236
THE WEST. SHORE.
Peter. Behring steered a southeasterly course for many
days, and at last reached latitude 40 degrees without
having encountered land This is the latitude of the
Columbia River, but how near the coast of America he
approached at that point is not recorded. The mysteries
of longitude seem to have been beyond the penetration
of the explorers of those days. Captain Cook, nearly
fifty years later, is the first explorer who seems to have
understood the necessity of locating an object by its
longitude as well as its distance from the equator.
Bohring then turned his prow to the northeast and con
tinued his voyage until he had ascended to the sixtieth
degree, where ho discovered land, the first thing to meet
his gaze being a giant snow-crowned peak. This he
named "Mount St Elias," in honor of the Baint whose
name appeared in the Russian calendar as patron of the
18th of July, the date of the discovery. The St. Peter
sailed into a passage leading between the mainland and a
largo island, when Behring observed that the water was
discolored, as though it had been discharged from a large
river, the volume indicating the stream to be the water
drain of a laud of continental proportions. That this
was America no one on lxmrd doubted. The subordinate
officers desired to explore, the coast southward in the
direction of tho Spanish colonies, but Behring, who was
in ill health, refused to do so, and started upon the
return voyage. They made but slow progress among
the islands lying to tho southwest of the peninsula of
Alaska, and finally, being driven by a severe storm far
to the southward, the vessel wandered aimlessly about
for two months, tho sport of tho winds and ocean cur
rents. Horrible were tho sufferings of the crew. Scurvy
in its most ghastly form preyed upon them unchecked.
Famine and disease went hand in hand. The surgeon's
journal Bays: "The general distress and mortality in
creased so fast that not only the sick died, but those who
pretended to lw healthy when relieved from their jjosts
fainted and fell dowu dead; of which tho scantiness of
water, the want of biftcuits and brandy, cold, wet, naked
ness, vermiu and terror were not tho least causes." At
last these horrors enmo to an end On the 5th of Novem
ber thoy sighted a mall inland lying betweon the Aleu
tian Archiis'lago and Kamtelmtka, and running the vessel
close in they all landed with tho purpose of spending the
winter. The island was a small, rocky sck on the
bosom of the sea, consisting of few i,ftrrpn grnnito .g
thrust up from the water, whose ides were continually
lash.nl by a heavy surf, and u1H.n which the waves fori
ously dashed when Hterms swept across the surface of
the ow,n. ' Here they lived upon the flesh of fur-lswinir
animals which abound! in the water and upon the fish
they were able to oateh. Their house was constructed of
tho Umbers of their vessel, which was wrecked uih.ii the
rooky coast .daring a gale imnuHliately after they disem
baikwUnd whose broken pieces were cashed u , bv the
surL Iheir sufferings did not end with their removal to
this new alnxk Disease had taken teo firm a aTl,
upon that afflicted crew. Bohring di.nl ,m the Sth I
lKmlr, and Injure spring thirty of his followers also
found a grave on those water-bound rocks. The skins of
slaughtered animals served them for both clothes and
bedding. Had this island been located at the same alti
tude in the Atlantic Ocean not one of these enfeebled
men could have survived the rigors of winter. Here the
great ocean river known as the Japan current imparts its
general warmth to the islands of the Aleutian Archipel
ago, and fringes the icy peaks and glaciers of Alaska
with a coast line of verdure. Owing to this great modi
fying element, even floating ice from the frozen Arctic is
not seen in Behring's Sea, though on the Atlantic side
the ocean is rendered unsafe by floes and icebergs at a
much lower latitude. Upon the return of spring the
survivors constructed a small vessel from the wreck of
the St. Peter, and when that long task was finished em
barked and sailed directly westward, reaching the Bay of
Avatscha in August That bleak island which had been
their winter home, and where were the graves of their
commander and many of their comrades, they christened
" Behring's Isle," and as such it is known to the present
day.
Twenty years elapsed before another official explora
tion was made, and half a century passed ere the full
account of this fatal one was published to the world
Accompanying Behring on the St. Peter was a German
surgeon and scientist named Steller, and his journal,
which was not published until 1795, long after the Alas
kan coast had been thoroughly explored by Spanish,
Russian, English and American navigators, is the only
record preserved of the adventures and terrible sufferings
endured by the discoverers of Alaska. The general feat
ures of the voyage, however, were well known in Europe
soon after its termination. The skins which the survi
vors wore when they returned to Avatscha were found to
bo exceedingly valuable (probably seal and sea otter), and
several private expeditions were fitted out by Russian
traders to visit the islands to the eastward in search of
furs. In this way the fur trade of the Pacific began, and
before the Government was prepared for another expedi
tion this trade had reached considerable proportions.
For years the furs were conveyed to Pekin and St
Petersburg overland on sledges, China being then, as to
day, the greatest fur market in the world Not until
1771 was a cargo taken directly by sea to Canton, and not
until then was it known that the Bay of Avatscha and the
Chinese Sea were connected by water. For the first
time was realized the immense magnitude of the Pacific
that the same waters which beat upon Behring's Isle
washed the shores of the thousand islands of the South
Sea, gazed up at the frowning rocks of Cape Horn, and
bore the- Spanish galleons on their long voyage from
Acapulco to the Indies. This innovation was not by any
means the result of Russian enterprise. A few of the
patriotic defenders of Poland, who had been exiled to
SnVria by the Russian czar, made their escape in a small
vessel from a iort on the southwest coast of Kamtelmtka,
under the leadership of a Hungarian exile, Count Maurice
do Benyowsky. After much aimless wandering among
the Aleutian Islands, where thej- procured from the