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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vikings of the Pacific, by Agnes C. Laut
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Vikings of the Pacific
+       The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward
+
+
+Author: Agnes C. Laut
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2006  [eBook #19765]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIKINGS OF THE PACIFIC***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
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+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in
+      curly braces, e.g. {vi} or {99}.  They have been located where
+      page breaks occurred in the original book, in accordance with
+      Project Gutenberg's FAQ-V-99.  For its Index, page numbers have
+      been placed only at the start of that section.
+
+
+
+
+
+VIKINGS OF THE PACIFIC
+
+The Adventures of the Explorers Who Came from the West, Eastward
+
+Bering, the Dane; the Outlaw Hunters of Russia;
+Benyowsky, the Polish Pirate; Cook and
+Vancouver, the English Navigators; Gray of
+Boston, the Discoverer of the
+Columbia; Drake, Ledyard, and Other
+Soldiers of Fortune on the
+West Coast of America
+
+by
+
+A. C. LAUT
+
+Author of "Pathfinders of the West," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Seal Rookery, Commander Islands.]
+
+
+
+
+New York
+The MacMillan Company
+London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd.
+1905
+All rights reserved
+
+Copyright, 1905,
+by the MacMillan Company.
+Set up and electrotyped.  Published December, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+{vii}
+
+Foreword
+
+At the very time the early explorers of New France were pressing from
+the east, westward, a tide of adventure had set across Siberia and the
+Pacific from the west, eastward.  Carrier and Champlain of New France
+in the east have their counterparts and contemporaries on the Pacific
+coast of America in Francis Drake, the English pirate on the coast of
+California, and in Staduchin and Deshneff and other Cossack plunderers
+of the North Pacific, whose rickety keels first ploughed a furrow over
+the trackless sea out from Asia.  Marquette, Jolliet and La
+Salle--backed by the prestige of the French government are not unlike
+the English navigators, Cook and Vancouver, sent out by the English
+Admiralty.  Radisson, privateer and adventurer, might find counterpart
+on the Pacific coast in either Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia, or
+Ledyard, whose ill-fated, wildcat plans resulted in the Lewis and Clark
+expedition.  Bering was contemporaneous with La Verendrye; and so the
+comparison might be carried on between Benyowsky, the Polish pirate of
+the Pacific, or the Outlaw Hunters of Russia, and the famous buccaneers
+of the eastern Spanish Main.  The main point is--that both tides {viii}
+of adventure, from the east, westward, from the west, eastward, met,
+and clashed, and finally coalesced in the great fur trade, that won the
+West.
+
+The Spaniards of the Southwest--even when they extended their
+explorations into the Northwest--have not been included in this volume,
+for the simple reason they would require a volume by themselves.  Also,
+their aims as explorers were always secondary to their aims as treasure
+hunters; and their main exploits were confined to the Southwest.  Other
+Pacific coast explorers, like La Perouse, are not included here because
+they were not, in the truest sense, discoverers, and their exploits
+really belong to the story of the fights among the different fur
+companies, who came on the ground after the first adventurers.
+
+In every case, reference has been to first sources, to the records left
+by the doers of the acts themselves, or their contemporaries--some of
+the data in manuscript, some in print; but it may as well be frankly
+acknowledged that _all_ first sources have _not_ been exhausted.  To do
+so in the case of a single explorer, say either Drake or Bering--would
+require a lifetime.  For instance, there are in St. Petersburg some
+thirty thousand folios on the Bering expedition to America.  Probably
+only one person--a Danish professor--has ever examined all of these;
+and the results of his investigations I have consulted.  Also, there
+are in the State Department, Washington, some hundred old log-books of
+the Russian hunters which {ix} have--as far as I know--never been
+turned by a single hand, though I understand their outsides were looked
+at during the fur seal controversy.  The data on this era of adventure
+I have chiefly obtained from the works of Russian archivists, published
+in French and English.  To give a list of all authorities quoted would
+be impossible.  On Alaska alone, the least-known section of the Pacific
+coast, there is a bibliographical list of four thousand.  The
+better-known coast southward has equally voluminous records.  Nor is
+such a list necessary.  Nine-tenths of it are made up of either
+descriptive works or purely scientific pamphlets; and of the remaining
+tenth, the contents are obtained in undiluted condition by going
+directly to the first sources.  A few of these first sources are
+indicated in each section.
+
+It is somewhat remarkable that Gray--as true a naval hero as ever trod
+the quarter-deck, who did the same for the West as Carrier for the St.
+Lawrence, and Hudson for the river named after him--is the one man of
+the Pacific coast discoverers of whom there are scantiest records.
+Authentic histories are still written, that cast doubt on his
+achievement.  Certainly a century ago Gray was lionized in Boston; but
+it may be his feat was overshadowed by the world-history of the new
+American republic and the Napoleonic wars at the opening of the
+nineteenth century; or the world may have taken him at his own
+valuation; and Gray was a hero of the non-shouting sort.  The data on
+{x} Gray's discovery have been obtained from the descendants of the
+Boston men who outfitted him, and from his own great-grandchildren.
