CHAPTER IX.
THE GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION ON ITS WAY THROUGH SIBERIA.—DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND OVERCOME.

In the early part of the year 1733, the expedition began to leave St. Petersburg by detachments. It consisted of the chief Vitus Bering (his Russian name was Ivan Ivanovich Bering), Captains Spangberg and Chirikoff, eight lieutenants, sixteen mates, twelve physicians, seven priests, skippers, stewards, various apprentices, ship-carpenters, other workmen, soldiers and sailors,—in all about five hundred and seventy men. Of these, three officers and one hundred and fifty-seven men—a number which was greatly increased in Siberia—were assigned duty in the Arctic expedition, the remainder in the Pacific expeditions. In this estimate, the Academists, constituting an expedition of thirty or forty men, are not considered. The list of names of those engaged in these expeditions throws interesting light on Russian social relations of that period. Over half of the officers, many mates, and all of the physicians were foreigners. The Senate sought to inspire the zeal of the officers by large increase of salary and promotion in rank and service after a successfully completed expedition, but the rank and file were to be forced to a performance of their duties by threats of cruel punishments and a continued stay in Siberia. It had been the intention to recruit the expedition through the voluntary service of Russians, but the native officers showed but little inclination in this direction, and it was found necessary to fill the vacancies by draft. Van Haven assures us that Bering's expedition was looked upon in St. Petersburg as a mild sort of banishment.

The necessary instruments and some provisions were obtained in St. Petersburg. The naval officers were supplied with quadrants, thermometers, and nocturnals, the surveyors with astrolabes and Gunter's-chains, and the Academists were authorized to take from the library of the Academy all the works they needed, and, at the expense of the crown, to purchase such as the library did not contain. La Croyère carried with him a whole magazine of instruments. For presents to the natives two thousand rubles were appropriated. In N. Novgorod and Kazan some other necessaries were obtained, but the enormous ship-supplies and provisions, besides men, horses, barges and other river boats, were to be provided by the Siberian towns and country districts.

The Siberian authorities received orders to make great preparations. They were to buy venison, fish, and cod liver oil, erect light-houses and magazines along the Arctic coast, and dispatch commissions with large transports to the Pacific coast, so as to enable Bering to begin his work of discovery without delay. These preparations were to be followed by efforts toward the founding of various works, such as iron and salt works at Okhotsk, a smaller furnace at Yakutsk for the use of the expedition, and, through the utilization of the saccharine qualities of the "bear's claw,"[53] a distillery was also to be established on the peninsula of Kamchatka. It is unnecessary to say that all of these propositions were buried in the Siberian government departments.

Calculations were made for a six years' expedition. The leaders of each branch of the expedition were authorized to repeat any unsuccessful adventure the succeeding summer. All were prepared for a long stay in the extreme northeast—many, indeed, remained there forever—hence, most of the officers, among them Bering and Spangberg, were accompanied by their wives and children. On this account the expedition seemed more than ever a national migration on a small scale.

The first start was made February 1, 1733. Spangberg, with some laborers and the heaviest marine stores, went directly to Okhotsk to expedite the ship-building on the Pacific coast. Lieutenant Ofzyn went to Kazan to collect supplies. Bering started out March 18, in order as quickly as possible to reach Tobolsk, whence the first Arctic expedition was to be sent out. In the course of the summer, the larger caravans arrived at this place. Simultaneously heavy supplies were brought in from West Siberia by Bering's men. Here, also, the construction of the vessel for the expedition, the shallop Tobol, was begun. Only the Academists were yet in St. Petersburg, where they were receiving the attention of the official world. At an audience, the Empress bade them farewell in the most solemn manner. She allowed them to kiss her hand, and assured them of her most gracious favor. On the succeeding day, the other members of the imperial family manifested similar sympathy. Then, however, the difficulties began. That these heavily-laden gentlemen could not even in St. Petersburg secure adequate means of transportation, makes quite a comical impression. On this account they were detained until late in August, and they would no doubt have been unable to reach Siberia in 1733, if Bering had not left for them in Tver a conveniently equipped vessel, which carried them the same autumn down the Volga to Kazan. They did not reach Tobolsk, however, until January, 1734. Bering, who was to be supplied by them with surveyors and instruments for his Arctic expedition, and who could not, before their arrival, form an estimate of the size of his river transports to be used in the spring, was obliged repeatedly and very forcibly to urge them to make haste. Here the disagreements began, and were continued concerning petty affairs, which history finds it unnecessary to dwell upon.

