As Bering during the first few succeeding days did not make any preparations for a scientific exploration of the country, as he even tried, according to Steller's assurance, to dissuade the latter from making the island a visit, and as Steller only through a series of oaths and threats (for thus p. 30 must undoubtedly be interpreted) could obtain permission to make, without help or even a guard for protection, a short stay on the island, his anger grew to rage, which reached its culmination on the following morning when Bering suddenly gave orders that the St. Peter should leave the island. "The only reason for this," he says, "was stupid obstinacy, fear of a handful of natives, and pusillanimous homesickness. For ten years Bering had equipped himself for this great enterprise; the explorations lasted ten hours!" Elsewhere he says derisively that they had gone to the New World "simply to bring American water to Asia."
These accusations must seem very serious to every modern reader. Unfortunately for Bering, his second voyage is of interest principally from the standpoint of natural history. It is especially naturalists that have studied it. They are predisposed to uphold Steller. Hence his account threatens wholly to undermine Bering's reputation, and as a matter of course, W. H. Dall, in discussing this subject, finds opportunity to heap abuse upon Bering. He says: "On the 18th of July, Bering saw land. On the 20th he anchored under an island. Between two capes, which he called St. Elias and St. Hermogenes, was a bay where two boats were sent for water and to reconnoitre. * * * With characteristic imbecility, Bering resolved to put to sea again on the next day, the 21st of July. Sailing to the northward, the commander was confused among the various islands, and sailed hither and thither, occasionally landing, but making no explorations, and showing his total incapacity for the position he occupied. He took to his bed, and Lieutenant Waxel assumed charge of the vessel."[81]
This is not writing history. It is only a series of errors and incivilities. It was not the 18th of July that Bering first saw land. He did not sail north from Kayak, but southwest, and hence could not have lost his course among islands, for here there are no islands. Nor did he sail hither and thither, but kept the course that had been laid out, and charted the coasts he saw in this course. The most ridiculous part of this is what this nautical author tells of the bay between Cape St. Elias and Cape St. Hermogenes (Marmot Island off the coast of Kadiak Island), for these points are farther apart than Copenhagen and Bremen. If, according to this writer, Bering was unpardonably stupid, he must have been, on the other hand, astonishingly "far-sighted." After these statements it will surprise no one that this author considers illness a kind of crime, and blames a patient, sixty years of age, suffering with the scurvy, for taking to his bed! If Mr. Dall had taken the trouble to study the Bering literature to which he himself refers in his bibliography of Alaska, he would have been in a position to pass an independent opinion of the navigator, and would certainly have escaped making this series of stupid statements. His words now simply serve to show how difficult it is to eradicate prejudice, and how tenacious of life a false or biased judgment can be. Death prevented Bering from defending and explaining his conduct. No one has since that time sought to render him justice. I therefore consider it my duty—even if I should seem to be yielding to the biographer's besetting sin—to produce everything that can be said in Bering's defense.
In the first place, then, it must be remembered that on the 21st of July Bering had provisions left for no more than three months, and that these were not good and wholesome. His crew, and he himself, were already suffering from scurvy to such an extent that two weeks later one-third of them were on the sick-list. Furthermore, he was over fifty-six degrees of longitude from his nearest port of refuge, with a crew but little accustomed to the sea. The American coast in that latitude was not, according to Bering's judgment, nor is it according to our present knowledge, in any way a fit place to winter, and besides, he knew neither the sea nor its islands and depths, its currents and prevailing winds. All this could not but urge him to make no delay. And, in fact, Steller himself expressly says that it was a series of such considerations that determined Bering's conduct. "Pusillanimous homesickness" can scarcely have had any influence on a man who from his youth had roamed about in the world and lived half a generation in the wilds of Siberia. "The good Commander," thus Steller expresses himself, "was far superior to all the other officers in divining the future, and in the cabin he once said to myself and Mr. Plenisner: 'We think now that we have found everything, and many are pregnant with great expectations; but they do not consider where we have landed, how far we are from home, and what yet may befall us. Who knows but what we may meet trade winds that will prevent our return? We are unacquainted with the country, and are unprovided with provisions for wintering here.'"
