8 Journeys in the interior of Siberia by Gmelin, Müller,
Steller, Krascheninnikov, de l'Isle de la Croyère, &c.—The voyages of these savants have indeed formed an epoch in our knowledge of the ethnography and natural history of North Asia, but the north coast itself they did not touch. An account of them therefore lies beyond the limits of the history which I have undertaken to relate here.
The Great Northern Expedition by these journeys both by sea and land had gained a knowledge of the natural conditions of North Asia based on actual researches, had yielded pretty complete information regarding the boundary of that quarter of the globe towards the north, and of the relative position of the east coast of Asia and the west coast of America, had discovered the Aleutian Islands, and had connected the Russian discoveries in the east with those of the West-Europeans in Japan and China[329]. The results were thus very grand and epoch-making. But these undertakings had also required very considerable sacrifices, and long before they were finished they were looked upon in no favourable light by the Siberian authorities, on account of the heavy burden which the transport of provisions and other equipment through desolate regions imposed upon the country. Nearly twenty years now elapsed before there was a new exploratory expedition in the Siberian Polar Sea worthy of being registered in the history of geography. This time it was a private person, a Yakutsk merchant, SCHALAUROV, who proposed to repeat Deschnev's famous voyage and to gain this end sacrificed the whole of his means and his life itself. Accompanied by an exiled midshipman, IVAN BACHOFF, and with a crew of deserters and deported men, he sailed in 1760 from the Lena out into the Polar Sea, but came the first year only to the Yana, where he wintered. On the 9th August/29th July, 1761, he continued his voyage towards the east, always keeping near the coast. On the 17th/6th September he rounded the dreaded Svjatoinos, sighting on the other side of the sound a high-lying land, Ljachoff's Island. At the Bear Islands, whither he was carried by a favourable wind over an open sea, he first met with drift-ice, although, it appears, not in any considerable quantity. But the season was already far advanced, and he therefore considered it most advisable to seek winter quarters at the mouth of the neigbouring Kolyma river. Here he built a spacious winter dwelling, which was surrounded by snow ramparts armed with cannon from the vessel, probably the whole house was not so large as a peasant's cabin at home, but it was at all events the grandest palace on the north coast of Asia, often spoken of by later travellers, and regarded by the natives with amazed admiration. In the neighbourhood there was good reindeer hunting and abundant fishing, on which account the winter passed so happily, that only one man died of scurvy, an exceedingly favourable state of things for that period.
The following year Schalaurov started on the 1st August/21st July, but calms and constant head-winds prevented him from passing Cape Schelagskoj, until he was compelled by the late season of the year to seek for winter quarters. For this he considered the neighbouring coast unsuitable on account of the scarcity of forests and driftwood, he therefore sailed back to the westward until after a great many mishaps he came again at last on the 23rd/12th September to the house which he had built the year before on the Kolyma.
He proposed immediately to make a renewed attempt the following spring to reach his goal. But now his stores were exhausted, and the wearied crew refused to accompany him. In order to obtain funds for a new voyage he travelled to Moscow, and by means of the assistance he succeeded in procuring there, he commenced in 1766 a voyage from which neither he nor any of his followers returned. COXE mentions several things which tell in favour of his having actually rounded Cape Deschnev and reached the Anadyr. But Wrangel believes that he perished in the neighbourhood of Cape Schelagskoj. For in 1823 the inhabitants of that cape showed Wrangel's companion Matiuschkin a little ruinous house, built east of the river Werkon on the coast of the Polar Sea. For many years back the Chukches travelling past had found there human bones gnawed by beasts of prey, and various household articles, which indicated that shipwrecked men had wintered there, and Wrangel accordingly supposes that it was there that Schalaurov perished a sacrifice to the determination with which he prosecuted his self-imposed task of sailing round the north-eastern promontory of Asia.[330]
In order to ascertain whether any truth lay at the bottom of the view, generally adopted in Siberia, that the continent of America extended along the north coast of Asia to the neighbourhood of the islands situated there, CHICHERIN, Governor of Siberia, in the winter of 1763 sent a sergeant, ANDREJEV with dog-sledges on an ice journey towards the north. He succeeded in reaching some islands of considerable extent, which Wrangel, who always shows himself very sceptical with respect to the existence of new lands and islands in the Polar Sea, considers to have been the Bear Islands. Now it appears to be pretty certain that Andrejev visited a south-westerly continuation of the land named on recent maps "Wrangel Land," which in that case, like the corresponding part of America, forms a collection of many large and small islands. Andrejev found everywhere numerous proofs that the islands which he visited had been formerly inhabited. Among other things he saw a large hut built of wood without the help of iron tools. The logs were as it were gnawed with teeth (hewed with stone axes), and bound together with thongs[331]. Its position and construction indicated that the house had been built for defence, it had thus been found impossible in the desolate legions of the Polar Sea to avoid the discord and the strife which prevail in more southerly lands. To the east and north-east Andrejev thought he saw a distant land, he is also clearly the true European discoverer of Wrangel Land, provided we do not consider that even he had a predecessor in the Cossack, FEODOR TATARINOV, who according to the concluding words of Andrejev's journal appears to have previously visited the same islands. It is highly desirable that this journal, if still in existence, be published in a completely unaltered form. How important this is appears from the following paragraph in the instructions given to Billings—"One Sergeant Andrejev saw from the last of the Bear Islands a large island to which they (Andrejev and his companions) travelled in dog-sledges. But they turned when they had gone twenty versts from the coast, because they saw fresh traces of a large number of men, who had travelled in sledges drawn by reindeer."[332]
In order to visit the large land in the north-east seen by Andrejev, there was sent out in the years 1769, 1770, and 1771 another expedition, consisting of the three surveyors, LEONTIEV, LUSSOV, and PUSCHKAREV, with dog-sledges over the ice to the north-east, but they succeeded neither in reaching the land in question, nor even ascertaining with certainty whether it actually existed or not. Among the natives, however, the belief in it was maintained very persistently, and they even knew how to give names to the tribes inhabiting it.