+Though he died a poor man, the red blood of his courage and ability
+seems to have come down to his descendants; for their names are among
+the best known in contemporary American life.  To them my thanks are
+tendered.  Since the contents of this volume appeared serially in
+_Leslie's Monthly_, _Outing_, and _Harper's Magazine_, fresh data have
+been sent to me on minor points from descendants of the explorers and
+from collectors.  I take this opportunity to thank these contributors.
+Among many others, special thanks are due Dr. George Davidson,
+President of San Francisco Geographical Society, for facts relating to
+the topography of the coast, and to Dr. Leo Stejneger of the
+Smithsonian, Washington, for facts gathered on the very spot where
+Bering perished.
+
+WASSAIC, New York,
+
+July 15, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF
+  AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS,
+  THE OUTLAWS, AND BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+1700-1743
+
+VITUS BERING, THE DANE
+
+Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to
+  discover whether America and Asia are united; Second, to
+  find what lies north of New Spain--Terrible Hardships
+  of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven Thousand
+  Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a
+  Barren Isle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    3
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+1741-1743
+
+CONTINUATION OF BERING, THE DANE
+
+Frightful Sufferings of the Castaways on the Commander
+  Islands--The Vessel smashed in a Winter Gale, the Sick are
+  dragged for Refuge into Pits of Sand--Here, Bering
+  perishes, and the Crew Winter--The Consort Ship under
+  Chirikoff Ambushed--How the Castaways reach Home . . . . .   37
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+1741-1760
+
+THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS
+
+How the Sea-otter Pelts brought back by Bering's Crew led
+  to the Exploitation of the Northwest
+  Coast of America--Difference of Sea-otter
+  from Other Fur-bearing Animals of
+  the West--Perils of the Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   62
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+1760-1770
+
+THE OUTLAW HUNTERS
+
+The American Coast becomes the Great Rendezvous for Siberian
+  Criminals and Political Exiles--Beyond Reach of Law,
+  Cossacks and Criminals perpetrate Outrages
+  on the Indians--The Indians' Revenge wipes
+  out Russian Forts in America--The Pursuit
+  of Four Refugee Russians from Cave to
+  Cave over the Sea at Night--How they escape after a
+  Year's Chase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   80
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+1768-1772
+
+COUNT MAURITIUS BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
+
+Siberian Exiles under Polish Soldier of Fortune plot to
+  overthrow Garrison of Kamchatka and escape to West Coast
+  of America as Fur Traders--A Bloody Melodrama enacted
+  at Bolcheresk--The Count and his Criminal Crew sail to
+  America  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  106
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ADVENTURERS ON THE WEST COAST
+  OF AMERICA--FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA--COOK,
+  FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA TO ALASKA--LEDYARD, THE
+  FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK--GRAY, THE
+  DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA--VANCOUVER, THE LAST OF
+  THE WEST COAST NAVIGATORS
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1562-1595
+
+FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA
+
+How the Sea Rover was attacked and ruined as a Boy on the
+  Spanish Main off Mexico--His Revenge in sacking
+  Spanish Treasure Houses and crossing Panama--The Richest
+  Man in England, he sails to the Forbidden Sea, scuttles all
+  the Spanish Ports up the West Coast of South America
+  and takes Possession of New Albion (California) for
+  England  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  133
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+1728-1779
+
+CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA
+
+The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find
+  the New Albion of Drake's Discoveries--He misses both
+  the Straits of Fuca and the Mouth of the Columbia, but
+  anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of Future
+  Traders--No Northeast Passage found through Alaska--The True
+  Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia
+  becomes Jealous of his Explorations  . . . . . . . . . . .  172
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+1785-1792
+
+ROBERT GRAY, THE AMERICAN DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA
+
+Boston Merchants, inspired by Cook's Voyages, outfit Two
+  Vessels under Kendrick and Gray for Discovery and Trade
+  on the Pacific--Adventures of the First Ship to carry the
+  American Flag around the World--Gray attacked by
+  Indians at Tillamook Bay--His Discovery of the
+  Columbia River on the Second Voyage--Fort Defence and the
+  First American Ship built on the Pacific . . . . . . . . .  210
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1778-1790
+
+JOHN LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK
+
+A New England Ne'er-do-well, turned from the Door of Rich
+  Relatives, joins Cook's Expedition to America--Adventure
+  among the Russians of Oonalaska--Useless Endeavor
+  to interest New England Merchants in Fur Trade--A
+  Soldier of Fortune in Paris, he meets Jefferson and Paul
+  Jones and outlines Exploration of Western America--Succeeds
+  in crossing Siberia alone on the Way to America, but
+  is thwarted by Russian Fur Traders . . . . . . . . . . . .  242
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+1779-1794
+
+GEORGE VANCOUVER, LAST OF PACIFIC COAST EXPLORERS
+
+Activities of Americans, Spanish, and Russians on the West Coast
+  of America arouse England--Vancouver is sent out
+  ostensibly to settle the Quarrel between Fur Traders and
+  Spanish Governors at Nootka--Incidentally, he is to complete
+  the Exploration of America's West Coast and take Possession
+  for England of Unclaimed Territory--The Myth of a
+  Northeast Passage dispelled Forever  . . . . . . . . . . .  263
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+EXPLORATION GIVES PLACE TO FUR TRADE--THE EXPLOITATION
+  OF THE PACIFIC COAST UNDER THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN
+  FUR COMPANY, AND THE RENOWNED LEADER BARANOF