On May 2, 1734, the Tobol was launched amid the firing of cannon, the blare of trumpets, and the merry draining of goblets. The vessel had a keel of 70 feet, was 15 feet wide, and 7 feet deep. It carried two masts, some small cannon, and a crew of 56 men, among them first mate Sterlegoff and two cartographers, under the command of Lieut. Ofzyn. As the provincial government had secured neither magazines nor provisions, nor attended to any other preparations on the Arctic coast, the necessary supplies, which were to be stored north of Obdorsk, were loaded on four rafts, which, with a force of 30 men, accompanied Ofzyn. On May 14, he received his Admiralty instructions from Bering, and, saluted by cannon, the First Arctic Expedition stood up the Irtish for the Polar seas.

Five days later, Bering, with the main command and the Academists, left Tobolsk and took different routes for Yakutsk, which had been selected as the central point for the future enterprises of the expedition. In October, 1734, he arrived at this place, bringing with him a quantity of materials. The next spring, Chirikoff came with the greater part of the supplies, and during the year following, this dull Siberian city was the scene of no little activity. On his arrival, however, Bering found that no preparations whatever had been made for him. In spite of instructions and orders from the government, nothing had been done toward charting the Arctic coast or for the expediting of the heavily loaded transports on the way to Okhotsk. Nor did Bering find that the authorities were even kindly disposed toward him. Yet, in the course of the next six months, he had two large ships built for the Arctic expedition, and when his own supplies arrived by way of the central Siberian river-route, described in the first part of this work, these vessels, together with four barges, were equipped and furnished with provisions, and in June, 1735, were ready for a start. These two ships—the sloop Yakutsk, Lieut. Pronchisheff, first mate Chelyuskin, surveyor Chekin, and about fifty men, and the decked boat Irkutsk, Lieut. Peter Lassenius, with a surveyor, first mate, and also about fifty men—had most difficult tasks to accomplish. The former was to cruise from the mouth of the Lena, along the whole coast of the Taimyr peninsula, and enter the mouth of the Yenisei. The latter was to follow the Arctic coast in an easterly direction to the Bering peninsula, cruise along its coast, and ascertain the relative positions of Asia and America, and, if it was a geographical possibility, to sail down to the peninsula of Kamchatka. He also had instructions to find the islands off the mouth of the Kolyma (the Bear Islands). From this it is evident that Lassenius's expedition was of the greater geographical interest. Moreover, it had to do with one of the main questions of Bering's whole activity—the discovery and charting of the North Pacific—and hence it is not a mere accident that Bering selected for this expedition one of his own countrymen, or that he assigned the charting of northeastern Asia and the discovery of America and Japan, to chiefs of Danish birth, Lassenius and Spangberg. Nothing is known of the earlier life of Lassenius. In service he was the oldest of Bering's lieutenants. Shortly before the departure of the expedition, he was taken into the Russian fleet, and Gmelin says of him, that he was an able and experienced naval officer, volunteered his services to the expedition, and began his work with intrepidity. All attempts to trace his birth and family relations have proved fruitless.

On the 30th of June, 1735, both expeditions left Yakutsk, and thus the charting of the whole of the Arctic coast of Siberia was planned and inaugurated by Bering himself. He could now apply all his energies to the Pacific expeditions. He constructed a multitude of river-craft, and erected barracks, magazines, winter-huts, and wharves along the river-route to Okhotsk. In the vicinity of Yakutsk he established an iron foundry and furnace, whence the various vessels were supplied with anchors and other articles of iron. In fact, he made this place the emporium for those heavy supplies that in the years 1735-36 were brought from South and West Siberia, and which later were to be sent to Okhotsk.

At Okhotsk the exiled Major-General Pissarjeff was in command. He had been sent there as a government official, with authority on the Pacific coast and in Kamchatka, to develop the country and pave the way for the expeditions to follow, by making roads and harbors, erecting buildings in Okhotsk, introducing agriculture,—in fact, make this coast fit for human habitation. The government had given him ample power, but as he accomplished nothing, he was succeeded by Captain Pavlutski as chief in Kamchatka, and Pissarjeff was reduced to a sort of harbor-master in Okhotsk. A command that had been sent to his assistance under first mate Bireff, he nearly starved to death; the men deserted and the town remained the same rookery as ever.

