Murder of Wagin and Permakoff.

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an officer named Motora, had come overland from the Kolima to the Anadir; and, on the two parties meeting, they joined in an expedition in quest of the river Penschinska, which flows into the Gulf of Ochotsk. They turned back, however, without having attained their object, and all wintered on the Anadir. In the following spring, Motora was killed in an affray with the Anauli, and Deshneff's party built boats, in which they contrived to reach the Kolima.

No further expeditions were undertaken until 1711, when Jacob Permakoff, a Cossack, having reported that he had seen land to the northward from the Sviatoi Nos, the governor of Yakutsk despatched a party of Cossacks, under an officer named Wagin, with Permakoff as guide, to make discoveries in that direction. The expedition left Yakutsk in the autumn, wintered near the mouth of the Yana, and in the following May committed themselves upon the frozen sea in sledges drawn by dogs. Coasting the Bay of Yana in a north-easterly direction, they reached the Sviatoi Nos, and crossing the ice to the northward, discovered an uninhabited island, without a single tree. This was the island now called Linghov, from which another was dimly discernible northward; but, as their supply of provisions was nearly exhausted, they returned to the coast. Wagin's resolution to winter there again, and renew the search in the spring, created discontent among the Cossacks, and a mutiny ensued, which resulted in the murder of Wagin, Permakoff, and a Cossack who defended them. The mutineers returned to Yakutsk, where they gave a false report of what had taken place, to save themselves from punishment; but one of them afterwards confessed the crime, upon which they were all arrested and imprisoned.

In order to verify the report of this discovery of the Likahoff Islands, as they are now called. Alexis Markoff left the coast in

March, 1715, with a sledge party, and according to his report, travelled due north for seven days over the frozen sea, with as much speed as dogs could make, but saw no islands; and, seeing the ice rise like chains of mountains before him, returned to the coast. As the islands are certainly there, he must have miscalculated their bearings, and got far to the westward of them; but his report caused their existence to be doubted for some years afterwards.

The next discovery was that of the Bear Islands. Ivan Willegin and Gregory Sankin reported that, in the autumn of 1720, they had travelled northward over the ice, and reached a land that was visible from the main in clear weather, but had been prevented by a thick fog from exploring it. It was destitute of trees and human inhabitants, but they saw some decayed and deserted huts. In order to ascertain the correctness of this report, a Russian officer, named Amossoff, sailed from the Kolima in July, 1724, but found the navigation so much impeded by ice as to be impracticable. He returned to the Kolima, therefore, and on the 3rd of November renewed the search with sledges, in which his party coasted westward for half the distance between the Kolima and the Alaseia, and then turned northward. They found the ice very uneven; but at the end of a day's journey they reached an island, upon which were the huts described by Willegin and Sankin, and some reindeer feeding upon moss. The island was rocky and mountainous, and, from an elevation to which they ascended, they saw two other mountainous islands across a narrow strait. They then recrossed the ice, and returned to the Kolima, which they reached on the 23rd.

Though Deshneff's report had been nearly three quarters of a century among the records of the Russian Admiralty, it had either become forgotten, or its accuracy was thought doubtful,

Behring in Behring Strait.

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when the Czar Peter I. despatched two vessels from Archangel, to ascertain whether Asia and America were united or separate. One of them was lost, and the other was so seriously crippled by contact with icebergs that she could not continue the voyage. The enterprise was renewed by Vitus Behring, a Dane in the naval service of Russia, who received instructions from Peter a few days before the latter died. He travelled overland from St. Petersburg to Ochotsk, and sailed from the latter port on the 14th of July, 1728. Having rounded Cape Lopatka, he steered northward, and crossed the Arctic Circle on the 15th of August; but he did not proceed much farther.

