and swamps away from his place of birth; he did not care to band for general independence. Rulers were of God, the church said, and he would not oppose them, but he would if possible escape. In view of these peculiar tendencies the opening of the boundless expanse toward the east was a blessing not only to the oppressed but to the oppressors. The turbulent spirits, who might have caused trouble at home, in early times found their way to Siberia voluntarily, while later the ‘paternal’ government gathered strength enough to send them there.

A century sable-hunt half round the world this remarkable movement might be called. It was at once a discovery and a conquest, which was to carry Cossack and Russian across the vast continent, and across the narrowed Pacific to the fire-breathing islands, and the glistening mountains and majestic forests of Alaska. The shores of the Black and Caspian seas was the starting-point. Russia’s eastern bound was then the Ural Mountains. Anika Stroganof set up salt-works there, and the people at the east brought him furs to trade. They were pretty little skins, and yielded the salt-miner a large profit; so he sent his traders as far as the great river Ob for them. And the autocrat of the empire smiled on these proceedings, and gave the salt-merchant lands, and allowed his descendants to become a power and call themselves counts.

In 1578 the grandson of the first Stroganof received a visit from a Cossack chieftain or ataman, named Yermak Timofeief, who with his followers had in Cossack fashion led a life of war and plunder, and was then flying from justice as administered by Ivan Vassilievich II.

Yermak’s mounted followers numbered a thousand, and Stroganof was anxious they should move on; so he told them of places toward the east, fine spots for robber-knights to seize and settle on, and he sent men to guide them thither. This was in 1578. At the river Ob the Cossacks found a little Tartar sovereignty, a fragment of the great monarchy of Genghis Khan. The warlike spirit with which Tamerlane had once inspired the Tartars had long since fled. Their little kingdom, in which cattle-herding, the chase, and traffic were the only pursuits, now remained only because none had come to conquer them. The Cossacks were in the full flush of national development. They had ever been apt learners from the Tartars, against whom they had often served the Muscovites as advance guard. Now Yermak was in a strait. Behind him was the wrathful tsar, to fall into whose hands was certain death. Though his numbers were small, he must fight for it. Attacking the Tartars, in due time he became master of their capital city, though at the cost of half his little army. And now he must have more men. Perhaps he might buy friendship of the tsar. A rich gift of sables, with information that he had conquered for him the kingdom of Kutchum Khan, accomplished the purpose. Reenforcements and confirmation of rulership were the response. Thus was begun the long journey of the Russians across the continent.

Vast as is the area of Siberia its several parts are remarkably similar. Plants, animals, and men; climate, conditions, and customs, are more alike than on the other side of the strait of Bering. The country and its contents are upon a dead level. A net-work of navigation is formed by the upper branches of rivers flowing into the frozen sea through the tundras, or ice-morass, of the north, so that the same kind of boats and sledges carry the traveller across the whole country. The fierce and cunning Cossacks of Russia were in marked contrast to the disunited semi-nomads of Siberia, busy as they were taming the reindeer, hunting with dogs, or fighting with the bow and arrow and lance; and if they could conquer the Tartars of the Ob there was no reason why they could not march on to the Pacific.

They were a singular people, brave as Spaniards and tough as gypsies. Their weapons, the later European kind, of iron and gunpowder, gave them a vast superiority over the tribes of Siberia, and their boats and horses seem to have been made for the purpose. The latter were small and enduring, adequate to the long day’s march, and like their masters accustomed to cold, hunger, thirst, and continuous fatigue. Like the chamois and reindeer they would scrape off the snow from their scanty nourishment, or if grass was wanting they were glad to get frozen fish to eat.

The invaders found it well to divide their forces, and advance in small scattered bodies, a dozen warriors sometimes subjugating a tribe; then again some hundreds were required for the occupation of a river territory or a kingdom. There was no need of a large united army, or of any great discipline. This also suited Cossack ideas and habits, as they were republican in their way. Born equal, they everywhere met on a common footing. They chose their atamans and sotniks, or centurions, who, if they did not rule to suit, were quickly deposed and others elected. The highest position was open to the humblest aspirant.