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+1579-1867
+
+THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY
+
+The Pursuit of the Sable leads Cossacks across Siberia; of the
+  Sea-otter, across the Pacific as far south
+  as California--Caravans of Four Thousand Horses
+  on the Long Trail--Seven Thousand Miles
+  across Europe and Asia--Banditti of the Sea--The
+  Union of All Traders in One Monopoly--Siege
+  and Slaughter of Sitka--How Monroe Doctrine
+  grew out of Russian Fur Trade--Aims of Russia to
+  dominate North Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  293
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+1747-1818
+
+BARANOF, THE LITTLE CZAR OF THE PACIFIC
+
+Baranof lays the Foundations of Russian Empire on the Pacific
+  Coast of America--Shipwrecked on his Way to Alaska,
+  he yet holds his Men in Hand and turns the Ill-hap to
+  Advantage--How he bluffs the Rival Fur Companies in
+  Line--First Russian Ship built in America--Adventures
+  leading the Sea-otter Hunters--Ambushed by the Indians--The
+  Founding of Sitka--Baranof, cast off in his Old
+  Age, dies of Broken Heart  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  316
+
+
+INDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  339
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Seal Rookery, Commander Islands  . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+Peter the Great  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    5
+
+Map of Course followed by Bering   . . . . . . . . . . . .  20-21
+
+The _St. Peter_ and _St. Paul_, from a rough sketch
+  by Bering's comrade, Steller, the scientist  . . . . . . .   29
+
+Steller's Arch on Bering Island, named after the scientist
+  Steller, of Bering's Expedition  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   39
+
+A Glacier  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   46
+
+Sea Cows   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   53
+
+Seals in a Rookery on Bering Island  . . . . . . . . . . . .   57
+
+Mauritius Augustus, Count Benyowsky  . . . . . . . . . . . .  109
+
+Sir John Hawkins   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  135
+
+Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  146
+
+The _Golden Hind_  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  151
+
+Francis Drake  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  155
+
+The Crowning of Drake in California  . . . . . . . . . . . .  164
+
+The Silver Map of the World  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  171
+
+Captain James Cook   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  180
+
+The Ice Islands  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  194
+
+The Death of Cook  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  205
+
+Departure of the _Columbia_ and the _Lady Washington_  . . .  211
+
+Charles Bulfinch   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  212
+
+Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_ Cruise  215
+
+Building the First American Ship on the Pacific Coast  . . .  223
+
+Feather Cloak worn by a son of a Hawaiian Chief, at the
+  celebration in honor of Gray's return  . . . . . . . . . .  226
+
+John Derby   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  228
+
+Map of Gray's two voyages, resulting in the discovery
+  of the Columbia  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  231
+
+A View of the Columbia River   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  237
+
+At the Mouth of the Columbia River   . . . . . . . . . . . .  239
+
+Ledyard in his Dugout  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  244
+
+Captain George Vancouver   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  265
+
+The _Columbia_ in a Squall   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  269
+
+The _Discovery_ on the Rocks   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  274
+
+Indian Settlement at Nootka  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  276
+
+Reindeer Herd in Siberia   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  288
+
+Raised Reindeer Sledges  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  294
+
+John Jacob Astor   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  303
+
+Sitka from the Sea   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  314
+
+Alexander Baranof  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  317
+
+
+
+
+{1}
+
+PART I
+
+DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC
+  COAST OF AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE
+  SEA-OTTER HUNTERS, THE OUTLAWS, AND
+  BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
+
+
+
+{3}
+
+Vikings of the Pacific
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+1700-1743
+
+VITUS BERING, THE DANE
+
+Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to discover whether
+America and Asia are united; Second, to find what lies north of New
+Spain--Terrible Hardships of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven
+Thousand Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a
+Barren Isle
+
+
+We have become such slaves of shallow science in these days, such firm
+believers in the fatalism which declares man the creature of
+circumstance, that we have almost forgotten the supremest spectacle in
+life is when man becomes the Creator of Circumstance.  We forget that
+man can rise to be master of his destiny, fighting, unmaking,
+re-creating, not only his own environment, but the environment of
+multitudinous lesser men.  There is something titanic in such lives.
+They are the hero myths of every nation's legends.  We {4} somehow feel
+that the man who flings off the handicaps of birth and station lifts
+the whole human race to a higher plane and has a bit of the God in him,
+though the hero may have feet of clay and body of beast.  Such were the
+old Vikings of the North, who spent their lives in elemental warfare,
+and rode out to meet death in tempest, lashed to the spar of their
+craft.  And such, too, were the New World Vikings of the Pacific, who
+coasted the seas of two continents in cockle-shell ships,--planks
+lashed with deer thongs, calked with moss,--rapacious in their deep-sea
+plunderings as beasts of prey, fearless as the very spirit of the storm
+itself.  The adventures of the North Pacific Vikings read more like
+some old legend of the sea than sober truth; and the wild strain had
+its fountain-head in the most tempestuous hero and beastlike man that
+ever ascended the throne of the Russias.