In this condition Spangberg found affairs in the winter of 1734-35. With his usual energy he had pushed his transports to Yakutsk in the summer preceding, and with the same boats he proceeded up the Aldan and Maya, but winter came on and his boats were frozen in on the Yudoma. He started out on foot by the familiar route across the Stanovoi Mountains to Okhotsk, which place he reached after enduring great hardship and suffering; but even here he found no roof for shelter. He was forced to subsist on carcasses and roots, and not until the spring fishing began and a provision caravan sent by Bering arrived, did he escape this dire distress. In the early summer, Pissarjeff put in an appearance, and very soon a bitter and fatal enmity arose between these two men.

Spangberg was born in Jerne near Esbjerg in Jutland (Denmark), probably about the year 1698. He was the son of well-to-do parents of the middle class. In the Jerne churchyard there is still to be seen a beautiful monument on the grave of his brother, the "estimable and well-born Chr. Spangberg," nothing else is known of his early life. In 1720, he entered the Russian fleet as a lieutenant of the fourth rank, and for a time ran the packet-boat between Kronstadt and Lübeck, whereupon he took part in Bering's first expedition as second in command. In 1732, for meritorious service on this expedition, he was made a captain of the third rank. He was an able, shrewd, and energetic man, a practical seaman, active and vehement, inconsiderate of the feelings of others, tyrannical and avaricious. He spoke the Russian language only imperfectly. His fame preceded him throughout all Siberia, and Sokoloff says that many thought him some general, incognito, others an escaped convict. The natives of Siberia feared him and called him Martin Petrovich Kosar, or in ironical praise, "Batushka" (old fellow). He had many enemies. Complaints and accusations were showered upon him, but it would most certainly be wrong to ascribe to them any great significance. Siberia is the land of slander. All Russian officials were corruptible, and the honest men among those who stood nearest to Peter himself could literally be counted on one's fingers. While in Siberia, Spangberg is said to have acquired the possession of many horses, valuable furs, and other goods of which the authorities had forced the sale. When the Senate, after his great voyage of discovery to Japan, had treated him unjustly, he left Siberia arbitrarily in 1745, and, without leave of absence, set out for St. Petersburg, where he was summoned before a court-martial and condemned to death; but this was finally commuted to his being reduced to a lieutenant for three months. He remained in the service and died, in 1761, as a captain of the first rank. In Okhotsk he was accompanied by his wife and son.[54]

But his opponent was a still more remarkable man. Major-General Pissarjeff had been a favorite of Peter the Great, director of the military academy, and a high officer of the Senate. He had received a careful education abroad, and moved in the very highest circles of society. In a quarrel with Vice-Chancellor Shafiroff, in 1722, however, he had incurred Peter's wrath, whereupon he was for a time deprived of all official rank and banished to the Ladoga canal as overseer of this great enterprise. Later he was pardoned, but when, in 1727, he conspired against Prince Menshikoff, he was deprived of everything, knouted, branded, and then exiled to Siberia as a colonist. After a series of vicissitudes he appeared, in the capacity of harbor-master at Okhotsk, but the government gave him no rank; he was not even permitted to cover his brand. This old man, made vicious by a long and unjust banishment, became Bering's evil spirit. In spite of his sixty or seventy years, he was as restless, fiery and vehement in both speech and action as when a youth, dissolute, corruptible, and slanderous—a false and malicious babbler, a full-fledged representative of the famous Siberian "school for scandal." For six long years he persecuted the expedition with his hatred and falsehoods, and was several times within an ace of overthrowing everything. He lived in a stockaded fort a few miles in the country, while Spangberg's quarters were down by the sea, on the so-called Kushka, a strip of land in the Okhota delta, where the town was to be founded. The power of each was unrestrained. Both were dare-devils who demanded an obedience which foretold the speedy overthrow of each. Both sought to maintain their authority through imprisonment and corporal punishment. Thus they wrangled for a year, Pissarjeff, meanwhile, sending numerous complaints to Yakutsk and St. Petersburg. But Spangberg was not to be trifled with. In the fall of 1736 he swore that he would effectually rid himself of "the old scoundrel," who thereupon in all haste fled to Yakutsk, where he arrived after a nine days' ride, and filled the town with his prattling falsehoods, to which, however, only the Academists seem to have paid any attention.