It was on the Tobol that the Cossacks and Russians built their first ostrog, or fort, which later became Tobolsk, the headquarters of their organized government, and the starting-point of their expeditions. Thence their conquering march was straight through the middle of Siberia, the line being equidistant from the mountains of the south and the morasses of the north, and it later became the principal line of traffic. On this line, cutting through the various river regions, the chief colonies of the country were founded. Eastward from Tobolsk, in the territory of the river Ob, the city of Tomsk; eastward from this, on the Yenissei, the city of Yenisseisk; then Irkutsk and Yakutsk in the Lena district, and finally, on the shores of the Pacific, Okhotsk, which stands upon about the same parallel as that of the starting-point. These cities grew successively one out of the other, and for every new river province the last served as a point d’appui for the various enterprises, military or commercial. At every important river a halt was made, during which they settled themselves more firmly, and organized their new territory. They built boats, explored up the rivers, and down them even to the frozen ocean, where they founded little settlements.

The Cossacks themselves were a light troop, but they were preceded by a still lighter, a flying advance guard, called the promyshleniki, a kind of Russian coureurs des bois. They were freebooters who hunted on their own account and at their own risk. No one could control them. They flitted everywhere in the woods and morasses, companions of wild beasts. They made the several first discoveries in Siberia, and brought home the earliest information of hitherto unknown parts.

In the spring of 1628 the Cossacks reached Lena River. The party consisted of ten men under Vassili Bugor, who had crossed over from the Yenissei on snow-shoes. Arrived at the Lena, the great central stream, lying midway between the beginning and end of their century-march, they built a boat and went down and up the river for some distance, spreading dismay and collecting their tribute of sable-skins. Ten Cossacks against the inhabitants of that great valley! I know of nothing in American history that equals it. After making the people swear submission, Bugor posted two of his men at the middle point on the river, and two each at points two hundred miles above and two hundred miles below. After three years of bluster and traffic Bugor returned to the Yenissei. In 1632 a Cossack chieftain named Beketof sailed far down the Lena and built the first ostrog on this river, among the Yakut nation. This was the Yakutski Ostrog, out of which rose later the city of Yakutsk, the capital of eastern Siberia, and which finally served as head-quarters for expeditions to the Arctic and to the Pacific. From the Lena, Siberia extends, gradually narrowing, about five or six hun­dred leagues further to the east. The length of the rivers decreases with the breadth of the land, and the mighty Lena is followed by the smaller Yana, Indi­girka, Kolima, and at last, in the farthest corner by the Anadir which empties into the Pacific. The discovery of these more distant rivers of Siberia began in 1638. Some Cossacks, under the leadership of a certain Busa, reached the Yana by water from the mouth of the Lena, while others, under the sotnik Ivanof, penetrated on horseback to its sources from Yakutsk. Here they heard of the Indigirka, and the year following they trotted on to the river.

Eastern Siberia.

In 1639 the rugged mountains on the eastern border of Siberia were crossed on horseback and on snow-shoes, and an ostrog was built on the seashore to which the name of Okhotsk was given. Thus the Pacific Ocean was first reached by the Russians on the shore of the Okhotsk Sea, a place destined to play an important part in the advance toward America. The discovery was achieved by Andrei Kopilof, a Cossack leader, who made his way thither from the Lena at the head of a small party, thus completing the march across the continent of Asia, in its broadest part, in about sixty years from the time of Yermak’s visit to Stroganof.

The ascent of the Lena brought the Russians to Lake Baikal, and showed them another route to the Pacific, through China by way of the Amoor. The rich silver deposits in that quarter drew population from the north-western ostrogs, something after the manner of a California mining rush. The Manchu Tartars were most of them absent from home at the time, completing their conquest of the celestial empire, which left the Amoor region comparatively defenceless. On the return of the Tartars the Russians were obliged to relinquish some of their pretensions, though they retained their hold on the mines, and continued trade with China. In 1643 Vassili Posharkof set out from Yakutsk with one hundred and thirty-two men, and following the course of the Amoor to its mouth, and thence proceeding north and westward some distance along the coast, returned to Yakutsk in 1646 by a different route, and one direct from the Okhotsk Sea.