+
+[Illustration: Peter the Great.]
+
+When Peter the Great of Russia worked as a ship's carpenter at the
+docks of the East India Company in Amsterdam, the sailors' tales of
+vast, undiscovered lands beyond the seas of Japan must have acted on
+his imagination like a match to gunpowder.[1]  Already he was dreaming
+those imperial conquests which Russia still dreams: of pushing his
+realm to the southernmost edge of Europe, to the easternmost verge of
+Asia, to the doorway of the Arctic, to the very threshold of the {5}
+Chinese capital.  Already his Cossacks had scoured the two Siberias
+like birds of prey, exacting tribute from the wandering tribes of
+Tartary, of Kamchatka, of the Pacific, of the Siberian races in the
+northeasternmost corner of Asia.  And these Chukchee Indians of the
+Asiatic Pacific told the Russians of a land beyond the sea, of
+driftwood floating across the ocean unlike any trees growing in Asia,
+of dead whales washed ashore with the harpoons of strange hunters, {6}
+and--most comical of all in the light of our modern knowledge about the
+Eskimo's tail-shaped fur coats--of men wrecked on the shores of Asia
+who might have qualified for Darwin's missing link, inasmuch as they
+wore "tails."
+
+And now the sailors added yet more fabulous things to Peter's
+knowledge.  There was an unknown continent east of Asia, west of
+America, called on the maps "Gamaland." [2]  Now, Peter's consuming
+ambition was for new worlds to conquer.  What of this "Gamaland"?  But,
+as the world knows, Peter was called home to suppress an insurrection.
+War, domestic broils, massacres that left a bloody stain on his glory,
+busied his hands for the remaining years of his life; and January of
+1725 found the palaces of all the Russias hushed, for the Hercules who
+had scrunched all opposition like a giant lay dying, ashamed to consult
+a physician, vanquished of his own vices, calling on Heaven for pity
+with screams of pain that drove physicians and attendants from the room.
+
+Perhaps remorse for those seven thousand wretches executed at one fell
+swoop after the revolt; perhaps memories of those twenty kneeling
+supplicants whose heads he had struck off with his own hand, drinking a
+bumper of quass to each stroke; perhaps reproaches {7} of the highway
+robbers whom he used to torture to slow death, two hundred at a time,
+by suspending them from hooks in their sides; perhaps the first wife,
+whom he repudiated, the first son whom he had done to death either by
+poison or convulsions of fright, came to haunt the darkness of his
+deathbed.
+
+Catherine, the peasant girl, elevated to be empress of all the Russias,
+could avail nothing.  Physicians and scientists and navigators, Dane
+and English and Dutch, whom he had brought to Russia from all parts of
+Europe, were powerless.  Vows to Heaven, in all the long hours he lay
+convulsed battling with Death, were useless.  The sins of a lifetime
+could not be undone by the repentance of an hour.  Then, as if the
+dauntless Spirit of the man must rise finally triumphant over Flesh,
+the dying Hercules roused himself to one last supreme effort.
+
+Radisson, Marquette, La Salle, Verendrye, were reaching across America
+to win the undiscovered regions of the Western Sea for France.  New
+Spain was pushing her ships northward from Mexico; and now, the dying
+Peter of Russia with his own hand wrote instructions for an expedition
+to search the boundaries between Asia and America.  In a word, he set
+in motion that forward march of the Russians across the Orient, which
+was to go on unchecked for two hundred years till arrested by the
+Japanese.  The Czar's instructions were always laconic.  They were
+written five weeks before his death.  "(1) At {8} Kamchatka . . . two
+boats are to be built.  (2) With these you are to sail northward along
+the coast. . . .  (3) You are to enquire where the American coast
+begins. . . .  Write it down . . . obtain reliable information . . .
+then, having charted the coast, return." [3]
+
+From the time that Peter the Great began to break down the Oriental
+isolation of Russia from the rest of Europe, it was his policy to draw
+to St. Petersburg--the city of his own creation--leaders of thought
+from every capital in Europe.  And as his aim was to establish a navy,
+he especially endeavored to attract foreign navigators to his kingdom.
+Among these were many Norse and Danes.  The acquaintance may have dated
+from the apprenticeship on the docks of the East India Company; but at
+any rate, among the foreign navigators was one Vitus Ivanovich Bering,
+a Dane of humble origin from Horsens,[4] who had been an East India
+Company sailor till he joined the Russian fleet as sub-lieutenant at
+the age of twenty-two, and fought his way up in the Baltic service
+through Peter's wars till in 1720 he was appointed captain of second
+rank.  To Vitus Bering, the Dane, Peter gave the commission for the
+exploration of the waters between Asia and America.  As a sailor,
+Bering had, of course, been on the borders of the Pacific.[5]
+
+{9} The scientists of every city in Europe were in a fret over the
+mythical Straits of Anian, supposed to be between Asia and America, and
+over the yet more mythical Gamaland, supposed to be visible on the way
+to New Spain.  To all this jangling of words without knowledge Peter
+paid no heed.  "You will go and obtain some reliable information," he
+commands Bering.  Neither did he pay any heed to the fact that the
+ports of Kamchatka on the Pacific were six thousand miles by river and
+mountain and tundra and desert through an unknown country from St.