Under circumstances where the local authorities did everything in their power to hinder the development of a district, it is only natural that in the settlement of Okhotsk and the construction of the ships for the expedition but slow progress was made. The enormous stores which were necessary for six or eight sea-going ships—provisions, cannon, powder, cables, hemp, canvas, etc., it would take two or three years to bring from Yakutsk, a distance both long and tedious, and fraught with danger. The work, the superhuman efforts, the forethought, and perseverance that Bering and his men exhibited on these transporting expeditions on the rivers of East Siberia have never been described or understood, and yet they perhaps form the climax in the events of this expedition, every page of the history of which tells of suffering and thankless toil.

In the middle of the 17th century, those Cossacks that conquered the Amoor country had opened this river navigation, and now Bering re-opened it. The stores were transported down the Lena, up the Aldan, Maya, and Yudoma rivers, thence across the Stanovoi Mountains, down the Urak, and by sea to Okhotsk. These transportations at first employed five hundred soldiers and exiles, and later more than a thousand. The season is very short. The rivers break up in the early part of May, when the spring floods, full of devastating drift-ice, rise twenty or thirty feet above the average level and sweep along in their course whole islands, thus filling the river-bed with trunks of trees and sand, deluging the wild rock-encircled valleys, so that navigation can not begin until the latter part of May, again to be obstructed in August by ice. The course was against the current, so the crew had to walk along the rough and slippery banks and tug the flat-bottomed barges up stream. In this way they were usually able, during the first summer, to reach the junction of the Maya and the Aldan (Ust Maiskaya), where Bering built a pier and a number of magazines, barracks, and winter-huts. Then the next summer, the journey would be continued up the Maya and into the Yudoma, which boils along through an open mountain valley over rocks, stones, and water-logged tree trunks. It has but two or three feet of water, is full of sand-banks, with a waterfall here and there and long rapids and eddies,—the so-called "schiver." In such places the current was so strong that thirty men were scarcely able to tug a boat against it. Standing in water to their waists, the men were, so to speak, obliged to carry the barges. The water was very cauterizing, and covered their legs and feet with boils and sores. The oppressive heat of the day was followed by nights that were biting cold, and when new ice was formed, their sufferings were superhuman. In this manner Yudomskaya Krest (Yudoma's Cross) was reached in August of the second year. This place, where since the days of the Cossack expedition a cross had stood, Bering made an intermediate station for the expedition. Here were the dwellings of two officers, a barrack, two earth-huts, six warehouses, and a few other buildings and winter-huts. In these warehouses the goods were stored, to be conveyed, in the following winter, on horseback across the Stanovoi Mountains to the mountain stream Urak, which, after a course of two hundred versts, reaches the sea three miles south of Okhotsk.

For this part of the expedition, new winter-huts on the Stanovoi Mountains, and magazines, river boats, and piers on the Urak had to be built. This river is navigable only for a few days after the spring thaw. Then it boils along at the rate of six miles an hour, often making a trip down its course a dangerous one. Losseff says that in this way, other things being favorable, Okhotsk was reached in three years. The brief account which has here been attempted gives but a faint idea of the labor, perseverance, and endurance requisite to make one of these expeditions. Barges and boats had to be built at three different places, roads had to be made along rivers, over mountains, and through forests, and piers, bridges, storehouses, winter-huts and dwellings had to be constructed at these various places. Not only this. They suffered many misfortunes. Boats and barges were lost, men and beasts of burden were drowned, deserted, or were torn to pieces by wolves,—and all these difficulties Bering and his assistants overcame through their own activity, without the support of the Siberian government, yes, in spite of its ill will, both concealed and manifest. In 1737, he reported to the Admiralty: "Prior to our arrival at Yakutsk not a pood[55] of provisions had been brought to Okhotsk for us, nor had a single boat been built for the transportation. Nor did we find workmen or magazines at the landing places on the Maya and Yudoma rivers. The Siberian authorities have not taken a single step toward complying with the ukases issued by Her Royal Highness." And with justifiable self-esteem he adds: "We did all this. We built transports, we obtained workmen in Yakutsk, we conveyed our provisions to Yudomskaya Krest, and with superhuman efforts thence to the sea. At the mouths of the Maya and Yudoma, at the Cross, and at the Urak we erected storehouses and dwellings, in the Stanovoi Mountains several winter-huts, and on the Urak no less than seventy river boats, which have, in part, started for Okhotsk with provisions. Not until after the lapse of two years have I been able to induce the authorities in Yakutsk to appoint superintendents of transportation, and for this reason it was entirely impossible for me to depart for Okhotsk, unless I wanted to see the work of the whole expedition come to a complete standstill, bring upon my men the direst need, and force the whole enterprise into most ignominious ruin."