Sixteen Cossacks on the Indigirka took captive the ruling prince of the country. On their neighing steeds they charged his forces, armed with only bows and arrows, and vanquished them with great slaughter. In 1640 they had completed the conquest of the whole river, eight hundred miles long. Forthwith they again began to listen to tales of new streams in the east, of the Aliseia and the Kolima. Strengthened by additional troops they proceeded in 1646 to subdue this region. East of the Kolima, where Siberia approaches its termination, dwelt the warlike Chukchi, the Tschuktschi of German writers. Their land did not allure with sables or silver-mines, but a new attraction was found for the European. Dating existence from primeval revulsions, were found on the shores and along the banks of rivers vast deposits of fossil ivory, the tusks of the ancient mammoth elephant. Similar deposits had been found before in other parts of Siberia, but the largest were in the far north-east along the shores of the land of the Chukchi. This substance, which was called precious and a staple, exercised a powerful influence in the conquest of Siberia and in attracting emigrants to the north. Even at the present day it plays an important part in Siberian traffic, and is also found in the northern regions of America.

Isaï Ignatief, with a company of promyshleniki, set out in search of mammoth tusks toward the Chukchi country. From the mouth of the Kolima he proceeded a short distance along the Arctic seaboard in boats. The natives were shy at first, but after some traffic they told the Russians of a large mountainous land which lay westward and toward the north pole, and the outline of whose coasts could be seen from time to time from the Siberian shore. This land, they said, was rich in ivory, and there were the most beautiful tusks heaped up there in huge banks and mounds. Many believed that it was peopled and connected with Novaia Zemlia in the west and with America in the east.

With a daring which the well prepared Arctic explorer of our time can scarcely understand, the Russians committed themselves to their fragile lodki, or open sail-boats, of rough planks tied together with thongs, and struck out for that land of ivory toward the north pole. They sailed without compass out into that sea; they battled with the ice found there; their barks were shattered; they were frozen in at sea hundreds of versts from land. They even wintered there that they might advance a little farther the following summer. What can science or modern adventure show as a parallel? Lost on a wilderness of ice, all warmth departed, hungry, ill-clothed, with scarcely any shelter, yet still determined to achieve the land of ivory. Perhaps some of them did reach it; let us hope so, and that they obtained their fill of ivory. Nearly two centuries later the first light concerning this land came through the travels of Baron Wrangell, when it was recognized as a group of islands and named New Siberia.

Ignatief could hardly be said to have made the acquaintance of the Chukchi, so eager had he been after ivory. But better success attended the efforts of the Russians a little later. By order of the tsar Alexis, seven kotches, a small decked craft, were sent along the shore in search of the mouth of the river Anadir, whose head-waters had been sighted by the venturesome promyshleniki. The expedition set out from the mouth of the Kolima June 20, 1648. Of four of these vessels nothing further is mentioned; but we know that the remaining three were commanded respectively by Simeon Deshnef and Gerassim Ankudinof, Cossack chiefs, and Fedot Alexeief, peredovchik, that is to say, leader of promyshleniki. Deshnef, who forwarded a detailed account of his adventures to Yakutsk, speaks but incidentally of what happened before reaching Cape Chukotsk. Then he says: “This isthmus, is quite different from that which is bound by the River Tschukotschia west of the River Kolima. It lies between the north, and north-east, and turns circular towards the river Anadir. On the Russian, that is, the west side of it, there falls a brook into the sea, by which the Tschuktschi have erected a scaffold like a tower of the bones of whales. Over-against the isthmus (it is not mentioned on which side) there are two islands in the sea, upon which were seen people of the Tschuktschi nation, thro’ whose lips were run pieces of the teeth of the sea­horse. One might sail from the isthmus to the river Anadir, with a fair wind, in three days and nights, and it might be travelled by land within the same time.” The kotche commanded by Ankudinof was wrecked at the cape, but the inmates were saved by the other vessels. On the 20th of September Deshnef and Alexeief made a landing and had an engagement with the Chukchi, during which Alexeief was wounded. After this the two kotches lost sight of each other and did not meet again. Deshnef drifted about until October, and at last he was also wrecked, as it appears, some distance to the south of the Anadir, in the vicinity of the river Olutorsk. He had only twenty-five men left, and with these he set out by land in search of the Anadir; but having no guide, he wandered about for ten weeks and at last reached its banks not far from the mouth. One half of his command started up the river, but hunger compelled them to return. The following summer Deshnef ascended the Anadir in boats. He met with a tribe called the Ananli, made them tributary after considerable resistance, and founded the settlement of ostrog Anadirsk. Here he remained till 1650, when he was joined on the 23d of April by the Cossack Motora with a volunteer expedition from Kolimsk. Another expedition under Mikhail Stadukhin followed immediately after; but the latter, jealous of the successes already achieved by the others, went more to the southward for further discoveries and was never heard of again. Deshnef subsequently encountered a Yakut woman who had been with Fedor Alexeief and was told by her that Fedot and Ankudinof had been wrecked and that both had died of scurvy among the Koriaks. No mention is made by any of this party of having seen the American continent, though it is not impossible that some of them did see it. They were obliged to hug the Asiatic shore, and the opposite coast can be seen from there only on a clear day.