"We could discern no land to the northward," he says, "neither towards the east; and, if we had sailed farther, and had afterwards met contrary winds, it would have been impossible to have returned to Kamchatka, and it would have been hazarding too much to have passed the winter in a country where there is no wood, and in the midst of a people who are under no subjection or rule. From the entrance of the river of Kamchatka to the point where we turned back, we remarked that the coast was elevated and precipitous, and backed by a long chain of mountains, which, summer and winter, are covered with snow." It is to be observed that Behring did not, during this voyage, see the coast of America, and did not even know that he was sailing through a strait, and that he inferred the separation of the two continents from seeing the coast of Asia trending westward.

In 1734, the Russian Government fitted out three expeditions to survey the whole of the coast, from Archangel to the East Cape of Kamchatka. One, consisting of two vessels, was to sail from Archangel, and survey the coast eastward to the Obi; another was to examine the coast between the Obi and the Yennissei; and the third, to sail from the Lena, consisted of

two vessels, one of which was to sail westward to the Yennissei, and the other eastward to the strait discovered by Deshmeff. No new discoveries were made by these expeditions, the history of which is a record of impediments from ice and fog, shipwrecks, wintering in rivers, changes of commanders, and overland journeys to St. Petersburg. The Government refused to consider the navigation impracticable, and in 1739 sent out another expedition under Lieutenant Lapteff, who, by dauntless perseverance during four successive voyages, at last succeeded in working to the eastward of the Kolima; but fields of ice, extending far northward, there presented an insurmountable barrier to his farther progress.

On

Behring completed his explorations in 1741. He sailed from Ochotsk, with two vessels, in the autumn of the preceding year, wintered in the Bay of Awatchka, and on the 4th of June steered to the eastward to discover the coast of America. the 20th the vessels separated, and, after cruising about for some days in the hope of joining company again, Behring sailed to the eastward alone; and, on the 15th of July, reached the American coast. Three days afterwards his vessel was wrecked on a small island, where he miserably perished, and only a few of his crew survived to return to Kamchatka, and relate the sad story of his fate.

Twenty years afterwards, an expedition to the Bear Islands was undertaken by Schalaroff, a merchant of Yakutsk, who sailed from the Lena in the summer of 1760, and overcoming the obstacles presented by the ice, reached the Yana, and there wintered. In the following July he doubled the Sviatoi Nos, and succeeded in reaching the Bear Islands, but was there beset by icebergs, from which he extricated his vessel with much difficulty, and wintered in the Kolima. On the 21st of July, 1762, he sailed again, in the hope of making discoveries

Fate of Schalaroff and his men.

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to the eastward, but met with much obstruction from ice, by which his vessel was completely beset in the middle of August. It broke up in a few days, however, and he sailed round the northern side of Sabedi Island, and entered the Gulf of Tchaon, with the intention of wintering there. Two rivulets flow into the gulf, but not a tree was visible, and no drift-wood could be found upon its dreary shores. In this extremity, the hardy mariners moored their vessel to an iceberg, and drifted with it to the south-west. High land was seen, far to the north-east, two days after they left the gulf; and must have been the land seen by Wrangell more than half a century afterwards.

The Kolima was reached in safety, and from that river the adventurers sailed, in the following summer, to the Lena, whence they again set out in 1764-never to return. The vessel, abandoned by the crew, was found drifting near the mouth of the Kolima in the autumn of that year, and the unfortunate Schalaroff and his crew were afterwards found, frozen in their tents, on the desolate coast, seventy miles east of Cape Schelagkoi, where they had perished from starvation.

Coincidently with this melancholy discovery, Sergeant Andrejeff reported to the Governor of Yakutsk that, being on the outermost of the Medviedskie Islands, he had seen land at a very great distance seaward, towards which he and others had proceeded in sledges, attaining to within twenty wersts of what appeared to be a large island, and there discovering fresh tracks of a great number of persons, who had been that way in deersledges. Thereupon, being a much smaller party, and not knowing who the strangers might be, they returned to the Kolima. In order to verify this report, the Governor of Yakutsk despatched a sledge party from the mouth of the Krestova;, but they reported, on their return, that they had not seen the island, and Andrejeff's story was discredited.