CHAPTER X.
DELAY OF THE EXPEDITION CAUSED BY THE DEATH OF LASSENIUS AND HIS COMMAND IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.—DISSATISFACTION OF THE SENATE AND ADMIRALTY WITH BERING'S WORK.

The difficulties recounted in the preceding chapter are alone sufficient to justify Bering's nearly three years' stay in Yakutsk; but simultaneously many other duties demanded his attention. It does not come within the scope of this treatise to describe the investigations of the Academical branch of this enterprise,—to portray Müller's and Gmelin's services to botany, history, and geography; they are of interest here only in their relation to Bering. Especially in Yakutsk did those men give him much to attend to. It devolved upon him now to convey those gentlemen, in a manner fitting their station, up or down the Lena, now to send La Croyère to Lake Baikal or to the Arctic Ocean,—all of which was to be done in a country principally inhabited by nomadic tribes, with only here and there a Russian population where there were government officials, and with no other means of transportation than those secured for the occasion. In Yakutsk, where the Professors stayed a long time, their relations with Bering were very much strained, principally, it would seem, on account of their exorbitant demands for convenience and luxury. Since Bering would not and could not take upon himself to transport them to Kamchatka as comfortably as he had thus far conveyed them, especially not from Okhotsk, in private and conveniently equipped vessels, and since the Voivode likewise gave them but little hope of support, both Gmelin and Müller made application for a release from the expedition, and left to Krasheninnikoff and Steller their principal task—the description of Kamchatka.

In the year 1736, moreover, very discouraging news was received from the Arctic seas. Pronchisheff had been obliged to go into winter quarters at Olenek, and Lassenius, who, August 2, had reached the rocky islet Stolb, in the Lena delta, and on the 7th stood out of the mouth of the Bykoff eastward, was driven by storm and ice into the river Khariulakh, east of the Borkhaya Bay, where he wintered, in a latitude of 71° 28'. The place was uninhabited, and he built from driftwood a winter-house 66 feet long, making four apartments, with three fireplaces, and a separate kitchen and bath-room. As Lassenius hoped to be able to continue the expedition during the two succeeding summers, the rations were made considerably smaller.

November 6, the polar night began, and shortly afterwards nearly the whole crew were attacked by a deadly scurvy, so violent that perhaps only Jens Munk[56] and his fellow-sufferers on the Churchill River have experienced anything worse. On the 19th of December Lassenius died, and in the few succeeding months nearly all of his officers and thirty-one of the crew, so that when assistance from Bering arrived, only eight men were alive. Müller and Gmelin say that the crew accused Lassenius of high treason, and mutinied; but there is no documentary evidence of this. The report seems to have arisen through a confounding of the name of Lassenius with that of the deputy constable Rosselius, who, on the 18th of November, 1735, was sent, under arrest, to Yakutsk. To fill the vacancies caused by this terrible disease, Bering had to send a whole new command—Lieut. Dmitri Laptjef, the second mate Plauting, and forty-three men—to Khariulakh to continue the expedition. In addition to this, two boats with provisions were sent to the mouth of the Lena, and in 1737, before he himself departed for Okhotsk, a shipload of provisions was sent to supply the magazines on the Arctic coast. To these various tasks Bering gave his personal attention.