It must be conceded that his position was one fraught with difficulties. At this point there are two things which Steller either has not correctly understood, or suppresses. According to his instructions, Bering was authorized to spend two years and make two voyages in the discovery of America, and to undertake another expedition afterwards with new preparations and equipments. And in his explanations to the crew he calls special attention to this point. Under these circumstances it would not have been right in him to assume any more risks than absolutely necessary. But here again the old opposition between Bering's nautico-geographical and Steller's physico-geographical interests breaks out. As a discoverer of the old school Bering's principal object was to determine some elementary geographical facts: namely, the distribution of land and water along the new coast, and hence he left Kayak Island, not to reach Avacha as soon as possible, but to follow the coast of the newly discovered country toward the west and north. All authorities agree on this point. It was illness and the Aliaska peninsula, projecting so far into the ocean as it does, that prevented him from sailing up toward latitude 65°, his real goal. Even Steller testifies to this, and although he repeats his former accusations against Bering, it does not signify anything, as he was excluded from the councils and was obliged to guess at what was adopted. His accusations are especially insignificant from the fact that he definitely contradicts himself on this point, for later on in his narrative he says that not until the 11th of August was it resolved, on account of the approaching autumn and the great distance from home, to start immediately on the return voyage to Kamchatka. That is to say, they had not then made a start. Until the 11th of August, for three weeks after their departure from Kayak, Bering pursued his task of nautical discovery along the new coast, and it would seem that he can be blamed for nothing more than considering this work of the expedition more important than that of the physico-geographical investigation which Steller represented. This was but natural. It was merely accidental that Steller accompanied Bering, and through him the expedition received a modern cast, which was not at all designed, and which Bering desired to make use of only under favorable circumstances. We may regret his haste, and we may especially regret the fact that so keen and clever a naturalist as Steller did not get an opportunity to explore the regions west of Mount St. Elias before European trade and white adventurers put in an appearance; but it hardly seems a question of doubt whether anyone for that reason has a right to make accusations against the chief of the expedition.
It was very early on the morning of July 21 that the chief suddenly, and contrary to his custom, appeared on deck and gave the command to weigh anchor and stand out to sea. In doing this he set aside his instructions from headquarters to act in accordance with the ship's council. He acted as a sovereign chief, and notwithstanding the fact that both of his lieutenants thought it wrong to leave the newly discovered coast without an adequate supply of water, he overruled all objections and informed them that he assumed all responsibility for his conduct. He was convinced of the entire necessity of it, he said, and thought it unsafe to remain longer in this exposed anchorage. Time did not permit him to go in search of the harbor found by Khitroff on the day previous, and there was moreover a seaward breeze. One fourth of the water-casks remained unfilled.
Before a strong east wind, the St. Peter on that day made fifty miles on a southwesterly course. During the two succeeding days, he continued in this general direction. It was misty, and the coast was invisible, but the sounding-line continued to show a depth of from forty to fifty fathoms. In a council, concerning the deliberations of which Steller has a very confused and incorrect account, it was decided, on July 25, to sail slowly towards Petropavlovsk and, at intervals as wind and weather permitted, to head for the north and west, in order to explore the coast they had left.
They continued on their southwesterly course, and on the next morning, July 26, they were off the Kadiak archipelago. In a latitude of 66° 30', and about sixteen miles toward the north, they saw a high and projecting point, which Bering called St. Hermogenes, in honor of the patron saint of the day. He thought that this point was a continuation of the continent they had left behind them, and as such it is represented on both Müller's and Krasilnikoff's manuscript maps in the archives of the Admiralty. On his third voyage, Cook explored the Kadiak group, which he too had assumed to be a part of the mainland. He now found that Bering's promontory was a small island east of Afognak, but out of respect for Bering, he retained the original name. Krusenstern also calls it St. Hermogenes Island, but later the Russians changed it to Euratchey Island, on account of the great number of marmots there, and since the United. States came into possession of it, the name has been translated, and it is now known as Marmot Island.[82] Steller has not a single word in his diary about St. Hermogenes, and besides, his account at this point is full of inaccuracies.
"Consequently, until July 26," he says, "we sailed along the coast, as these gentlemen thought it was necessary to follow it, while it would have been sufficient, at intervals of a hundred versts, to have sailed a degree or two toward the north." He thus blames them for not having followed the method which at about that time they had agreed upon, and later did follow. His story of their having, for the first five days, sailed along the coast, simply proves, in connection with a series of other incidents in his work, that things were not entered in his diary daily, but written down later from memory; hence its value as proof is considerably diminished.
Along the southeastern coast of Kadiak the voyage was very dangerous. The average depth was twenty-five fathoms; the water was very roily, the weather heavy with fog and rain, and the wind violent. Not until the 31st of July was the weather clear enough for an observation, when they found themselves in a latitude of 54° 49', and had passed the Kadiak archipelago.