The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 52

[Footnote 298: It is a peculiar circ.u.mstance that the vanguard of the Russian stream of emigration which spread over Siberia, advanced along the northernmost part of the country by the Tas, Turuchansk, Yakutsk, Kolyma, and Anadyrsk. This depended in the first place upon the races living there having less power of resistance against the invaders, who were often very few in number, than the tribes in the south, but also on the fact that the most precious and most transportable treasures of Siberia--sable, beaver, and fox-skins--were obtained in greatest quant.i.ty from these northern regions. ]

[Footnote 299: Flat-bottomed, half-decked boats, twelve fathoms in length. The planks were fastened by wooden pins, the anchors were pieces of wood with large stones bound to them, the rigging of thongs, and the sails often of tanned reindeer hides (J.E. Fischer, _Sibirische Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1768, i. p. 517). ]

[Footnote 300: G.P. Muller, _Sammlung Russischer Geschichte_, St.

Petersburg, 1758 Muller a.s.serts in this work that it was he who, in 1736, first drew from the repositories of the Yakutsk archives the account of Deschnev's voyage, which before that time was known neither at the court of the Czar nor in the remotest parts of Siberia. This, however, is not quite correct, for long before Muller, the Swedish prisoner-of-war, Strahlenberg, knew that the Russians travelled by sea from the Kolyma to Kamchatka, which appears from his map of Asia, constructed during his stay in Siberia, and published in _Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia_, Stockholm, 1730. On this map there is the following inscription in the sea north of the Kolyma--"Hie Rutheni ab initio per Moles glaciales, quae flante Borea ad Littora, flanteque Anstro versus Mare iterum pulsantur, magno Labore et Vitae Discrimine transvecti sunt ad Regionem Kamtszatkam." ]

[Footnote 301: Selivestrov had accompanied Staduchin during his Polar Sea voyage, and had, at his instance, been sent out to collect walrus tusks on account of the State. He appears to have come to the Anadyr by land. ]

[Footnote 302: Strahlenberg must have collected the main details of this voyage by oral communications from Russian hunters and traders. ]

[Footnote 303: According to Muller Krascheninnikov (_Histoire et description du Kamtschatka_, Amsterdam, 1770, ii. p. 292) states, evidently from information obtained in Kamchatka, that the river Nikul is called Feodotovchina after Feodot Alexejev, who not only penetrated thither, but also sailed round the southern promontory of Kamchatka to the River Tigil where he and his followers perished in the way described by Muller. ]

[Footnote 304: But we ought to remember that the oldest accounts of islands in the Polar Sea relate to no fewer than four different lands, viz, 1. The New Siberian Islands lying off the mouth of the Lena and Svjatoinos; 2. The Bear Islands; 3. Wrangel Land; 4. The north-western part of America. Contradictions in accounts of the islands in the Polar Sea probably depend on the uninhabited and treeless New Siberian islands being confused with America, which, in comparison with North Siberia, is thickly peopled and well wooded, with the small Bear Islands, with Wrangel Land, &c. ]

[Footnote 305: _Nouvelle carte des decouvertes faites par des vaisseaux russiens aux cotes inconnues de l'Amerique, Septentrionale avec les pais adiacentes, dressee sur des memoires authentiques des ceux qui ont a.s.siste a ces decouvertes et sur d'autres connoissances dont on rend raison dans un memoire separe_ St. Petersbourg, l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences, 1758. ]

[Footnote 306: In this sketch of the discovery and conquest of Siberia I have followed J.E. Fischer, _Sibirische Geschichte_, St.

Petersburg, 1768, and G.P. Muller, _Sammlung Russischer Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1758. ]

[Footnote 307: In the twentieth chapter of _Dreyjahrige Reise nach China, &c._, Frankfort, 1707. The first edition came out at Hamburg in 1698. ]

[Footnote 308: Muller, iii. p. 19. An account of Atla.s.sov's conquest of Kamchatka (_Bericht gedaen door zeker Moskovisch krygs-bediende Wolodimer Otlasofd, hoofl-man over vyftig, &c._) is besides to be found in Witsen (1705, _Nieuwe uitguaf_, 1785, p. 670) An account, written from oral communication by Atla.s.sov himself, is to be found inserted in Strahlenberg's _Travels_, p. 431. Strahlenberg considers Kamchatka and Yezo to be the same land. A history of the conquest of Kamchatka, evidently written according to traditions current in the country, is to be found in _Krascheninnikov_ (French edition of 1770, ii. p. 291). In this account 1698 and 1699 are given as the years of Morosko's and Atla.s.sov's expeditions. ]

[Footnote 309: Complaints were made, among other things, that in order to obtain metal for making a still, he ordered all the copper belonging to the crown which he carried with him, to be melted down.

