These accounts were sufficient to incite the Cossacks and hunters to new expeditions. The beginning was made by ISAI IGNATIEV from Mesen, who, along with several hunters, travelled down the Kolyma in 1646 to the Polar Sea, and then along the coast eastwards. The sea was full of ice, but next the land there was an open channel, in which the explorers sailed two days. They then came to a bay, near whose shore they anchored. Here the Russians had their first meeting with the Chukches, to which reference has already been made. Hence Ignatiev returned to the Kolyma, and the booty was considered so rich and his account of his journey so promising, that preparations were immediately made in order next year to send off a new maritime expedition fitted out on a larger scale to the coast of the Polar Sea.
This time FEODOT ALEXEJEV from Kolmogor was chief of the expedition, but along with him was sent, at the request of the hunters, a Cossack in the Russian service in order to guard the rights of the crown. His name was SIMEON IVANOV SIN DESCHNEV; in geographical writings he is commonly known under the name of DESCHNEV. It was intended to search for the mouth of the great river lying towards the east, regarding which some information had been obtained from the natives, and which was believed to fall into the Polar Sea. The first voyage in 1647, with four vessels, was unsuccessful, it is said, because the sea was blocked with ice. But that this was not the real reason is shown by the fact that a new and larger expedition was fitted out the following year with full expectation of success. The crews of the four boats had more probably been considered too weak a force to venture among the Chukches, and the ice had to bear the blame of the retreat. What man could not reproach the conquerors of Siberia with, was pusillanimity and want of perseverance in carrying out a plan which had once been sketched. Resistance always increased their power of action; so also now. Seven boats were fitted out the following year, 1648, all which were to sail down to the Polar Sea, and then along the coast eastwards. The object was to examine closely the unknown land and people there, and to their own advantage and the extension of the Russian power, to collect tribute from the tribes met with during the expedition. Müller states that every boat was manned with about thirty men—a number which appears to me somewhat exaggerated, if we consider the nature of the Siberian craft and the difficulty of feeding so large a number either with provisions earned along with them or obtained by hunting.
Four of the boats are not mentioned further in the narrative; they appear to have returned at an early period. The three others, on the contrary, made a highly remarkable journey. The commanders of them were the Cossacks, GERASIM ANKUDINOV and SIMEON DESCHNEV, and the hunter FEODOT ALEXEJEV. Deschnev entertained such hopes of success that before his departure he promised to collect a tribute of seven times forty sable skins. The Siberian archives, according to Miller, contain the following details[300]
On 30/20th June, 1648, a start was made from the Kolyma. The sea was open, at least the boats came without any adventure which Deschnev thought worth the trouble of noting in his narrative to Great Chukotskojnos. Of this cape Deschnev says that it is quite different from the cape at the river Chukotskaja. For it lies between north and north-east, and bends with a rounding towards the Anadyr. On the Russian side a rivulet runs into the sea, at which the Chukches had raised a heap of whales' bones. Right off the cape lie two islands, on which people of Chukch race with perforated lips were seen. From this cape it is possible with a favourable wind to sail to the Anadyr in three days, and the way is not longer by land, because the Anadyr falls into a gulf of the sea. At Chukotskojnos or, according to Wrangel at a "holy promontory," Svjatoinos (Serdze Kamen?) previously reached, Ankudinov's craft was shipwrecked. The crew were saved, and distributed on Deschnev's and Alexejev's boats. On the 30/20th September the Russians had a fight with the Chukches living on the coast, in which fight Alexejev was wounded. Soon after Deschnev's and Alexejev's "kotsches" were parted never to meet again.
Deschnev was driven about by storms and head-winds until past the beginning of October. Finally his vessel stranded near the mouth of the river Olutorsk, in 61° N. L. Hence he marched with his twenty-five men to the Anadyr. He had expected to meet with some natives in its lower course, but the region was uninhabited, which caused the invaders much trouble, because they suffered from want of provisions. Although Deschnev could not obtain from the natives any augmentation of the certainly very small supply of food which he carried with him, he succeeded nevertheless in passing the winter in that region. First in the course of the following summer did he fall in with natives, from whom a large tribute was collected, but not without fierce conflicts. A simovie was built at the place where afterwards Anadyrski Ostrog was founded. While Deschnev remained here, at a loss as to how, when the boats were broken up, he would be able to return to the Kolyma, or find a way thither by land, there came suddenly on the 5th May/25th April 1650, a new party of hunters to his winter hut.