In 1736-38 this great enterprise passed through a dangerous crisis. Several years had elapsed since the departure from St. Petersburg, three hundred thousand rubles (over two hundred thousand dollars) had been expended—an enormous sum at that time—and yet Bering could not point to a single result. Lassenius was dead, his successor, D. Laptjef, had been unfortunate, Pronchisheff had, in two summers of cruising, not been able to double the Taimyr peninsula, Ofzyn was struggling in vain in the Gulf of Obi, while Bering and Spangberg had not begun their Pacific expeditions. The former had not even reached the coast. The government authorities at St. Petersburg were in the highest degree dissatisfied with this seeming dilatoriness. The Senate sent a most earnest appeal to the Admiralty to recall the expedition. Here was a situation that Bering's enemies thought favorable for their intrigues. The departments of the Admiralty were deluged with complaints and accusations. The Siberian authorities, of whom Bering so justly had complained, answered with counter-charges. He was not familiar with the country, they said; he made unreasonable demands, and did not know how to avail himself of means at hand. Pissarjeff told the government that Bering and Spangberg had undertaken this expedition into Siberia simply to fill their own pockets,—that they accepted bribes, carried on a contraband liquor traffic, and had already accumulated great wealth. The exiled naval officer, Kasanssoff, reported that there was entire lack of system in the enterprise; that everything was done at an enormous expenditure, and that nothing at all would be accomplished. Lieutenant Plauting, one of Bering's own officers, who had been reduced for neglect of duty, accused Bering of being arbitrary, extravagant, and fond of show at the expense of the government. He accused him, furthermore, of embezzlement on his first expedition, in 1725, and alleged that Bering's wife had returned to Russia with a fortune, and had in Yakutsk abducted two young women.[57]

History has not confirmed a single one of these charges. As for sacrifice, disinterestedness, and zeal, Bering not only rises far above his surroundings—which is, perhaps, not saying very much—but his character is clean and unsullied. Even so petty a person as Sokoloff, who, in other respects, does not spare him, has for his character unqualified praise. Nevertheless, all of these complaints and accusations caused Bering much trouble and vexation. The Admiralty, hard pressed by the Senate, found it difficult to furnish the necessary means for the continuation of the expedition, and treated Bering severely and unreasonably. It lacked the view which personal examination gives. It was beset with deceitfulness and circumvention, and its experiences led it to take the worst for granted. Hence, it sent Bering one message after the other reprehensive of his course. It threatened to fine him, to court-martial him, to reduce him, and, in 1737, it even went so far as to deprive him of his supplemental salary, which was withheld several years.[58] Bering defended himself with the bitterness of despair. In his reports he gave the most solemn assurances of his perseverance and fidelity to duty, and the most detailed accounts of all difficulties. He declared upon his honor that he was unable to see any other means or resources than those he had resorted to. He even appealed at last to the testimony of the chiefs of the various expeditions and all the subordinate officers. He was not believed. The Admiralty showed its lack of tact by letting Chirikoff investigate a series of charges against him. Furthermore, in spite of Bering's most urgent representations, Pissarjeff continued to retain his position in Okhotsk; and, although the government threatened the Siberian authorities with the sternest punishments, still the latter only very inactively participated in the work of the expedition.