When the Cossacks first came to Kamchatka and were almost without a contest, acknowledged as masters of the country, they found life there singularly agreeable, with one drawback--there were no means of getting drunk. Finally, necessity compelled the wild adventurers to betake themselves to what we should now call chemico-technical experiments, which are described in considerable detail by Krascheninnikov (_loc. cit._ ii. p. 369). After many failures they finally succeeded in distilling spirits from a sugar-bearing plant growing in the country, and from that time this drink, or _raka_, as they themselves call it, has been found in great abundance in that country. ]

[Footnote 310: He afterwards became a monk under the name of Ignatiev, came to St. Petersburg in 1730, and himself wrote a narrative of his adventures, discoveries, and services, which was printed first in the St. Petersburg journals of the 26th March, 1730, and likewise abroad (_Muller_, iii. p. 82) ]

[Footnote 311: Von Baer, _Beitrage zur Kentniss des Russischen Reiches_, xvi. p. 33. ]

[Footnote 312: Ambjorn Molin, lieutenant in the Scanian cavalry regiment, who was taken prisoner at the Dnieper in 1709, also took part in these journeys. Compare _Berattelse om de i Stora Tartariet boende tartarer, som traffats langst nordost i Asien, p arkebiskop E. Benzelii begaran upsatt af Ambjorn Molin (Account of the Tartars dwelling in Great Tartary who were met with at the north east extremity of Asia, written at the request of Archbishop E. Benzelius by Ambjorn Molin_), published in Stockholm in 1880 by Aug.

Strindberg, after a ma.n.u.script in the Linkoping library. ]

[Footnote 313: Muller, iii. p. 102. According to an oral communication by Busch, Strahlenberg's account (p. 17) of this voyage appears to contain several mistakes. The year is stated as 1713, the return voyage is said to have occupied six days. ]

[Footnote 314: As late as 1819, James Burney, first lieutenant on one of Captain Cook's vessels during his voyage north of Behring's Straits, afterwards captain and member of the Royal Society, considered it not proved that Asia and America are separated by a sound. For he doubted the correctness of the accounts of Deschnev's voyage. Compare James Burney, _A Chronological History of North eastern Voyages of Discovery_ London, 1819, p. 298; and a paper by Burney in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society, 1817. Burney was violently attacked for the views there expressed by Captain John Dundas Cochrane. _Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary_, 2nd ed. London, 1824, Appendix. ]

[Footnote 315: The first astronomical determinations of position in Siberia were, perhaps, made by Swedish prisoners of war; the first in China by Jesuits (Cf. _Strahlenberg_, p. 14). ]

[Footnote 316: A short, but instructive account of Behring's first voyage, based on an official communication from the Russian Government to the King of Poland, is inserted in t. iv. p. 561 of _Description geographique de l'Empire de la Chine, par le P.J.B.

Du Halde_, La Haye, 1736. The same official report was probably the source of Muller's brief sketch of the voyage (_Muller_, iii. p.

112). A map of it is inserted in the 1735 Paris edition of Du Halde's work, and in _Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, par M. D'Anville_, La Haye, 1737. ]

[Footnote 317: _Histoire genealogique des Tartares_ (note, p. 107), and Strahlenberg's oft-quoted work (map, text, pp. 31 and 384). ]

[Footnote 318: This expedition was under the command of the Admiralty; the others under that of Behring. In my account I have followed partly Muller and partly Wrangel, of whom the latter, in his book of travels, gives a historical review of previous voyages along the coasts of the Asiatic Polar Sea. The accounts of the voyages between the White Sea and the Yenisej properly belong to a foregoing chapter in this work, but I quote them first here in order that I may treat of the different divisions of the Great Northern Expedition in the same connection. ]

[Footnote 319: Wrangel, i. p. 36. ]