Another account of Deshnef’s voyage places it at a still earlier date, between 1580 and 1590, but the inaccuracy of this is evident.

Last of all this region to be unveiled was that narrow south-eastern strip of Siberia, the Kamchatka peninsula, which, about the size and shape of Italy, projects six hundred geographical miles from the continent into Bering and Okhotsk seas. The Cossack Luka Morosko started from Anadirsk in 1669 with a roving band and penetrated far to the southward, but what he saw was not known until some time afterward. The name Kamchatka was known in Yakutsk by report from 1690. Some years later the first party of riders set out thither under the leadership of the Cossack colonel, Atlassof, who passes for the actual discoverer and conqueror of Kamchatka. The Russians found in Kamchatka Japanese writings and even some Japanese sailors cast ashore there by shipwreck. From the latter they learned that the land stretched far away to the south, and were at first induced to believe that Kamchatka reached as far as Japan, as indeed it is laid down on the oldest maps.

Like the Spaniards in Mexico, the first Russians in Kamchatka were highly honored, almost deified, by the natives. That the aboriginal Americans should have ascribed divinity to the first Spaniards is not strange. They came to them from off the limitless and mysterious water in huge white-winged canoes, in martial array, with gaudy trappings and glittering armor; they landed with imposing ceremonies; their leaders were men of dignified bearing and suave manners, and held their followers in control. The first appearance of the Russians in Kamchatka, however, presents an entirely different aspect; surely the Kamchatkans of that day were satisfied with ungainly gods.

The Cossacks who came with Atlassof were rough-­looking fellows, of small size, clad in furs like the Kamchatkans, most of them the offspring of unions between half Tartars and women from the native tribes of Siberia. They were filthy in their habits, and had just completed a weary ride of many months through the wilderness. They were naturally cruel and placed no restraint on their beastly propensities; nevertheless they were called gods by beings of a lower order than themselves, and it were well to propitiate them. Indeed, they did possess one attribute of the deity: they could kill. A few rusty firelocks, a few pounds of powder, and they were omnipotent. Gods are prone to quarrel as well as men, but can they die? The Kamchatkans thought not; so when they saw one of Atlassof’s men struck down by another, saw the warm red blood gush from a mortal wound to stain the virgin snow, the spell was broken. These were no gods; and thenceforth the Russians had to fight for the supremacy. After many expeditions and many battles, for these people were in truth brave and lovers of liberty, the Russians, in 1706, reached the southern extremity of the Kamchatka peninsula, where they saw the northernmost islands of the Kurile chain which points to Japan.

Thus did the Russians, after the lapse of a century full of toil and ravages, reach the extreme end of the Old World. At the beginning of the eighteenth century they found themselves on a separate strip of coast, twelve hundred miles long, facing another twelve hundred miles’ strip, the north-west end of America. It was hardly to be expected that they would rest contented where they were.