Sokoloff gives a very repulsive picture of Bering's assistants. On account of the discomforts of the journey in this barbaric country, and under the pressure of ceaseless toil, a large number of the subordinates fell to drinking and committing petty thefts; and the officers, gathered as they were from all quarters of the world, are described as a band of gruff and unruly brawlers. They were always at sword's points. Pronchisheff and Lassenius, Chirikoff and Spangberg, the latter and Walton, Plauting, Waxel, Petroff and Endoguroff, were constantly wrangling, and at times most shameful scenes were enacted. Our Russian author is not adverse to giving Bering the principal blame for these dissensions which cast a gloom on this worthy undertaking and impaired the forces of the expedition. He repeatedly, and with much force, accuses him of being weak, and in the Imperial Marine this opinion seems yet to prevail.[59] Sokoloff says: "Bering was a well-informed man, eager for knowledge, pious, kind-hearted, and honest, but altogether too cautious and indecisive; zealous, persevering, and yet not sufficiently energetic; well liked by his subordinates, yet without sufficient influence over them,—too much inclined to allow himself to be affected by their opinions and desires, and not able to maintain strict discipline. Hence, he was not particularly well qualified to lead this great enterprise, especially in such a dark century and in such a barbaric country as East Siberia." I do not doubt that we here find some of the elements of Bering's character, but Sokoloff was much more of an archivist than historian and student of human nature. In his long accounts he never succeeds, by means of describing any action or situation, in giving a psychological insight into Bering's character, and, as matters now stand, it is impossible to draw any tenable line between the errors and delays that were necessarily attendant upon such an over-burdened enterprise, and those that were due to the possible inefficiency of the leader. By the authority of the Senate the expedition was not a monarchical unit under Bering, but a democratic association under an administrative chief. It is not difficult to collect from the literature of that day a series of expressions which accuse Bering of cruelty, imperiousness, and military arrogance. Of a hundred leaders in Bering's position ninety-nine would undoubtedly have thought it wise to leave the whole expedition. Steller has with far more delicacy and skill drawn the main lines of his mental physiognomy. "Bering was," he says, "a true and honest Christian, noble, kind, and unassuming in conduct, universally loved by his subordinates, high as well as low. Every reasonable person must admit that he always sought to perform the work entrusted to him to the best of his ability, although he himself confessed and often regretted that his strength was no longer sufficient for so difficult an expedition. He deplored the fact that the plans for the expedition had been made on a much larger and more extensive scale than he had proposed, and he expressed a desire that, on account of his age, he might be released from this duty and have the task assigned to some young and active Russian. As is well known, he was not naturally a man of quick resolve, but when one considers his fidelity to duty, his cheerful spirit of perseverance and careful deliberation, it is a question whether another, possessed of more fire and ardor, could have overcome the innumerable difficulties of the expedition without having completely ruined those distant regions; for even Bering, far removed from all selfishness, was scarcely able in this regard to keep his men in check. The only fault of which the brave man can be accused, is that his too great leniency was as detrimental as the spirited and oftentimes inconsiderate conduct of his subordinates." It is undoubtedly true that Bering was not fully equal to the task; but no one would have been equal to this task. It is possible that his humane conduct impaired the work of the expedition, but this allegation still lacks proof, and Sokoloff, who wrote his book as a vindication of Chirikoff against Von Baer's sympathetic view of Bering, must be read with this reservation. It is downright absurd to hold the leader responsible for the moral weaknesses of his officers, for he had not chosen them, and was as dependent upon them as they upon him. "It seems to me," says Von Baer, "that Bering has everywhere acted with the greatest circumspection and energy, and also with the greatest forbearance. The whole expedition was planned on such a monstrous scale that under many another chief it would have foundered without having accomplished any results whatever."

CHAPTER XI.
FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR THE PACIFIC EXPEDITIONS.

In the summer of 1737, Bering changed his headquarters to Okhotsk, and in the course of the autumn and winter, the greater part of his force was transferred to the same place or distributed among the various intermediate stations on the Yudoma, Maya, and Urak. Spangberg and Bering built Okhotsk. At the junction of the Okhota and the Kukhta, on one of the narrow deltas, the so-called Kushka, they erected a church for the expedition, a number of houses for the officers, barracks, magazines, a large dock-yard, and other buildings. The old stockaded fort, four miles farther up in the country, was deserted. Around the military center of the expedition the town gradually formed and rapidly grew to become the Russian metropolis on the Pacific. It cost very great exertions to make the place inhabitable. The site was a long sand-bank deposit, threatened by inundations. The climate was very unhealthy,—a cold, raw fog almost continually hung over this region. The party was pestered with fevers, and in this swamp it was that Bering lost his health. "The place is new and desolate," he writes. "We have sand and pebbles, no vegetation whatever, and no timber in the vicinity. Firewood must be obtained at a distance of four to five miles, drinking water one to two miles, while timber and joints for ship-building must be floated down the river twenty-five miles." But as a place for a dock-yard, as a harbor and haven of refuge for large ships, the location had such great advantages that these difficulties had to be overcome.

Spangberg's work had made the place. His men had worked clay, made tiles, and built houses, and when Bering arrived the ships Archangel Michael and Hope lay fully equipped in the harbor. Bering's old ships Fortuna and Gabriel had been repaired, and Spangberg lacked only an adequate supply of provisions to begin his expedition to Japan in the autumn of 1737.

But the provision transports, as usual, moved on very slowly and with great difficulty. In Okhotsk Spangberg's men were constantly in distress. They received only the rations of flour and rice authorized by law, and at long intervals some beef which Bering had bought in Yakutsk. On account of this scarcity of provisions Spangberg was obliged partially to stop work on the vessels. A part of his force was permitted to go a-fishing, a part were sent to the magazines in the country for their maintenance, while others were detached to assist in the work of transportation; hence it was with only a small force that he could continue work on the ships for the American voyage, the packet-boats St. Peter and St. Paul.