+Petersburg.  It would take from three to five years to transport
+material across two continents by caravan and flatboat and dog sled.
+Tribute of food and fur would be required from Kurd and Tartar and wild
+Siberian tribe.  More than a thousand horses must be requisitioned for
+the caravans; more than two thousand leathern sacks made for the flour.
+Twenty or thirty boats must be constructed to raft down the inland
+rivers.  There were forests to be traversed for hundreds of miles,
+where only the keenest vigilance could keep the wolf packs off the
+heels of the travellers.  And when the expedition should reach the
+tundras of eastern Siberia, there was the double danger of the Chukchee
+tribes on the north, hostile as the American Indians, and of the
+Siberian exile population on the south, branded criminals, political
+malcontents, banditti of {10} the wilderness, outcasts of nameless
+crimes beyond the pale of law.  It needed no prophet to foresee such
+people would thwart, not help, the expedition.  And when the shores of
+Okhotsk were reached, a fort must be built to winter there.  And a
+vessel for inland seas must be constructed to cross to the Kamchatka
+peninsula of the North Pacific.  And the peninsula which sticks out
+from Asia as Norway projects from Europe, must be crossed with
+provisions--a distance of some two hundred miles by dog trains over
+mountains higher than the American Rockies.  And once on the shores of
+the Pacific itself, another fort must be built on the east side of the
+Kamchatka peninsula.  And the two double-decker vessels must be
+constructed to voyage over the sleepy swell of the North Pacific to
+that mythical realm of mist like a blanket, and strange, unearthly
+rumblings smoking up from the cold Arctic sea, with the red light of a
+flame through the gray haze, and weird voices, as if the fog wraith
+were luring seamen to destruction.  These were mere details.  Peter
+took no heed of impossibles.  Neither did Bering; for he was in the
+prime of his honor, forty-four years of age.  "You will go," commanded
+the Czar, and Bering obeyed.
+
+
+Barely had the spirit of Peter the Great passed from this life, in
+1725, when Bering's forces were travelling in midwinter from St.
+Petersburg to cross Siberia to the Pacific, on what is known as the
+First Expedition.[6]  {11} Three years it took him to go from the west
+coast of Europe to the east coast of Asia, crossing from Okhotsk to
+Kamchatka, whence he sailed on the 9th of July, 1728, with forty-four
+men and three lieutenants for the Arctic seas.[7]  This voyage is
+unimportant, except as the kernel out of which grew the most famous
+expedition on the Pacific coast.  Martin Spanberg, another Danish
+navigator, huge of frame, vehement, passionate, tyrannical out
+dauntless, always followed by a giant hound ready to tear any one who
+approached to pieces, and Alexei Chirikoff, an able Russian, were
+seconds in command.  They encountered all the difficulties to be
+expected transporting ships, rigging, and provisions across two
+continents.  Spanberg and his men, winter-bound in East Siberia, were
+reduced to eating their dog harness and shoe-straps for food before
+they came to the trail of dead horses that marked Bering's path to the
+sea, and guided them to the fort at Okhotsk.
+
+Bering did exactly as Czar Peter had ordered.  He built the two-deckers
+at Kamchatka.  Then he followed the coast northward past St. Lawrence
+Island, which he named, to a point where the shore seemed to turn back
+on itself northwestward at 67 degrees 18 minutes, which proved to
+Bering that Asia and America were _not_ {12} united.[8]  And they had
+found no "Gamaland," no new world wedged in between Asia and America,
+Twice they were within only forty miles of America, touching at St.
+Lawrence Island, but the fog hung like a blanket over the sea as they
+passed through the waters now known as Bering Straits.  They saw no
+continent eastward; and Bering was compelled to return with no
+knowledge but that Russia did _not_ extend into America.  And yet,
+there were definite signs of land eastward of Kamchatka--driftwood,
+seaweed, sea-birds.  Before setting out for St. Petersburg in 1729, he
+had again tried to sail eastward to the Gamaland of the maps, but again
+foul weather had driven him back.
+
+It was the old story of the savants and Christopher Columbus in an
+earlier day.  Bering's conclusions were different from the moonshine of
+the schools.  There was no "Gamaland" in the sea.  There was in the
+maps.  The learned men of St. Petersburg ridiculed the Danish sailor.
+The fog was supposed to have concealed "Gamaland."  There was nothing
+for Bering but to retire in ignominy or prove his conclusions.  He had
+arrived in St. Petersburg in March, 1730.  He had induced the court to
+undertake a second expedition by April of the same year.[9]
+
+{13} And for this second expedition, the court, the senate the
+admiralty, and the academy of sciences decided to provide with a lavish
+profusion that would dazzle the world with the brilliancy of Russian
+exploits.  Russia was in the mood to do things.  The young savants who
+thronged her capital were heady with visionary theories that were to
+astonish the rest of mortals.  Scientists,  artisans,  physicians,
+monks, Cossacks, historians, made up the motley roll of conflicting
+influences under Bering's command; but because Bering was a Dane, this
+command was not supreme.  He must convene a council of the Russian
+officers under him, submit all his plans to their vote, then abide by
+their decision.  Yet he alone must carry responsibility for blunders.
