set sail in company "to discover the continent of America." One of these, called the St. Paul, was under Commodore Behring; the other, called the St. Peter, was under Captain Tschirikow. For some time the two kept together; but in a violent storm and fog they were separated, when each continued the expedition alone.

The

Such was the first discovery of these northwestern coasts; and such are the first recorded glimpses of the aboriginal inhabitants. two navigators had different fortunes. Tschirikow, deprived of his boats, and therefore unable to land, hurried home. Adverse winds and storms interfered. He supplied himself with fresh water only by distilling the ocean or pressing rain from the sails. But at last on the 9th October he reached Kamtschatka, with his ship's company of seventy diminished to forty-nine. During this time Behring was driven, like Ulysses, on the uncertain waves. A single tempest raged for seventeen days, so that Andrew Hosselberg, the ancient pilot, who had known the sea for fifty years, declared that he had seen nothing like it in his life. Scurvy came with its disheartening horrors. commodore himself was a sufferer. Rigging broke. Cables snapped. Anchors were lost. At last the tempest-tossed vessel was cast upon a desert island, then without a name, where the commodore, sheltered in a ditch and half-covered with sand as a protection against cold, died 8th December, 1741. His body after his decease was "scraped out of the ground" and buried on this island, which is called by his name, and constitutes an outpost of the Asiatic continent. Thus the Russian navigator, after the discovery of America, died in Asia. Russia, by the recent demarcation, does not fail to retain his last resting-place among her possessions.

TITLE OF RUSSIA.

The

Behring first saw the continent of North America on 18th July, 1741, in latitude 58° 28′. Looking at it from a distance "the country had terrible high mountains that were covered with snow." Two days later he anchored in a sheltered bay near a point which he called from the saint day on which he saw it, Cape St. Elias. He was in the shadow of Mount St. Elias. On landing he found deserted huts, fire-places, hewn wood, household furniture, an arrow, edge-tools of copper with "store of red salmon." Here also several birds unknown in Siberia were noticed by the faithful Steller, among which was the blue jay, of a peculiar species, now called by his name. Steering northward, Behring found himself constrained by the elbow in the coast to turn westward, and then in a southerly direction. Hugging the shore, his voyage was constantly arrested by islands without number, among which he zigzagged to find his way. Several times he landed. On one of these occasions|| he saw natives, who wore upper garments of whale's guts, breeches of seal-skins, caps of the skins of sea lions, adorned with various feathers, especially those of hawks. These "Americans" as they are called were fishermen, without bows and arrows. They regaled the Russians with "whale's flesh," but declined strong drink. One of them, on receiving a cup of brandy, "spit it out again as soon as he tasted it and cried aloud, as if complaining to his countrymen how ill he had been used." This was on one of the Shumagin islands, near the southern coast of the peninsula of Alaska. Meanwhile, the other solitary ship, proceed-voyages all these islands were visited for simiing on its way, had sighted the same coast 15th July, 1741, in the latitude of 56°. Anchoring at some distance from the steep and rocky cliffs before him, Tschirikow sent his mate with the long boat and ten of his best men, provided with small-arms and a brass cannon, to inquire into the nature of the country and to obtain fresh water. The long boat disappeared in a small wooded bay, and was never seen again. Thinking it might have been damaged in landing the captain sent his boatswain with the small boat and carpenters well armed to fur-Behring and Tschirikow, were verified by the nish necessary assistance. The small boat disappeared also, and was never seen again. At || the same time great smoke was observed continually ascending from the shore. Shortly afterwards two boats filled with natives sallied forth and lay at some distance from the vessel, when, crying "Agai, Agai," they put back to the shore. Sorrowfully the Russian navigator turned away, not knowing the fate of his comrades and unable to help them. This was not far from Sitka.

For some time after these expeditions, by which Russia achieved the palm of discovery, imperial enterprise slumbered in those seas. The knowledge already acquired was continued and confirmed only by private individuals, who were led there in quest of furs. In 1745 the Aleutian islands were discovered by an adventurer in search of sea otters. In successive

lar purposes. Among these was Ounalaska, the principal of the group of Fox islands, constituting a continuation of the Aleutian islands, whose inhabitants and productions were minutely described. In 1768 private enterprise was superseded by an expedition ordered by the Empress Catharine, which, leaving Kamtschatka, explored this whole archipelago and the peninsula of Alaska, which to the islanders stood for the whole continent. Shortly afterwards all these discoveries, beginning with those of

great English navigator, Captain Cook. In 1778 he sailed along the northwestern coast,

near where Tschirikow anchored in 1741;" then again in sight of mountains "wholly covered with snow from the highest summit down to the sea-coast," "with the summit of an elevated mountain above the horizon," which he supposed to be the Mount St. Elias of Behring; then by the very anchorage of Behring; then among the islands through which Behring zigzagged, and along the toast by the island

of St. Lawrence until arrested by ice. If any doubt existed with regard to Russian discoveries it was removed by the authentic report of this navigator, who shed such a flood of light upon the geography of this region.

