[159] Compare: "The names of the places that the Russes sayle by, from Pechorskoie Zauorot to Mongozey" (Purchas, III. p. 539): "The voyage of Master Josias Logan to Pechora, and his wintering there with Master William Pursglove and Marmaduke Wilson, Anno 1611" (loc. cit. p. 541): "Extracts taken out of two letters of Josias Logan from Pechora, to Master Hakluyt, Prebend of Westminster" (loc. cit. p. 546): "Other obseruations of the sayd William Pursglove" (loc. cit. p. 550). The last paper contains good information regarding the Obi, Tas, Yenisej, Pjäsina, Chatanga, and Lena.
[160] The stringent regulations regarding fasting of the Russians, especially the Old Believers, if they be literally observed, form an insuperable obstacle to the colonisation of high-northern regions, in which, to avoid scurvy, man requires an abundant supply of fresh flesh. Thus, undoubtedly, religious prejudices against certain kinds of food caused the failure of the colony of Old Believers which was founded in 1767 on Kolgujev Island, in order that its members might undisturbed use their old church books and cross themselves in the way they considered most proper. The same cause also perhaps conduced to the failure of the attempts which are said to have been made after the destruction of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible in 1570 by fugitives from that town to found a colony on Novaya Zemlya (Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden und den Lappländern, Riga und Mietau, 1769, p. 28). This book was first printed in French at Königsberg in 1762. The author was Klingstedt, a Swede in the Russian service, who long lived at Archangel.
[161] The statement is incredible, and probably originated in some mistake. To form such a heap of walruses at least 50,000 animals would have been required, and it is certain that fifteen men could not have killed so many. If we assume that in the statement of the length and breadth, feet ought to stand in place of fathoms, we get the still excessive number of 1,500 to 3,000 killed animals. Probably instead of 90 we should have 9, in which case the heap would correspond to about 500 walruses and seals killed. The walrus tusks collected weighed 40 pood, which again indicates the capture of 150 to 200 animals.
[162] Witsen, p. 915. Klingstedt states that fifty soldiers with their wives and children were removed in 1648 to Pustosersk, and that the vojvode there had so large an income that in three or four years he could accumulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles (Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden, &c., p. 53).
[163] According to Lütke, p. 70. Hamel, Tradescant d. ältere, gives the date 1742-44.
[164] Thus on the first map in an atlas published in 1737 by the St. Petersburg Academy, Novaya Zemlya is delineated as a peninsula projecting from Taimur Land north of the Pjäsina.
[165] Properly "Mate, with the rank of Lieutenant," from which we may conclude that Rossmuislov wanted the usual education of an officer.
[166] These remarkable voyages were described for the first time, after the accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K.E. v. Baer in Bulletin scientifique publ. par l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St. Petersburg, t. ii. No. 9, 10, 11 (1837). Before this there does not appear to have been in St. Petersburg any knowledge of Pachtussov's voyages, the most remarkable which the history of Russian Polar Sea exploration has to show.
[167] The carbasse was named, like the vessels of Lasarev and Lütke, the Novaya Zemlya. It was forty-two feet long, fourteen feet beam, and six feet deep, decked fore and aft, and with the open space between protected by canvas from breakers.
[168] The details of Pachtussov's voyages are taken partly from von Baer's work already quoted, partly from Carl Svenske, Novaya Zemlya, &c., St. Petersburg, 1866 (in Russian, published at the expense of M.K. Sidoroff), and J. Spörer, Nowaja Semlä in geographischer, naturhistorischer und volkswirthschaftlicher Beziehung, nach den Quellen bearbsitet. Ergänz-Heft. No. 21 zu Peterm. Geogr. Mittheilungen, Gotha, 1867.