+And as the days went on, details of instructions rolling out from
+admiralty, senate, and academy were like an avalanche gathering impetus
+to destruction from its weight.  He was to establish new industries in
+Siberia.  He was to chart the whole Arctic coast line of Asia.  He was
+to Christianize the natives.  He was to provide the travelling
+academicians with luxurious equipment, though some of them had forty
+wagon-loads of instruments and carried a peripatetic library.
+
+Early in 1733, the Second Expedition set out from St. Petersburg in
+detachments to cross Siberia.  There were Vitus Bering, the commander,
+Chirikoff and Spanberg, his two seconds, eight lieutenants, sixteen
+mates, twelve physicians, seven priests, carpenters, {14} bakers,
+Cossacks, sailors,--in all, five hundred and eighty men.[10]  Now, if
+it was difficult to transport a handful of attendants across Siberia
+for the first simple voyage, what was it to convoy this rabble composed
+of self-important scientists bent on proving impossible theories, of
+underling officers each of whom considered himself a czar, of wives and
+children unused to such travel, of priests whose piety took the
+extraordinary form of knouting subordinates to death, of Cossacks who
+drank and gambled and brawled at every stopping place till half the
+lieutenants in the company had crossed swords in duels, of workmen who
+looked on the venture as a mad banishment, and only watched for a
+chance to desert?
+
+Scouts went scurrying ahead with orders for the Siberian Cossacks to
+prepare wintering quarters for the on-coming host, and to levy tribute
+on the inhabitants for provision; but in Siberia, as the Russians say,
+"_God is high in the Heaven, and the Czar is far away_;" and the
+Siberian governors raised not a finger to prepare for Bering.
+
+Spanberg left St. Petersburg in February, 1733.  Bering followed in
+March; and all summer the long caravans of slow-moving pack horses--as
+many as four thousand in a line--wound across the desert wastes of West
+Siberia.
+
+{15} Only the academists dallied in St. Petersburg, kissing Majesty's
+hand farewell, basking in the sudden sunburst of short notoriety,
+driving Bering almost mad by their exorbitant demands for luxuriously
+appointed barges to carry them down the Volga.  Winter was passed at
+Tobolsk; but May of 1734 witnessed a firing of cannon, a blaring of
+trumpets, a clinking of merry glasses among merry gentlemen; for the
+caravans were setting out once more to the swearing of the Cossacks,
+the complaining of the scientists, the brawling of the underling
+officers, the silent chagrin of the endlessly patient Bering.  One can
+easily believe that the God-speed from the Siberians was sincere; for
+the local governors used the orders for tribute to enrich themselves;
+and the country-side groaned under a heavy burden of extortion.  The
+second winter was passed at Yakutsk, where the ships that were to chart
+the Arctic coast of Siberia were built and launched with crews of some
+hundred men.
+
+It was the end of June, 1735, before the main forces were under way
+again for the Pacific.  From Yakutsk to Okhotsk on the Pacific, the
+course was down the Lena, up the Aldan River, up the Maya, up the
+Yudoma, across the Stanovoi Mountains, down the Urak river to the sea.
+A thousand Siberian exiles were compelled to convoy these boats.[11]
+Not a roof had been prepared to house the forces in the mountains.  Men
+and horses were torn to pieces by the timber {16} wolves.  Often, for
+days at a time, the only rations were carcasses of dead horses, roots,
+flour, and rice.  Winter barracks had to be built between the rivers,
+for the navigable season was short.  In May the rivers broke up in
+spring flood.  Then, the course was against a boiling torrent.  Thirty
+men could not tug a boat up the Yudoma.  They stood in ice-water up to
+their waists lifting the barges over the turbulent places.  Sores broke
+out on the feet of horses and men.  Three years it took to transport
+all the supplies and ships' rigging from the Lena to the Pacific, with
+wintering barracks constructed at each stopping place.
+
+At Okhotsk on the Pacific, Major-General Pissarjeff was harbor master.
+This old reprobate, once a favorite of Peter the Great, had been
+knouted, branded and exiled for conspiracy, forbidden even to conceal
+his brand; and now, he let loose all his seventy years of bitterness on
+Bering.  He not only had _not_ made preparation to house the explorers;
+but he refused to permit them inside the stockades of the miserable
+huts at Okhotsk, which he called his fort.  When they built a fort of
+their own outside, he set himself to tantalize the two Danes, Bering
+and Spanberg, knouting their men, sending coureurs with false
+accusations against Bering to St. Petersburg, actually countermanding
+their orders for supplies from the Cossacks.  Spanberg would have
+finished the matter neatly with a sharp sword; but Bering forbore, and
+Pissarjeff {17} was ultimately replaced by a better harbor master.  The
+men set to work cutting the timber for the ships that were to cross
+from Okhotsk to the east shore of Kamchatka; for Bering's ships of the
+first voyage could now be used only as packet boats.