[Footnote 320: Wrangel, i. p. 38. ]

[Footnote 321: According to P. von Haven (_Nye og forbedrede Efterretningar om det Russiske Rige_, Kjobenhavn, 1747, ii. p. 20), "it was the custom in Petersburg to send away those whose presence was inconvenient to help Behring to make new discoveries". It also went very ill with many of the gallant Russian Polar travellers, and many of them were repaid with ingrat.i.tude. Behring was received on his return from his first voyage, so rich in results, with unjustified mistrust. Steller was exposed to continual trouble, was long prevented from returning from Siberia, and finally perished during his journey home, broken down in body and soul.

p.r.o.ntschischev and La.s.sinius succ.u.mbed to hards.h.i.+ps and sufferings during their voyages in the Polar Sea. Owzyn was degraded, among other things, because he used to be too intimate at Obdorsk with exiles formerly of distinction. A few years before the voyage of the _Vega_, Chelyuskin's trustworthiness was still doubted. All the accounts of discoveries of islands and land in the Polar Sea by persons connected with Siberia, have till the most recent times, been considered more or less fict.i.tious, yet they are clearly in the main true. ]

[Footnote 322: Wrangel, i. p. 46. ]

[Footnote 323: According to Wrangel (i., note at p. 38 and 48), probably after a quotation from p.r.o.ntschischev's journal. The Lena must be a splendid river, for it has since made the same powerful impression, as on the seamen of the Great Northern Expedition, on all others who have traversed its forest-crowned river channel. ]

[Footnote 324: These all perished "for want of fodder." This, however, is improbable. For, in 1878, we saw numerous traces of these animals as far to the northward as Cape Chelyuskin, and very fat reindeer were shot both in 1861 and 1873, on the Seven Islands, the northernmost of all the islands of the Old World, where vegetation is much poorer than in the regions now in question. ]

[Footnote 325: Wrangel, i. pp. 48 and 72. Of the journey round the northernmost point of Asia, Wrangel says--"Von der Tajmur-Mundung bis an das Kap des heiligen Faddej konnte die Kuste nicht beschifft werden, und die Aufnahme, die der Steuermann Tschemokssin (Chelyuskin) auf dem Eise in Narten vornahm, ist so oberflachlich und unbestimmt, da.s.s die eigentliche Lage des nordostlichen oder Tajmur-Kaps, welches die nordlichste Spitse Asiens ausmacht, noch gar nicht ausgemittelt ist." ]

[Footnote 326: Wrangel, i, p. 62. I have sketched the voyages between the White Sea and the Kolyma, princ.i.p.ally after Engelhardt's German translation of Wrangel's Travels. It is, unfortunately, in many respects defective and confused, especially with respect to the sketch of Chariton Laptev and his followers, sledge journeys, undertaken in order to survey the coast between the Chatanga and the Pjasina. Muller mentions these journeys only in pa.s.sing. Wrangel gives as sources for his sketch (i. note at p. 38) _Memoirs of the Russian Admiralty_, also the original journals of the journeys.

Chelyuskin he calls Chemokssin. ]

[Footnote 327: In this account of Behring's and Chirikov's voyages, I have followed Muller (iii. pp. 187-268). More complete original accounts of Behring's voyage are quoted further on in the sketch of our visit to Behring Island. ]

[Footnote 328: Muller, iii. p. 164. ]

[Footnote 329: It deserves to be noted as a literary curiosity that the famous French _savant_ and geographer, Vivien do Saint Martin, in his work, _Histoire de la Geographie et des Decouvertes geographiques_, Paris, 1873, does not say a single word regarding all those expeditions which form an epoch in our knowledge of the Old World. ]

[Footnote 330: An account of Schalaurov is given by c.o.xE (_Russian Discoveries_, &c., 1780, p. 323) and Wrangel (i. p. 73). That the hut seen by Matiuschkin actually belonged to Schalaurov appears to me highly improbable, for the traditions of the Siberian savages seldom extend sixty years back. ]

[Footnote 331: Wrangel, i. p. 79. ]

[Footnote 332: Sauer, _An Account, &c._, Appendix, p. 48. ]

[Footnote 333: Sauer, _loc. cit._ p. 103, according to an oral communication by Ljachoff's follower Protodiakonov. ]