For the accounts of islands in the Polar Sea, and of the river Pogytscha, which was said to fall into the sea three or four days' journey beyond the Kolyma, had led to the sending out of another expedition under the Cossack STADUCHIN. He started from Yakutsk in boats on the 15th/5th June, 1647, wintered on the Yana, travelled thence in sledges to Indigirka, and there again built boats in which he rowed to the Kolyma. It is to be observed that Staduchin, just because he preferred the land-route to the sea-route between the Yana and the Indigirka, missed discovering the large island in the Polar Sea, of which so much has been said. Next summer (1649) Staduchin again sailed down the river Kolyma to the sea, and then for seven days along its coast eastwards, without finding the mouth of the river sought for by him. He therefore returned with his object unaccomplished, carrying with him a heap of walrus-tusks, which were sent to Yakutsk as an appendix to a proposal to send out hunters to the Polar Sea to hunt for these animals. In the meantime a true idea of the course of the Anadyr had been obtained through statements collected from the natives, and a land-route had become known between its territory and that of the Kolyma. Several Cossacks and hunters now petitioned for the right to settle on the Anadyr, and collect tribute from the tribes in that neighbourhood. This was granted. Some natives were forced to act as guides. The party started under the command of SIMEON MOTORA, and came finally to Deschnev's simovie on the Anadyr. Staduchin followed, and traversed the way in seven weeks. He however soon quarrelled with Deschnev and Motora, and parting from them on that account, betook himself to the river Penschina. Deschnev and Motora built themselves boats on the Anadyr in order to prosecute exploratory voyages, but the latter was killed in 1651 in a fight with natives called Anauls. They had been the first of all the natives of the Pacific coast of North Asia to pay "jassak" to Deschnev, and he had already at that time come into collision with them and extirpated one of their tribes.
In 1652 Deschnev travelled down the Anadyr to the river mouth, where he discovered a walrus-bank, whence he brought home walrus-tusks. There afterwards arose a dispute between Deschnev and Selivestrov[301] regarding the rights founded on the discovery of this walrus bank, which came before the authorities at Yakutsk, and it was from the documents relating to it that Müller obtained the information that enabled him to give a narrative of Deschnev's expedition. Only in this way have the particulars of this remarkable voyage been rescued from complete oblivion.[302]
In 1653 Deschnev gave orders to collect wood to build craft in which he intended to carry home by sea the tribute he had collected to the Kolyma, but he was compelled to desist from want of the necessary materials for the building and equipment of the boats, comforting himself with the statement of the natives that the sea was not always so open as during his first voyage. Compelled by necessity, he remained a year longer at the Anadyr, and in 1654 undertook a new hunting voyage to the walrus-bank, where he met with the before-mentioned Selivestrov. He here came in contact with the natives (Koryäks), and found among them a Yakut woman, who had belonged to Ankudinov. On asking her where her master had gone to, she answered that Feodot and Gerasim (Ankudinov) had died of scurvy, and that their companions had been killed with the exception of some few, who had saved themselves in boats. It appears as if the latter had penetrated along the coast as far as to the river Kamchatka. For when Kamchatka was conquered by Atlassov in 1697 the natives stated that a long time before one FEODOTOV (probably a son of Feodot Alexejev) had lived among them along with some companions, and had married their women. They were venerated almost as gods. They were believed to be invulnerable until they struck another, when the Kamchadals saw their mistake and killed them.[303]
By the expeditions of Deschnev, Staduchin, and their companions, the Russians had by degrees become acquainted with the course of the Anadyr and with the tribes living on its banks. But it still remained for them to acquire a more complete knowledge of the islands which were said to be situated in the Polar Sea, and one must be surprised at the extreme difficulties which were encountered in attempting the solution of this apparently very simple geographical problem. The reason indeed was that the Siberian seamen never ventured to leave the immediate neighbourhood of the coast, a precaution which besides is very easily explained when the bad construction of their craft is considered. Along the shore of the Polar Sea on the other hand, a very active communication appears to have taken place between the Lena and the Kolyma, though of those voyages we only know such as in one way or another gave rise to actions before the courts or were characterised by specially remarkable dangers or losses.
In 1650 ANDREJ GORELOJ was sent by sea from Yakutsk to impose tribute on the tribes that lived at the sources of the Indigirka, and on the Moma, a tributary of the Indigirka. He passed Svjatoinos successfully, and reached the mouth of the Kroma, but was there beset by ice, with which he drifted out to sea. After drifting about ten days he was compelled to abandon the vessel, which was soon after nipped, and go on foot over the ice to land. On the 22nd/12th November he came to the simovie Ujandino, where famine prevailed during the winter, because the vessels, that should have brought provisions to the place, had either been lost or been compelled to turn; a statement which proves that at that time a regular navigation took place between certain parts of the coast of the Polar Sea.