+
+
+Not till the fourth of June, 1741, had all preparations ripened for the
+fulfilment of Czar Peter's dying wishes to extend his empire into
+America.  Two vessels, the _St. Peter_ and the _St. Paul_, rode at
+anchor at Petropaulovsk in the Bay of Avacha on the east coast of
+Kamchatka.  On the shore was a little palisaded fort of some fifty
+huts, a barrack, a chapel, a powder magazine.  Early that morning,
+solemn religious services had been held to invoke the blessing of
+Heaven on the voyagers.  Now, the chapel bell was set ringing.  Monks
+came singing down to the water's edge.  Cannon were fired.  Cheer on
+cheer set the echoes rolling among the white domed mountains.  There
+was a rattling of anchor chains, a creaking of masts and yard-arms.
+The sails fluttered out bellying full; and with a last, long shout, the
+ships glided out before the wind to the lazy swell of the Pacific for
+the discovery of new worlds.
+
+And why not new worlds?  That was the question the officers
+accompanying Bering asked themselves as the white peaks of Kamchatka
+faded on the offing.  Certainly, in the history of the world, no
+expedition had set out with greater prestige.  Eight years had it {18}
+taken to cross Siberia from St. Petersburg to the Pacific.  A line of
+forts across two continents had been built for winter quarters.  Rivers
+had been bridged; as many as forty boats knocked together in a single
+year to raft down the Siberian torrents.  Two hundred thousand dollars
+in modern money had been spent before the Pacific was reached.  In all,
+nine ships had been built on the Pacific to freight supplies across
+from Okhotsk to the eastern side of Kamchatka, two to carry Bering to
+the new continent of "Gamaland" which the savants persisted in putting
+on the maps, three to explore the region between Russia and Japan.
+Now, Bering knew there was _no_ "Gamaland" except in the ignorant,
+heady imaginings of the foolish geographers.  So did Alexei Chirikoff,
+the Russian second assistant.  So did Spanberg, the Dane, third in
+command, who had coasted the Pacific in charting Japan.
+
+Roughly speaking, the expedition had gradually focussed to three
+points: (1) the charting of the Arctic coast; (2) the exploration of
+Japan; (3) the finding of what lay between Asia and America.  Some two
+hundred men, of whom a score had already perished of scurvy, had gone
+down the Siberian rivers to the Arctic coast.  Spanberg, the Dane, with
+a hundred others, had thoroughly charted Japan, and had seen his
+results vetoed by the authorities at St. Petersburg because there was
+no Gamaland.  Bering, himself, undertook the voyage to America.  All
+the month of {19} May, council after council had been held at Avacha
+Bay to determine which way Bering's two ships should sail.  By the vote
+of this council, Bering, the commander, was compelled to abide; and the
+mythical Gamaland proved his evil star.
+
+The maps of the D'Isles, the famous geographers, contained a Gamaland;
+and Louis la Croyere d'Isle, relative of the great map maker, who had
+knocked about in Canada and was thought to be an authority on American
+matters, was to accompany Chirikoff, Bering's first lieutenant.  At the
+councils, these maps were hauled out.  It was a matter of family pride
+with the D'Isles to find that Gamaland.  Bering and Chirikoff may have
+cursed all scientists, as Cook, the great navigator, cursed savants at
+a later day; but they must bow to the decision of the council; and the
+decision was to sail south-southeast for Gamaland.  And yet, there
+could have been no bitterness in Bering's feelings; for he knew that
+the truth must triumph.  He would be vindicated, whatever came; and the
+spell of the North was upon him with its magic beckoning on--on--on to
+the unknown, to the unexplored, to the undreamed.  All that the
+discoveries of Columbus gave to the world, Bering's voyage might give
+to Russia; for he did _not_ know that the La Verendryes of New France
+had already penetrated west as far as the Rockies; and he did know that
+half a continent yet lay unexplored, unclaimed, on the other side of
+the Pacific.
+
+{20}
+
+[Illustration: Map of Course followed by Bering.]
+
+But with boats that carried only one hundred casks of water, and
+provisions for but five months, the decision to sail south-southeast
+was a deplorable waste of precious time.  It would lead to the Spanish
+possessions, not to the unknown North.  On Bering's boat, the _St.
+Peter_, was a crew of seventy-seven, Lieutenant Waxel, second in
+command, George William Steller, the famous scientist, Bering's friend,
+on board.  On the _St. Paul_, under the stanch, level-headed Russian
+lieutenant, Alexei Chirikoff, were seventy-six men, with La Croyere
+d'Isle as astronomer.  Not the least {21} complicating feature of the
+case was the personnel of the crews.  For the most part, they were
+branded criminals and malcontents.  From the first they had regarded
+the Bering expedition with horror.  They had joined it under compulsion
+for only six years; and the exploration was now in its eleventh year.