[Footnote 334: Compare Wrangel, i. p. 98. ]

[Footnote 335: Matthias Hedenstrom, Aulic Councillor, whose name indicates that he was of Swedish birth, died at the village Hajdukovo, seven versts from Tomsk, on the 2nd October (20th September), 1845, at the age of sixty-five. Biographical notes regarding Hedenstrom are to be found in the Calendar for the Irkutsh government for the year 1865, pp. 57-60; I have not, however, succeeded in procuring this work, or in finding any other notices of Hedenstrom's birthplace and life. ]

[Footnote 336: A very remarkable geological fact is the number of tree-stems in all stages of decay and petrifaction, which are embedded in the rocks and earthy strata of Siberia, having their origin all along from the Jura.s.sic age till now. It appears as if Siberia, during the whole of this immense period of time, has not been subjected to any great changes in a purely geographical respect, whereas in Europe there have been innumerable alternations of sea and land, and alps have been formed and disappeared. The Siberians call the tree-stems found on the _tundra_ far from the sea and rivers _Adam's wood_, to distinguish them from more recent sub fossil trees, which they call _Noah's wood_. ]

[Footnote 337: The first European who visited the part of America lying right opposite to Asia was Schestakov's companion, the surveyor Gvosdev. He crossed Behring's Straits to the American side as early as 1730 (_Muller_, iii. p. 131), and therefore ought properly to be considered as the discoverer of this sound. The north-westernmost part of America, Behring's Straits and the islands situated in it, are besides shown in Strahlenberg's map, which was made at least a decade before Gvosdev's voyage. There north-western America is delineated as a large island, inhabited by a tribe, the _Pucho-chotski_, who lived in a constant state of warfare with the _Giuchieghi_, who inhabited the islands in the sound. Wrangel Land is also shown in this remarkable map. In 1767, eleven years before Cook's voyage in the Polar Sea, the American side of Behring's Straits was also visited by Lieut. SYND with a Russian expedition, that started from Okotsk in 1764. In the short account of the voyage which is to be found in William c.o.xe's, _Account of the Russian Discoveries, &c._, London, 1780, p. 300, it is said expressly that Synd considered the coast on which he landed to belong to America.

On Synd's map, published by c.o.xe, the north part of the Behring Sea is enriched with a number of fict.i.tious islands (St. Agaphonis, St.

Myronis, St. t.i.ti, St. Samuels, and St. Andreae). As Synd, according to Sarytchev in the work quoted below, p. 11, made the voyage in a boat, it is probable that by these names islands were indicated which lay quite close to the coast and were not so far from land as shown in the map, besides, the mountain-summits on St. Lawrence Island, which are separated by extensive low lands, may perhaps have been taken for separate islands. ]

[Footnote 338: Billings' voyage is described in Martin Sauer's _Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Asia, &c., by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, and Gavrila Sarychev's _Achtjahrige Reise im nordlichen Siberien, auf dem Eismeere und dem nordostlichen Ocean. Aus dem Russischen ubersetzt von J.H. Busse_, Leipzig, 1805-1806. As interesting to our Swedish readers it may be mentioned that the Russian hunter Prybilov informed Sauer that a Swedish brigantine, _Merkur_, coppered, carrying sixteen cannon, commanded by J.H.

c.o.xe, in 1788, cruised in the Behring Sea in order to destroy the Russian settlements there. They however, according to Prybilov's statement to Sauer, "did no damage, because they saw that we had nothing worth taking away. They instead gave us gifts, because they were ashamed to offer violence to such poor fellows as we" (Sauer, p. 213). ]

[Footnote 339: Otto von Kotzebue, _Entdeckungs-Reise in die Sud-See und nach der Behrings Stra.s.se_, Weimar, 1821 (Part III., Contributions in Natural History, by Adelbert von Chamisso)--Louis Choris, _Voyage pittoresque autour du monde_, Paris, 1822.

Frederik Lutke, _Voyage autour du monde_, Paris, 1835-36.--F.H. von Kittlitz, _Denkuurdigkeiten einer Reise nach dem russischen Amerika, nach Mikronesien und durch Kamtschatka_, Gotha, 1858.

Kellet, _Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald,"_ 1845-51, London, 1853 (Discovery of Herald Island and the east coast of Wrangel Land).