Sokoloff says: "Bering stayed three years in Okhotsk, exerting himself to the utmost in equipping expeditions, enduring continual vexations from the Siberian government—especially on account of Pissarjeff—and conducting frequent examinations and investigations into the quarrels and complaints of his subordinates. During all this time he was sternly and unreasonably treated by the Admiralty, which showered upon him threats and reproaches for slowness sluggishness, and disorder, for false reports and ill-timed accounts." Even as late as 1740 the Senate made a proposition to discontinue the expedition, and only by calling attention to the enormous expenditures already made, which would in that case be completely wasted, was the Admiralty allowed to continue it. Bering was especially disheartened on account of Pissarjeff. The latter arrived at Okhotsk at the same time that Bering did, took up his abode in the old Ostrog (fort) and immediately began his malicious annoyances. His complaints and protests poured into headquarters at Okhotsk. "For a correspondence with him alone," writes Bering, "I might use three good secretaries. I find his foul-tongued criticism extremely offensive." He would capture Bering's men to give them a drubbing, while his own deserted him to join Bering, by whom they were kindly received. The new town and the Ostrog were two hostile camps. Finally Bering was compelled to make a sally to liberate his men. The intrepid Spangberg, entirely out of patience with Bering's leniency, said: "Why do you give yourself so much trouble about this old knave? Give me four men and the authority and I shall immediately put him under arrest."

Finally, in 1738, Spangberg found it possible to depart for Japan, and in two summer expeditions he charted the Kurile Islands, Yezo, and a part of the eastern coast of Nipon (Hondo), whereupon the cartography of this part of the globe assumed an entirely new appearance.

The expeditions to Japan, which employed four ships and several hundred men, had exhausted the provisions in Okhotsk. It was again necessary to raise large supplies in West Siberia. A demand was made upon the government office in Tobolsk for 40,000 rubles. From the district of Verkhoiansk 50,000 poods of provisions, while in part from West Siberia and in part from the Admiralty 20,000 yards of cloth were received. From other very distant places oil, hemp, and other necessaries were obtained. The Admiralty despatched to Irkutsk and Yakutsk two naval officers, Lieutenants Tolbukhin and Larionoff, to superintend the transportation of these goods. The number of laborers was increased to a thousand, the roads were improved, more attendants were provided, the Siberian authorities exhibited more energy than before, new river-boats were constructed, and pack-horses were collected from a large radius of country; by these increased means it was possible to collect all necessaries in Okhotsk by 1740. In the month of June the ships for the American expedition, the St. Peter and the St. Paul, were launched. They were two-masters, 80 feet long, 22 feet wide, and 9½ feet deep, rigged as brigs, each of 108 tons burden, carrying 14 two and three pound guns.

In the harbor and on the Sea of Okhotsk there was now quite a respectable fleet of eight or nine ships, all built by Bering. The Arctic coasts had been charted through his efforts. Spangberg had with great success completed his task, and had been sent by Bering to St. Petersburg to render a report. Bering's own force, which consisted of 166 men, besides 80 engaged in transporting, was now collected in Okhotsk. The astronomical department under La Croyère and the scientist Steller also arrived, and finally Bering had the satisfaction of seeing his worst enemy removed. In August, 1740, Pissarjeff was discharged, and poor Antoni Devier, first a cabin boy, then successively aid-de-camp, general, and chief of police in St. Petersburg—one of Peter the Great's most trusted companions in arms, but banished through the hatred of Menshikoff—became his successor as harbor-master in Okhotsk.[60]

In the middle of August the packet-boats, the galley Okhotsk, and a double sloop containing the scientists were ready to sail for Kamchatka. Then Spangberg quite unexpectedly arrived. On his way home he had received a counter order. The authorities in St. Petersburg commanded him to repeat the expedition to Japan. This gave Bering some extra work in the way of letters and orders, so that the vessels under Bering's and Chirikoff's commands did not leave port until the 8th of September. They were supplied with provisions for twenty months, and their temporary destination was Avacha Bay on the east coast of Kamchatka, where they were to pass the winter. All the great enterprises which the government had instructed Bering to undertake had now been begun. In the following chapters will be found a succinct account of the results of each.