The natives of Kamchatka did not appear to have any knowledge of America, so that the Russians were left to learn of the bolshaia zemlia, or ‘great land’ toward the east, slowly and as they were able. Tall trunks of fir and other trees which did not grow in Kamchatka were thrown from time to time by currents upon the shores along the east side of that country. Large flocks of land-birds came to the coast occasionally from the east and disappeared again in the same direction. Whales came from the east with spear-heads in their backs different from any used in Kamchatka; and now and then foreign-built boats and other unusual objects were washed upon the eastern coast. Even the waves carrying these tokens did not have as long as well as those to the south. Hence they said this land must front a sea wholly or partially enclosed, and that toward the north the sides must be nearest together. Surely the Chukchi should know something about it. Indeed, often in their fights with these people the Russians had taken captives with pieces of walrus ivory thrust through their lips and cheeks, and speaking a language different from that of the Chukchi. And the story was that the great land was no island, but had rivers and chains of mountains without end.

Matveï Strebykhin, commander of the ostrog of Anadirsk, was instructed in 1711 to collect information concerning the Chukchi and an island or continent lying to the eastward of their country. One of the results of this investigation was a deposition made and sworn to by the Yakout Cossack Peter Elianovioh Popof, the promyshlenik Yegor Vassilievich Toldin, and the newly converted Yukagir Ivan Vassilievich Tereshkin, and dated Anadirsk, Sept. 2, 1711. It was to the effect that on the 13th of January 1711 Popof and the two others, who served as interpreters, were sent out by Governor Fedor Kotovskoi to visit the valley of the Anadir and receive tribute from some of the Chukchi tribes. This done they were to proceed to the cape, Chakotskoi Noss, in order to persuade the Chukchi living there to become tributary to Russia. Popof met everywhere with a peremptory refusal to pay tribute. The Chukchi said that formerly the Russians had come to their country in ships, and they paid no tribute then, and therefore they would not do it now, and Popof must expect no hostages from them. The Chukchi who dwell near the cape keep tame reindeer, and in order to find pasture for their animals they frequently change their habitation. Opposite the cape on either side, in the sea of Kolima as well as in that of Anadir, islands have been seen, which the Chukchi call a large country, and they say that the people living there have large teeth in their mouths, projecting through the cheeks. Popof found ten of these men, prisoners among the Chukchi, with their cheeks still disfigured by the projecting ivory. In summer time they sail across to the Great Land in one day, and in the winter a swift reindeer team can make it in one day over the ice. In the other land there are sables, wolves, and bears. The people are, like the Chukchi, without any government. They have the wood of cedar, larch, and fir trees, which the Chukchi sometimes obtain for their bidars, weapons, and huts. About 2,000 people live at and near the cape, but the inhabitants of the other country are said to be three times that number, which is confirmed not only by prisoners but also by one of the Chukchi, who has often been there. Another statement was essentially as follows: Opposite the cape lies an island, within sight, of no great extent, devoid of timber, and inhabited by people resembling the Chukchi, though they speak their own language. It is half a day’s voyage to the island from the cape. Beyond the island there is a large continent, scarcely to be seen from it, and that only on very clear days. In calm weather one may row over the sea to the continent, which is inhabited. There are large forests, and great rivers fall into the sea. The inhabitants have fortified dwellings with ramparts of earth. Their clothes are the skins of sable and fox. The Chukchi are often at war with them.

About this time the stolnik knias, Vassili Ivanovich Gagarin, was present at Yakutsk, sent thither by his uncle, the governor, Prince Matvei Petrovich Gagarin, to make discoveries. He issued several orders to the voivod, or nobleman, Trauernicht, who commanded in. that section, one of them being that he should “make diligent inquiry about the islands situated opposite the mouth of the river Kolima, and the land of Kamchatka; what people inhabited them; under whose jurisdiction they were; what was their employment; how large the islands were and how distant from the continent.” The commanders and Cossacks ordered to those regions were all commissioned with such inquiries, with the promise of special rewards for such service from the emperor, who should be informed of any discoveries by express as soon as any authentic report was forwarded to Yakutsk.

