Captains of adventure

by Roger Pocock

From the time of Henry VII of England down to the present day, the nations of Europe have been busy with one enormous adventure, the search for the best trade route to India and the China seas. For four whole centuries this quest for a trade route has been the main current of the history of the world. Look what the nations have done in that long fight for trade.

Portugal found the sea route by Magellan’s Strait, and occupied Brazil; the Cape route, and colonized the coasts of Africa. She built an empire.

Spain mistook the West Indies for the real Indies, and the red men for the real Indians, found the Panama route, and occupied the new world from Cape Horn up to the southern edge of Alaska. She built an empire.

France, in the search of a route across North America, occupied Canada and the Mississippi Valley. She built an empire. That lost, she attempted under Napoleon to occupy Egypt, Palestine and the whole overland road to India. That failing, she has dug the Suez Canal and attempted the Panama, both sea routes to the Indies.

Holland, searching for a route across North America, found Hudson’s Bay and occupied Hudson River (New York). On the South Sea route she built her rich empire in the East Indian Islands.

Britain, searching eastward first, opened up Russia to civilization, then explored the sea passage north of Asia. Searching westward, she settled Newfoundland, founded the United States, built Canada, which created the Canadian Pacific route to the Indies, and traversed the sea passage north of America. On the Panama route, she built a West Indian empire; on the Mediterranean route, her fortress line of Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, Adon. By holding all routes, she holds her Indian empire. Is not this the history of the world?

But there remains to be told the story of Russia’s search for routes to India and China. That story begins with Martha Rabe, the Swedish nursery governess, who married a dragoon, left him to be mistress of a Russian general, became servant to the Princess Menchikoff, next the lover, then the wife of Peter the Great, and finally succeeded him as empress of all the Russias. To the dazzling court of this Empress Catherine came learned men and travelers who talked about the search of all the nations for a route through North America to the Indies. Long ago, they said, an old Greek mariner, one Juan de Fuca, had bragged on the quays of Venice, of his voyages. He claimed to have rounded Cape Horn, and thence beat up the west coast of America, until he came far north to a strait which entered the land. Through this sea channel he had sailed for many weeks, until it brought him out again into the ocean. One glance at the map will show these straits of Juan de Fuca, and how the old Greek, sailing for many weeks, came out again into the ocean, having rounded the back of Vancouver’s Island. But the legend as told to Catherine the Great of Russia, made these mysterious straits of Anian lead from the Pacific right across North America to the Atlantic Ocean. Here was a sea route from Russia across the Atlantic, across North America, across the Pacific, direct to the gorgeous Indies. With such a possession as this channel Russia could dominate the world.

Catherine set her soothsayers and wiseacres to make a chart, displaying these straits of Anian which Juan de Fuca had found, and they marked the place accordingly at forty-eight degrees of north latitude on the west coast of America. But there were also rumors and legends in those days of a great land beyond the uttermost coasts of Siberia, an island that was called Aliaska, filling the North Pacific. All such legends and rumors the astrologers marked faithfully upon their map until the thing was of no more use than a dose of smallpox. Then Catherine gave the precious chart to two of her naval officers, Vitus Bering, the Dane—a mighty man in the late wars with Sweden and a Russian lieutenant—Tschirikoff—and bade them go find the straits of Anian.

The expedition set out overland across the Russian and Siberian plains, attended by hunters who kept the people alive on fish and game until they reached the coasts of the North Pacific. There they built two ships, the Stv Petr and the Stv Pavl, and launched them, two years from the time of their outsetting from Saint Petersburg. Thirteen years they spent in exploring the Siberian coast, northward to the Arctic, southward to the borders of China, then in 1741 set out into the unknown to search for the Island of Aliaska, and the Straits of Anian so plainly marked upon their chart.

Long months they cruised about in quest of that island, finding nothing, while the crews sickened of scurvy, and man after man died in misery, until only a few were left.