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[1741.

tive order to join the ship, I returned with my collection.'

Having put to sea next day, the 21st of July, they found it impossible, according to their original intention, to explore the coast as far as 65° north latitude, as it seemed to extend indefinitely to the south-west. It was studded with many small islands, the navigation through which, especially during the night, was dangerous and tedious. On the 30th of July they discovered, in latitude 56°, an island, which they called Tumannoi Ostrog, or Foggy Island; and soon after the scurvy broke out with the most virulent symptoms in the ship's crew: so that, in hopes of procuring water, they again ran to the north, and soon discovered the continent, with a large group of islands near the shore, between which they came to anchor. These they called the Schumagins, after the name of one of their men who died there. Whilst at this anchorage the weather became boisterous, and some brackish water procured from one of the largest islands increased the virulence of the disease, which prevailed to an alarming degree. All attempts to put to sea proved for some days unsuccessful, owing to the strong contrary winds; and at length one morning they were roused by a loud cry from one of the islands, upon which they saw a fire burning. Soon after, two Americans rowed towards the ship in their canoes, which in shape resembled those of Greenland and Davis' Strait. They stopped, however, at some distance, and it was discovered that they not only understood the language of the Calumet, or Pipe of Peace, employed by the North American Indians, but had these symbolical instruments along with them. They were sticks with hawks' wings attached to one end. It was at first impossible to induce the natives to come on

* Coxe's Russian Discoveries, pp. 40, 41.

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board; and Behring, anxious to establish a communication, and to become acquainted with the country, despatched Lieutenant Waxel in the boat, with nine men well armed, amongst whom was a Tschuktschian or Koriak interpreter. It was found, however, that the savages were utterly ignorant of his language; and Waxel having sent some men on shore, who fastened the boat by a long rope passed round a rock on the beach, commenced a friendly intercourse by means of signs. The Americans were disposed to be on the most amicable terms with their new acquaintances, giving them whales' flesh, the only provision they appeared to possess; and at last one of them so far overcame his fears as to join the Russian lieutenant in the boat, which still lay a little way from the shore. Anxious to conciliate his favour and treat him with distinction, Waxel somewhat thoughtlessly presented him with a cup of brandy; but the effect proved the reverse of what was expected. He made the most ludicrous wry faces, spit violently out of his mouth all that he had not swallowed, and cried aloud to his companions on the shore, complaining of the treatment he had experienced. "Our men," says Mr. Steller in his journal, "thought the Americans had sailors' stomachs, and endeavoured to remove his disgust by presenting him with a lighted pipe of tobacco, which he accepted; but he was equally disgusted with his attempt to smoke. The most civilized European would be affected in the same manner if presented with toad-stool, or rotten fish and willow bark, which are delicacies with the Kamtschadales." It was evident he had never tasted ardent spirits or smoked tobacco till this moment; and although every effort was made to soothe him and restore his confidence, by offering him needles, glass beads, an iron kettle, and other gifts, he would accept of nothing, and made the most eager and imploring signs to be set on shore. In this it was judged right to gratify

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[1741. him, and Waxel, at the same time, called out to the sailors who were on the beach to come back; the Americans made a violent attempt to detain them, but two blunderbusses were fired over their heads, and had the effect of making them fall flat on the ground, whilst the Russians escaped and rejoined their companions.

This adventure gave them an opportunity of examining this new people, now for the first time visited by Europeans. "The islanders were of moderate stature, but tolerably well proportioned; their arms and legs very fleshy. Their hair was straight, and of a glossy blackness; their faces brown and flat, but neither broad nor large; their eyes were black, and their lips thick and turned upwards; their necks were short, their shoulders broad, and their bodies thick, but not corpulent. Their upper garment was made of whales' intestines, their breeches of seals' skins, and their caps formed out of the hide of sea-lions, adorned with feathers of various birds, especially the hawk. Their nostrils were stopped with grass, and their noses as flat as Calmucks'; their faces painted, some with red, others with different colours; and some of them, instead of caps, wore hats of bark, coloured green and red, open at the top, and shaped like candle-screens, apparently for protecting the eyes against the rays of the sun. These hats might lead us to suppose that the natives of this part of America are of Asiatic descent; for the Kamtschadales and Koriaks wear the like, of which several specimens may be seen in the Museum at St. Petersburg."*

At this time, Behring being confined by severe sickness, the chief command fell on Waxel, who was preparing to sail, when seven Americans came in their boats to the ship's side, and two of them, catching hold of the entrance

* Coxe's Russian Discoveries, p. 63.

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ladder, presented their bonnets, and a carved image of bone, bearing some resemblance to a human figure. They likewise held up the calumet, and would have come aboard, but the sailors were taking up the anchor, and the breeze freshening, they were under the necessity of making towards the shore as quickly as possible. There was time, however, to give a few presents, and as the ship passed by the point where they stood, she was saluted with loud and friendly shouts.

*

They had now to struggle against a tedious continuance of westerly winds, accompanied with thick fogs, which rendered the navigation in these unknown seas perilous in the extreme. On the 24th of September the mist cleared away, and disclosed a high and desolate coast, which a strong south wind made it dangerous to approach. The majority of the crew were by this time disabled by the scurvy, and the rest so weak, that to manage the vessel during the tempestuous weather was almost impossible. A violent gale soon after began to blow from the west, which gradually increased, and drove the ship far to the south-east. The storm continued for seventeen days—a fact to which there are few parallels in the history of shipwrecks; and the pilot, Andrew Hesselberg, who had served for fifty years in several parts of the world, declared he had never witnessed so long and terrible a gale. Meanwhile they carried as little sail as possible, and were driven for a fortnight at the mercy of the wind, under a sky as black as midnight, so that all the time they saw neither sun nor stars. When the storm abated, they found themselves, by the ship's reckoning, in 48° 18′′ north latitude. Steller, in his journal, draws a striking picture of their extreme misery:"The general distress and mortality," says he,

* Burney's North-Eastern Voyages of Discovery, p. 170.

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"increased so fast, that not only the sick died, but those who still struggled to be numbered on the healthy list, when relieved from their posts, fainted and fell down dead, of which the scantiness of water, the want of biscuits and brandy, cold, wet, nakedness, vermin, fear, and terror, were not the least causes.' In these circumstances, it became difficult to determine whether they should return to Kamtschatka or seek a harbour on the nearest American coast. At last, in a council of officers, they embraced the first of these alternatives, and again sailed north, after which they steered towards the west.

On the 29th of October they approached two islands resembling the two first of the Kurilian group. The longwished-for coast of Kamtschatka, however, did not appear, and the condition of the vessel and crew began to be deplorable. The men, notwithstanding their diseased state and want of proper food, were obliged to work in the cold; and as the continual rains had now changed into hail and snow, and the nights shortened and grew darker, their sufferings were extreme. The commodore himself had been for some time totally disabled by disease from taking an active command, his wonted energy and strength of mind left him, and he became childishly suspicious and indolent. Amongst the seamen the sickness was so dreadful, that the two sailors whose berth used to be at the rudder, were led to it by others, who themselves could walk with difficulty. When one could steer no longer, another equally feeble was supported to his place. Many sails they durst not hoist, because no one was strong enough to lower them in case of need, whilst some of the sheets were so thin and rotten, that a violent wind would have torn them to pieces. The rest of this interesting but

*Coxe's Russian Discoveries, p. 65.