Orders had been issued as early as 1710 to the commanders of Ust-Yana and Kolima to give these discoveries their special attention. In answer, a deposition was sent in by the Cossack Yakov Permakof of Ust-Yana, stating that he once sailed from the Lena to the River Kolima, and that on the east side of Sviatoi Noss he had sighted an island in the sea, but was unable to ascertain if it was inhabited. There was also an island situated directly opposite the river Kolima, an island that might be seen from the continent. Mountains could be seen upon it, but it was uncertain whether it was inhabited.

The voivod Trauernicht was further encouraged, and prepared two expeditions, one from the mouth of the river Yana and one from the Kolima, simultaneously to search for the supposed island; for which purpose the men were either to go in boats or travel on the ice till it could be definitely ascertained if such an island existed. Concerning the first-named expedition, which was begun by Merkuri Vagin, a Cossack, Muller found several reports at Yakutsk, but in his opinion the documents did not deserve much consideration.

Vagin departed from Yakutsk during the autumn of 1711, with eleven other Cossacks, and in May 1712 he made a voyage from Ust-Yanskoie Simovie to the frozen sea. On this occasion the Yakov Permakof, previously mentioned, served as his guide. The party used sledges drawn by dogs, and after following the coast to Sviatoi Noss, they emerged upon the frozen ocean and travelled directly north. They came to a desert island, without wood, which Vagin estimated to be from nine to twelve days’ travel in circumference. From this island they saw, farther to the north, another island or land, but as the spring was already too far advanced, Vagin dared not proceed, and his provisions running short the whole party returned to the continent, to provide themselves with a sufficient supply of fish during the summer. The point where he reached the coast was between Sviatoi Noss and the river Khroma. A Cossack had formerly erected a cross there, and after him it was named Kataief Krest. Being out of provisions, they failed in an attempt to reach the Khroma, and were compelled to eke out an existence on the sea-coast, devouring even the sledge-dogs. Vagin, however, still intended to prosecute his explorations; but his Cossacks, remembering their sufferings, to prevent a repetition, rose against their leader and murdered him, his son, the guide Permakof, and one promyshlenik. The crime was revealed by one of the accomplices and the offenders were brought to justice. During the trial it appeared that the guide Yakov Permakof did not believe the supposed large island to be really an island, but only vapor.

The other expedition, that from the Kolima, met with no better success. It consisted of a single vessel commanded by the Cossack Vassili Stadukhin, with twenty-two men. He merely observed a single promontory, extending into the sea to the east of Kolima, surrounded by ice, impenetrable by their vessels.

Another expedition was undertaken by a Cossack named Amossof. He started in 1723 with a party to search for an island reported to extend from the mouth of the Yana beyond the mouth of the Indigirka. He proceeded to the Kolima, and was prepared to sail in July 1724. According to his account he found such shoals of ice before him that he changed his course and sailed along the coast eastward to the so-called habitation of Kopai, which he reached on the 7th of August. Here again ice drove him back, and he returned to the Kolima. The dwelling of Kopai was about two hundred versts east of that river. Amossof also mentioned a small island situated near the conti­nent, and during the following winter he made another journey, with sledges, of which he sent an account to the chancellery of Yakutsk. The report was to the effect that on the 3d of November 1724 he set out from Nishnoie Kolimskoie Simovie, and met with land in the frozen sea, returning to Kolima on the 23d of the same month. Upon this land he saw nothing but old huts covered with earth; it was unknown to what people they belonged, and what had become of them. Want of provisions, and especially of dog-food, had obliged him to turn back without making any further discoveries. This journey was also impeded by ridges of ice piled to a great height, which had to be crossed with the sledges. The place where Amossof left the continent to go over to the island is between the Chukotcha and the Aliseia rivers. It was an island, in circumference about a day’s travel with dogs, and about the same distance from the continent, whence its high mountains can easily be seen. To the north were two other islands, likewise mountainous and separated by narrow straits. These he had not visited and did not know their extent. The first was without trees; no tracks of animals were seen but those of reindeer, which live on moss. The old huts had been constructed of drift-wood and covered with earth. It is probable that they had been made by Yukagirs or Chukchi, who had fled before the first advance of the Russians, and subsequently returned to the continent.

Kopai, mentioned in Amossof’s narrative, was a chief among the Shelages, living at the mouths of the Kolima and Aliseia rivers. He first paid tribute to Russia at the request of Vilegin, a promyshlenik, and in 1724 he paid tribute to Amossof. Subsequently, however, he broke his allegiance and killed some of Amossof’s party.