Such from the beginning is the title of Russia, dating at least from 1741. The coast of British Columbia, next below, was discovered by Vancouver in 1790, and that of Oregon, still further down, by Gray, who, sailing from Boston in 1789, entered the Columbia river in 1790; so that the title of Russia is the earliest on the northwestern coast. I have not stopped to quote volume and page, but I beg to be understood as following approved authorities, and I refer especially to the Russian work of Müller, already cited, on the Voyages from Asia to America; the volume of Coxe on Russian Discoveries with its supplement on the Comparative View of Russian Discoveries; the volume of Sir John Barrow, on Arctic Voyages; Burney's Russian and Northeastern Voyages; and the third voyage of Captain Cook, unhappily interrupted by his tragical death from the natives of the Sandwich islands, but not until after his exploration of this coast.

far as the Frozen ocean. There remains the enterprise of Lütke, at the time captain, and afterward admiral in the Russian navy, which was a voyage round the world, embracing especially the Russian possessions, commenced in 1826, and described in French with instructive fullness. With him sailed the German naturalist Kittlitz, who has done so much to illustrate the natural history of this region.

A FRENCH ASPIRATION ON THIS COAST.

So little was the Russian title recognized for some time, that when the unfortunate expedition of La Pérouse, with the frigates Boussole and Astrolabe, stopped on this coast in 1787, he did not hesitate to consider the friendly harbor, in latitude 58° 36', where he was moored as open to permanent occupation. Describing this harbor, which he named Port des Francais, as sheltered behind a breakwater of rocks, with a calm sea and with a mouth sufficiently large, he says that nature seemed to have created at this extremity of the world a port like that of Toulon but vaster in plan and accommodation; and then considering that it had never been discovered before, that it was situated thirty-three leagues northwest of Remedios, the limit of Spanish navigation, about two hundred and eighty-four leagues from Nootka and a hundred leagues from Prince William sound, the mariner records his judg ment that "if the French Government had any project of a factory on this coast no nation could have the slightest right to oppose it." (La Pérouse, Voyage, Tom. 2, p. 147.) Thus quietly was Russia dislodged. The frigates sailed further on their voyage and never returned to France. Their fate was unknown, until after fruitless search and the lapse of a generation their shipwrecked hulls were accidentally found on a desert island of the southern Pacific. The unfinished journal of La Pérouse recording his visit to this coast had been sent overland, by way of Kamtschatka and Siberia, to France, where it was published by a decree of the National Assembly, thus making known his supposed discovery and his aspiration.

There were at least four other Russian expeditions by which this title was confirmed, if it needed any confirmation. The first was ordered by the Empress Catharine in 1785. It was under the command of Commodore Billings, an Englishman in the service of Russia, and was narrated from the original papers by Martın Sauer, secretary of the expedition. In the instructions from the Admiralty at St. Petersburg the Commodore was directed to take possession of "such coasts and islands as he shall first discover, whether inhabited or not, that cannot be disputed, and are not yet subject to any European Power, with consent of the inhabitants, if any," and this was to be accomplished by setting up "posts marked with the arms of Russia, with letters indicating the time of sovereignty, a short account of the people, their voluntary submission to the Russian sovereignty, and that this was done under the glorious reign of the great Catharine the Second." (Billings's Northern Russia, Appendix.) The next was in 1803, in the interest of the Russian American Company. There were two ships, one under the command of Captain Lisiansky, and the other of Captain || Krusenstern, of the Russian navy. It was the first voyage round the world by the Russian Government, and lasted three years. During its progress these ships visited separately the northwest coast of America, and especially Sitka and the island of Kodiak. Still another enterprise organized by the celebrated minister Count Romanzoff, and at his expense, left Russia in 1815, under the command of Lieu-ginal title as discoverer of the straits between tenant Kotzebue, an officer of the Russian navy, and son of the German dramatist, whose assassination darkened the return of the son from his long voyage. It is enough for the present to say of this expedition that it has left its honorable traces on the coast even as

EARLY SPANISH CLAIM.

