The Tschutski, it is well known, inhabit the North Eastern part of Siberia; their country is a small tract of land, bounded on the North by the Frozen Sea, on the East by the Eastern Ocean; on the South it borders upon river Anadyr, and on that of Kovyma to the West. The N. E. cape of this country is called Tschukotskoi-Noss, or the promontory of the Tschutski. Its inhabitants are the only people of Siberia who have not yet been subdued by the Russians.
The anonymous author agrees with Mr. Muller in supposing, that America advances to within a small distance of the coast of the Tschutski; which he says "is confirmed by the latest accounts procured from these parts."
The first intelligence concerning the supposed vicinity between Asia and America was derived from the reports of the Tschutski in their intercourse with the Russians. Vague and uncertain accounts, drawn from a barbarous people, cannot deserve implicit credit; but as they have been uniformly and invariably propagated by the inhabitants of those regions from the middle of the last century to the present time, they must merit at least the attention of every curious enquirer.
The Reports concerning the Proximity of America to their Coast.
These reports were first related in Muller's account of the Russian discoveries, and have been lately thought worthy of notice by Dr. Robertson[155], in his history of America. Their probability seems still further increased by the following circumstances. One Plenisner, a native of Courland, was appointed commander of Ochotsk, in the year 1760, with an express order from the court to proceed as far as[156] Anadirsk, and to procure all possible intelligence concerning the North Eastern part of Siberia, and the opposite continent. In consequence of this order Plenisner repaired to Anadirsk, and proceeded likewise to Kovimskoi Ostrog: the former of these Russian settlements is situated near the Southern; the latter near the Western limits of the Tschutski. Not content however with collecting all the information in his power from the neighbouring Koriacs, who have frequent intercourse with the Tschutski; he also sent one Daurkin into their country. This person was a native Tschutski, who had been taken prisoner, and bred up by the Russians: he continued two years with his countrymen, and made several expeditions with them to the neighbouring islands, which lie off the Eastern coast of Siberia.
The sum of the intelligence brought back by this Daurkin was as follows: that Tschukotskoi-Noss is a very narrow peninsula; that the Tschutski carry on a trade of barter with the inhabitants of America; that they employ six days in passing the strait which separates the two continents: they direct their course from island to island, and the distance from the one to the other is so small, that they are able to pass every night ashore. More to the North he describes the two continents as approaching still nearer to each other, with only two islands lying between them.
This intelligence remarkably coincided with the accounts collected by Plenisner himself among the Koriacs. Plenisner returned to Petersburg in 1776, and brought with him several[157]maps and charts of the North Eastern parts of Siberia, which were afterwards made use of in the compilation of the general map of Russia, published by the academy in 1776[158]. By these means the country of the Tschutski has been laid down with a greater degree of accuracy than heretofore. These are probably the late accounts from those parts which the anonymous author alludes to.