The first passage by sea from Okhotsk to Kamchatka took place in 1716. One of the sailors, a native of Hoorn in Holland, named Bush, was alive when Muller visited Yakutsk in 1736, and he related to him the circumstances. On the 23d of May 1714 a party of twenty Cossacks and sailors arrived at Ok­hotsk under command of Kosma Sokolof. These were followed in July by some carpenters and shipwrights. The carpenters built a vessel for sea-service, resembling the Russian lodkas in use between Arkhangel, Pustozersk, and Novaia Zemlia. The vessel was durable—fifty-one feet long, with eighteen feet beam, and drew when laden only three and a half feet of water. Embarking in June 1716, they followed the coast north-easterly till they came to the mouth of the river Ola, where a contrary wind drove them across the sea to Kamchatka. The land first sighted was a promontory north of the river Tigil, where they cast anchor. Some went ashore, but found only empty huts. The Kamchatkans had watched the approach of the vessel and fled to the mountains. The navigators again set sail, passed the Tigil, and arrived in one day at the mouth of the little river Kharinzobka, in the vicinity of two small islands. From Kharinzobka they went the following day to the river Itcha, keeping the sea at night and making for the land in the morning. Here, again, some men were put ashore, but they could find neither inhabitants nor houses. They soon returned and the vessel sailed down the coast till they came to the river Krutogorova. They intended to make this river, but missed its mouth, and finding a convenient bay a little to the south they anchored. On searching the country, they met with a girl who was gathering edible roots in the field, and she showed them some huts, inhabited by twelve Kamchatka Cossacks, stationed there to receive tribute. The Cossacks were sent for, and served as guides and interpreters. The vessel was then brought to the mouth of the river Kompakova, and it was resolved to winter there.

Early in May 1717 they put to sea, and on the fourth day became lodged between fields of ice, and were held there for over five weeks. At last they regained the coast of Okhotsk between the river Ola and Tanisky ostrog, where they stayed several days, and then returned to Okhotsk about the middle of July. From that time there was constant navigation between Okhotsk and Kamchatka.

In 1719 the Russian government sent two navigators or surveyors, Ivan Yevreinof and Fedor Lushin, to make geographical observations, and specially to find, if possible, among the Kurile Islands the one from which the Japanese were said to obtain gold and silver. They arrived at Yakutsk in May 1720, crossed over to Kamchatka the same summer, and returned to Yakutsk in 1721. Yevreinof left Lushin in Siberia and proceeded to Russia to report to the tsar, taking with him a map of the Kurile Islands as far as he had explored them. For the next three years, that is to say to 1724, rumors and ideas concerning the east assumed more and more definiteness in Kamchatka, and at Okhotsk, Yakutsk, and other Russian settlements, at last reaching Moscow and St Petersburg, there to find attentive listeners.

Obviously the Great Land opposite, if any such there was, would present aspects quite different to the tough Cossacks and to the more susceptible Europeans from the south. The American Siberia, this farther­most north-west was once called, and if to the American it was Siberia, to the Siberian it was America. The eastern end of Asia is lashed by the keen eastern tempests and stands bleak and bare, without vegetation, and the greater part of the year wrapped in ice and snow. The western shores of America, though desolate and barren enough within the limits of Bering sea, are wonderfully different where they are washed by the Pacific and protected from the east by high chains of mountains. Here they are open to the mild westerly winds and warm ocean currents; they have a damper climate, and, in consequence, a more vigorous growth of trees and plants. In comparatively high latitudes they are covered with fine forests down to the seashore. This is a contrast which repeats itself in all northern countries. The ruder Sweden in the east contrasts in a like manner with the milder Norway in the west; the desolate eastern coast of Greenland buried in polar ice, with its western coast inhabited, and at times gay with flowers and verdure. Thus the great eastern country, the bolshaia zemlia, rich in harbors, shelter, woods, and sea and land animals, might well become by report among the north-eastern Asiatics a garden of paradise.

CHAPTER III.

THE KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS. 1725-1740.