Spain also has been a claimant. In 1775 Bodega, a Spanish navigator, seeking new opportunities to plant the Spanish flag, reached the parallel of 58° on this coast, not far from Sitka; but this supposed discovery was not followed by any immediate assertion of dominion. The universal aspiration of Spain had embraced this whole region even at an early day, and shortly after the return of Bodega another enterprise was equipped to verify the larger claim, being nothing less than the ori

This

America and Asia and of the conterminous continent under the name of Anian. curious episode is not out of place in this brief history. It has two branches: one concerning early maps on which straits are represented between America and Asia under the name of

Anian; the other concerning a pretended attempt by a Spanish navigator at an early day to find these straits.

the inquiry, why does Russia part with possessions thus associated with the reign of her greatest emperor and filling an important chapThere can be no doubt that early maps exist ter of geographical history? On this head I with northwestern straits marked Anian. There have no information which is not open to others. are two in the Congressional Library in atlases But I do not forget that the first Napoleon in of the years 1717 and 1680; but these are of parting with Louisiana was controlled by three a date comparatively modern. Engel, in his several considerations: first, he needed the Mémoires Geographiques, mentions several purchase-money for his treasury; secondly, he earlier, which he believes to be genuine. There was unwilling to leave this distant unguarded is one purporting to be by Zaltieri, and bearing territory a prey to Great Britain in the event date 1566, an authentic pen-and-ink copy of of hostilities which seemed at hand; and thirdly, which is now before me from the collection of he was glad, according to his own remarkable our own Coast Survey. On this very interest- language, to establish forever the power of ing map, which is without latitude or longi- || the United States and give to England a maritude, the western coast of the continent is time rival destined to humble her pride." Such delineated with straits separating it from Asia is the record of history. Perhaps a similar not unlike Behring straits in outline, and with record may be made hereafter with regard to the name in Italian Stretto di Anian. South- the present cession. It is sometimes imagined ward the coast has a certain_conformity with that Russia, with all her great empire, is finanwhat is now known to exist. Below the straits cially poor, so that these few millions may is an indentation corresponding to Bristol bay; not be unimportant to her. It is by foreign then a peninsula somewhat broader than that loans that her railroads have been built and of Alaska; then comes the elbow of the coast; her wars have been aided. All, too, must then lower down three islands, not unlike see that in those "coming events," which now Sitka, Queen Charlotte, and Vancouver; and more than ever "cast their shadows_before," then, further south, is the peninsula of Lower it will be for her advantage not to hold outCalifornia. Sometimes the story of Anian is lying possessions from which thus far she has explained by the voyage of the Portuguese || obtained no income commensurate with the navigator Caspar de Cortereal in 1500-1505, | possible expense for their protection. Perhaps, when, on reaching Hudson bay in quest of a like a wrestler, she now strips for the conpassage round America, he imagined that he test, which I trust sincerely may be averted. had found it, and proceeded to name his dis- Besides I cannot doubt that her enlightened covery "in honor of two brothers who accom- emperor, who has given pledges to civilization panied him." Very soon maps began to re- by an unsurpassed act of Emancipation, would cord the straits of Anian; but this does not join the first Napoleon in a desire to enhance explain the substantial conformity of the early the maritime power of the United States. delineation with the reality, which seems truly remarkable.

The other branch of inquiry is more easily disposed of. This turns on a Spanish document entitled "Relation of the Discovery or the Strait of Anian, made by me Captain Lorenzo Ferren Maldonado," purporting to be written at the time, although it did not see the light till 1781, when it was published in Spain, and shortly afterward became the subject of a memoir before the French Academy. If this early account of a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific were authentic the whole question would be settled, but recent geographers indignantly discard it as a barefaced imposture. Clearly Spain once regarded it otherwise; for her Government in 1789 sent out an expedition "to discover the strait by which Maldonado was supposed to have passed in 1588 from the coast of Labrador to the Great Ocean." The expedition was not successful, and nothing more has been heard of any claim from this pretended discovery. The story of Maldonado has taken its place in the same category with that of Munchausen.

REASONS FOR THIS CESSION BY RUSSIA.

Turning from this question of title, which time and testimony have already settled, I meet

D

These general considerations are reënforced when we call to mind the little influence which Russia has thus far been able to exercise in this region. Though possessing dominion over it for more than a century this gigantic Power has not been more genial or productive there than the soil itself. Her government there is little more than a name or a shadow. It is not even a skeleton. It is hardly visible. Its only represenative is a fur company, to which has been added latterly an ice company. The immense country is without form and without_light; without activity and without progress. Distant from the imperial capital, and separated from the huge bulk of Russian empire, it does not share the vitality of a common country. Its life is solitary and feeble. Its settlements are only encampments or lodges. Its fisheries are only a petty perquisite, belonging to local or personal adventurers rather than to the commerce of nations.

In these statements I follow the record. So little were these possessions regarded during the last century that they were scarcely recognized as a component part of the empire. I have now before me an authentic map, published by the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg in 1776, and reproduced at London in 1787, entitled "General Map of the Russian