The New Siberian Islands, which previously had often been seen by travellers along the coast, were visited the first time in 1770 by LJACHOFF, who besides Ljachoff's island lying nearest the coast, also discovered the islands Maloj and Kotelnoj. On this account he obtained an exclusive right to collect mammoth tusks there, a branch of industry which since that time appears to have been earned on in these remote regions with no inconsiderable profit. The importance of the discovery led the government some years after to send thither a land surveyor, CHVOINOV,[333] by whom the islands were surveyed, and some further information obtained regarding the remarkable natural conditions in that region. According to Chvoinov the ground there consists at many places of a mixture of ice and sand with mammoth tusks, bones of a fossil species of ox, of the rhinoceros, &c. At many places one can literally roll off the carpet-like bed of moss from the ground, when it is found that the close, green vegetable covering has clear ice underlying it, a circumstance which I have also observed at several places in the Polar regions. The new islands were rich not only in ivory, but also in foxes with valuable skins, and other spoils of the chase of various kinds. They therefore formed for a time the goal of various hunters' expeditions. Among these hunters may be named SANNIKOV, who in 1805 discovered the islands Stolbovoj and Faddejev, SIROVATSKOJ, who in 1806 discovered Novaya Sibir, and BJELKOV, who in 1808 discovered the small islands named after him. In the meantime disputes arose about the hunting monopoly, especially after Bjelkov and others petitioned for permission to establish on Kotelnoj Island a hunting and trading station. (?)[334] This induced ROMANZOV, then Chancellor of Russia, to order once more these distant territories to be explored by HEDENSTRÖM,[335] a Siberian exile, who had formerly been secretary to some eminent man in St. Petersburg. He started in dog-sledges on the 19th/7th March, 1809, from Ustjansk going over the ice to Ljachoff's Island, and thence to Faddejev Island, where the expedition was divided into two parts. Hedenström continued his course to Novaya Sibir, the south coast of which he surveyed. Here he discovered among other things the remarkable "tree mountain," which I have before mentioned. His companions KOSCHEVIN and SANNIKOV explored Faddejev, Maloj and Ljachoff's Islands. On Faddejev, Sannikov found a Yukagir sledge, stone skin-scrapers, and an axe made of mammoth ivory, whence he drew the conclusion that the island was inhabited before the Russians introduced iron among the savage tribes of Siberia.
The explorations thus commenced were continued in 1810. The explorers started on the 14th/2nd March from the mouth of the Indigirka, and after eleven days' journey came to Novaya Sibir. It had been Hedenström's original intention to employ reindeer and horses in exploring the islands, but he afterwards abandoned this plan, fearing that he would not find pasture for his draught animals. Both Hedenström and Sannikov believed that they saw from the north coast of the island bluish mountains on the horizon in the north-east. In order to reach this new land the former undertook a journey over the ice. It was so uneven, however, that in four days he could only penetrate about seventy versts. Here on the 9th April/28th March, he met with quite open water, which appeared to extend to the Bear Islands, i.e. for a distance of about 500 versts. He therefore turned southward, and reached the mainland after forty-three days' very difficult travelling over the ice. During the journey Hedenström was saved from famine by his success in killing eleven Polar bears. A new attempt, which he made the same spring to reach with dog-sledges the unknown land in the north-east, was also without result in consequence of his meeting with broad, impassable "leads" and openings in the ice, but even on this occasion he believed that he found many indications of the existence of an extensive land in the direction named. It was only with great difficulty that on the 20th/8th May he succeeded in reaching the mainland at Cape Baranov over very weak ice.
The same year Sannikov explored Kotelnoj Island, where he fell in with Bjelkov and several hunters, who had settled for the summer on the west coast of the island to collect mammoth tusks and hunt foxes there. He found also a Greek cross erected on the beach and the remains of a vessel, which, to judge from its construction and the hunting implements scattered about in the neighbourhood, appeared to have belonged to an Archangel hunter, who had been driven by wind or ice from Spitzbergen or Novaya Zemlya.