The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 49

[Footnote 276: Lutke says (Erman's _Archiv_, iii. p. 464) that the peaceful relations with the Chukches begin after the conclusion of a peace which was brought about ten years after the abandonment of Anadyrsk, where for thirty-six years there had been a garrison of 600 men, costing over a million roubles. This peace this formerly so quarrelsome people has kept conscientiously down to our days with the exception of some market brawls, which induced Treskin, Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, to conclude with them, in 1817, a commercial treaty which appears to have been faithfully adhered to, to the satisfaction and advantage of both parties (_Dittmar_, p.

128). ]

[Footnote 277: Muller has likewise saved from oblivion some other accounts regarding the Chukches, collected soon after at Anadyrsk.

When we now read these accounts, we find not only that the Chukches knew the Eskimo on the American side, but also stories regarding the Indians of Western America penetrated to them, and further, through the authorities in Siberia, came to Europe, a circ.u.mstance which deserves to be kept in mind in judging of the writings of Herodotus and Marco Polo. ]

[Footnote 278: Sauer, _An Account_, &c., pp. 255 and 319. Sarytschev, _Reise, ubersetzt von Busse_, ii. p. 102. ]

[Footnote 279: _uber die Koriaken und die ihnen sehr nahe verwandten Tschuktschen_ (Bulletin historico-philologique de l'Academie de St.

Petersbourg, t. xiii., 1856, p. 126.) ]

[Footnote 280: That the Chukches burn their dead with various ceremonies is stated by Sarytschev on the ground of communications by the interpreter Daurkin, who lived among the reindeer-Chukches from 1787 to 1791, in order to learn their language and customs, and to announce the arrival of Billings' expedition (Sarytschev's _Reise_, ii. p. 108). The statement is thus certainly quite trustworthy. The coast population with whom Hooper came in contact, on the other hand, laid out their dead on special stages, where the corpses were allowed to be eaten up by ravens or to decay (_loc.

cit._ p. 88). ]

[Footnote 281: If the runners are not shod with ice in this way the friction between them and the hard snow is very great during severe cold, and the draught accordingly exceedingly heavy. ]

[Footnote 282: Nearly all the travellers from a great distance who pa.s.sed the _Vega_ had their dogs harnessed in this way. On the other hand, Sarytschev says that at St. Lawrence Bay all the dogs were harnessed abreast, and that this was the practice at Moore's winter quarters at Chukotskojnos is shown by the drawing at p. 71 of Hooper's work, already quoted. We ought to remember that at both these places the population were Eskimos who had adopted the Chukch language. The Greenland Eskimo have their dogs harnessed abreast, the Kamchadales in a long row. Naturally dogs harnessed abreast are unsuitable for wooded regions. The different methods of harnessing dogs mentioned here, therefore, indicate that the Eskimo have lived longer than the Chukches north of the limit of trees. ]

[Footnote 283: An exhaustive treatise on the food-substances which the Chukches gather from the vegetable kingdom, written by Dr.

Kjellman, is to be found in _The Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition_. Popov already states that the Chukches eat many berries, roots, and herbs (_Muller_, iii. p. 59). ]

[Footnote 284: Already, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, all the Siberian tribes, men and women, old and young, smoked pa.s.sionately (_Hist. Genealog. des Tartares_, p. 66). ]

[Footnote 285: Dr. John Simpson gives good information regarding the American markets in his _Observations on the Western Esquimaux_. He enumerates three market places in America besides that at Behring's Straits. At the markets people are occupied also with dancing and games, which are carried on in such a lively manner that the market people scarcely sleep during the whole time. Matiuschin gives a very lively sketch of the market at Anjui, to which, in 1821, the Chukches still went fully armed with spears, bows, and arrows (Wrangel's _Reise_, i. p. 270), and a visit to it in 1868 is described by C. von Neumann, who took part as Astronomer in von Maydell's expedition to Chukch Land (_Eine Messe im Hochnorden; Das Ausland_ 1880, p. 861). ]

[Footnote 286: I have seen such pins, also oblong stones, sooty at one end, which, after having been dipped in train-oil, have been used as torches, laid by the side of corpses in old Eskimo graves in north-western Greenland. ]

[Footnote 287: In the accounts which were collected regarding the Chukches at Anadyrsk in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it is also stated that they lived without any government On the contrary, in M. von Krusenstern's _Voyage autour du monde, 1803-1806_ (Paris, 1821, ii. p. 151), a report of Governor Koscheleff is given on some negotiations which he had with a "chief of the whole Chukch nation". I take it for granted that the chiefship was of little account, and Koscheleff's whole sketch of his meeting with the supposed chief bears an altogether too lively European romantic stamp to be in any degree true to nature. At the same place it is also said that a brother of Governor Koscheleff, in the winter of 1805-1806, made a journey among the Chukches, on which, after his return, he sent a report, accompanied by a Chukch vocabulary, to von Krusenstern. ]

[Footnote 288: The originals of the drawings reproduced in the woodcuts are made on paper, part with the lead pencil, part with red ochre. The different groups represent _on the first page_--1, a dog-team; 2, 3, whales; 4, hunting the Polar bear and the walrus; 5, bullhead and cod; 6, man fishing; 7, hare-hunting; 8, birds; 9, wood-chopper; 10, man leading a reindeer; 11, walrus hunt--7 and 9 represent Europeans. _On the second page_--1, a reindeer train; 2, a reindeer taken with a la.s.so by two men; 3, a man throwing a harpoon; 4, seal hunt from boat; 5, bear hunt; 6, the man in the moon; 7, man leading a reindeer; 8, reindeer; 9, Chukch with staff and an archer; 10, reindeer with herd; 11, reindeer; 12, two tents, man riding on a dog sledge, &c. ]

CHAPTER XIII.

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--Hedenstrom's expeditions--Anjou and Wrangel --Voyages from Behring's Straits westward--Fict.i.tious Polar voyages.

Now that the north-eastern promontory of Asia has been at last circ.u.mnavigated, 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 a.s.sumed 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 circ.u.mnavigate 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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sed 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 Scythic.u.m_, 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 circ.u.mnavigated 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 circ.u.mnavigation of Africa by VASCO DA GAMA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE WORLD, SAID TO BE OF THE TENTH CENTURY.

Found in a ma.n.u.script of the twelfth century in the Library at Turin. (From Santarem's Atlas.) ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING ASIA TO BE CONTINUOUS WITH AFRICA. (From Nicolai Doni's edition of _Ptolemaei Cosmographia_, Ulm.

1482.) ]

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 t.i.tles: "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 coa.r.s.e 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 Scythic.u.m_ 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE WORLD AFTER FRA MAURO FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. (From Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro Camaldolese descritto ed ill.u.s.trato da D. Placido Zurla, Venezia, 1806.) ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HERBERTSTERN'S MAP OF RUSSIA, 1550 (photo-lithographic facsimile). ]

On the whole, the voyages of the Portuguese to India and the Eastern archipelago, the discovery of America and the first circ.u.mnavigation 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 t.i.tle "Moscovia Sigismundi liberi baronis in Herberstein Neiperg et Gutnhag. Anno MDXLIX. Hanc tabulam absolvit AUG. HIRSFOGEL Viennae Austriae c.u.m 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 circ.u.mnavigation 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.ble 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 Pjasina 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 "ja.s.sak" 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e they anch.o.r.ed. 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.

Muller 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]