[301] Selivestrov had accompanied Staduchin during his Polar Sea voyage, and had, at his instance, been sent out to collect walrus tusks on account of the State. He appears to have come to the Anadyr by land.
[302] Strahlenberg must have collected the main details of this voyage by oral communications from Russian hunters and traders.
[303] According to Müller Krascheninnikov (Histoire et description du Kamtschatka, Amsterdam, 1770, ii. p. 292) states, evidently from information obtained in Kamchatka, that the river Nikul is called Feodotovchina after Feodot Alexejev, who not only penetrated thither, but also sailed round the southern promontory of Kamchatka to the River Tigil where he and his followers perished in the way described by Müller.
[304] But we ought to remember that the oldest accounts of islands in the Polar Sea relate to no fewer than four different lands, viz, 1. The New Siberian Islands lying off the mouth of the Lena and Svjatoinos; 2. The Bear Islands; 3. Wrangel Land; 4. The north-western part of America. Contradictions in accounts of the islands in the Polar Sea probably depend on the uninhabited and treeless New Siberian islands being confused with America, which, in comparison with North Siberia, is thickly peopled and well wooded, with the small Bear Islands, with Wrangel Land, &c.
[305] Nouvelle carte des découvertes faites par des vaisseaux russiens aux cotes inconnues de l'Amérique, Septentrionale avec les pais adiacentes, dressée sur des mémoires authentiques des ceux qui ont assisté a ces découvertes et sur d'autres connoissances dont on rend raison dans un mémoire séparé St. Pétersbourg, l'Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1758.
[306] In this sketch of the discovery and conquest of Siberia I have followed J. E. Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, St. Petersburg, 1768, and G. P. Müller, Sammlung Russischer Geschichte, St. Petersburg, 1758.
[307] In the twentieth chapter of Dreyjährige Reise nach China, &c., Frankfort, 1707. The first edition came out at Hamburg in 1698.
[308] Müller, iii. p. 19. An account of Atlassov's conquest of Kamchatka (Bericht gedaen door zeker Moskovisch krygs-bediende Wolodimer Otlasofd, hoofl-man over vyftig, &c.) is besides to be found in Witsen (1705, Nieuwe uitguaf, 1785, p. 670) An account, written from oral communication by Atlassov himself, is to be found inserted in Strahlenberg's Travels, p. 431. Strahlenberg considers Kamchatka and Yezo to be the same land. A history of the conquest of Kamchatka, evidently written according to traditions current in the country, is to be found in Krascheninnikov (French edition of 1770, ii. p. 291). In this account 1698 and 1699 are given as the years of Morosko's and Atlassov's expeditions.
[309] Complaints were made, among other things, that in order to obtain metal for making a still, he ordered all the copper belonging to the crown which he carried with him, to be melted down. When the Cossacks first came to Kamchatka and were almost without a contest, acknowledged as masters of the country, they found life there singularly agreeable, with one drawback—there were no means of getting drunk. Finally, necessity compelled the wild adventurers to betake themselves to what we should now call chemico-technical experiments, which are described in considerable detail by Krascheninnikov (loc. cit. ii. p. 369). After many failures they finally succeeded in distilling spirits from a sugar-bearing plant growing in the country, and from that time this drink, or raka, as they themselves call it, has been found in great abundance in that country.
[310] He afterwards became a monk under the name of Ignatiev, came to St. Petersburg in 1730, and himself wrote a narrative of his adventures, discoveries, and services, which was printed first in the St. Petersburg journals of the 26th March, 1730, and likewise abroad (Müller, iii. p. 82)