+Spanberg, the other Dane, with his brutal tongue and constant recourse
+to the knout, who had gone to St. Petersburg to report on Japan, they
+cordially hated.  Chirikoff, the Russian, was a universal favorite, and
+Bering, the supreme commander, was loved for his {22} kindness; but
+Bering's commands were subject to veto by the Russian underlings; and
+the Russian underling officers kept up a constant brawl of duels and
+gaming and drink.  No wonder the bluff Dane sailed out from the
+snow-rimmed peaks of Avacha Bay with dark forebodings.  He had carried
+a load of petty instructions issued by ignoramus savants for eight
+years.  He had borne eight years of nagging from court and senate and
+academy.  He had been criticised for blunders of others' making.  He
+had been set to accomplish a Herculean task with tied hands.  He had
+been threatened with fines and court martial for the delay caused by
+the quarrels of his under officers to whom he was subject.  He had been
+deprived of salary for three years and accused of pilfering from public
+funds.  His wife, who had by this time returned with the wives of the
+other officers to Russia, had actually been searched for hidden
+booty.[12]  And now, after toils and hardships untold, only five
+months' provisions were left for the ships sailing from Kamchatka; and
+the blockhead underlings were compelling a waste of those provisions by
+sailing in the wrong direction.  If the worst came, could Bering hold
+his men with those tied hands of his?
+
+
+The commander shrugged his shoulders and signalled Chirikoff, the
+Russian, on the _St. Paul_, to lead the way.  They must find out there
+was no Gamaland {23} for themselves, those obstinate Russians!  The
+long swell of the Pacific meets them as they sheer out from the
+mountain-girt harbor.  A dip of the sails to the swell of the rising
+wind, and the snowy heights of Avacha Bay are left on the offing.  The
+thunder of the surf against the rocky caves of Kamchatka coast fades
+fainter.  The myriad birds become fewer.  Steller, the scientist, leans
+over the rail to listen if the huge sperm whale, there, "hums" as it
+"blows."  The white rollers come from the north, rolling--rolling down
+to the tropics.  A gray thing hangs over the northern offing, a grayish
+brown thing called "fog" of which they will know more anon.  The
+grayish brown thing means storm; and the "porps" tumbling, floundering,
+somerseting round the ships in circles, mean storm; and Chirikoff, far
+ahead there, signals back doubtfully to know if they shouldn't keep
+together to avoid being lost in the gathering fog.  The Dane shrugs his
+shoulders and looks to the north.  The grayish brown thing has
+darkened, thickened, spread out impalpably, and by the third day, a
+northling wind is whistling through the riggings with a rip.  Sails are
+furled.  The white rollers roll no longer.  They lash with chopped-off
+tops flying backward; and the _St. Peter_ is churning about, shipping
+sea after sea with the crash of thunder.  That was what the fog meant;
+and it is all about them, in a hurricane now, stinging cold, thick to
+the touch, washing out every outline but sea--sea!
+
+{24} Never mind!  They are nine days out.  It is the twelfth of June.
+They are down to 46 degrees and no Gamaland!  The blockheads have
+stopped spreading their maps in the captain's cabin.  One can see a
+smile wreathing in the whiskers of the Dane.  Six hundred miles south
+of Kamchatka and no Gamaland!  The council convenes again.  It is
+decided to turn about, head north, and say no more of Gamaland.  But
+when the fog, that has turned hurricane, lifts, the consort ship, the
+_St. Paul_, is lost.  Chirikoff's vessel has disappeared.  Up to 49
+degrees, they go; but still no Chirikoff, and no Gamaland!  Then the
+blunder-makers, as usual, blunder more.  It is dangerous to go on
+without the sister ship.  The council convenes.  Bering must hark back
+to 46 degrees and hunt for Chirikoff.  So passes the whole month of
+June.  Out of five months' provisions, one wasted, the odium on Bering,
+the Dane.
+
+It was noticed that after the ship turned south, the commander looked
+ill and depressed.  He became intolerant of opposition or approach.
+Possibly to avoid irritation, he kept to his cabin; but he issued
+peremptory orders for the _St. Peter_ to head back north.
+
+
+In a few days, Bering was confined to bed with that overwhelming
+physical depression and fear, that precede the scourge most dreaded by
+seamen--scurvy.  Lieutenant Waxel now took command.  Waxel had all a
+sailor's contempt for the bookful blockheads, who wrench fact to fit
+theory; and deadly enmity arose {25} between him and Steller, the
+scientist.  By the middle of July, the fetid drinking water was so
+reduced that the crew was put on half allowance; but on the sleepy,
+fog-blanketed swell of the Pacific slipping past Bering's wearied eyes,
+there were so many signs of land--birds, driftwood, seaweed--that the
+commander ordered the ship hove to each night for fear of grounding.
+
+On the thirteenth of July, the council of underlings had so far
+relinquished all idea of a Gamaland, that it was decided to steer
+continuously north.  Sometime between the 16th and 20th, the fog lifted
+like a curtain.  Such a vision met the gaze of the stolid seamen as
+stirred the blood of those phlegmatic Russians.  It was the
+consummation of all their labor, what they had toiled across Siberia to
+see, what they had hoped against hope in spite of the learned jargon of
+the geographers.  There loomed above the far horizon of the north sea
+what might have been an immense opal dome suspended in mid-heaven.  One
+can guess how the lookout strained keen eyes at this grand, crumpled
+apex of snow jagged through the clouds like the celestial tent peak of
+some giant race; how the shout of "land" went up, how officers and
+underlings flocked round Bering with cries and congratulations.  "We
+knew it was land beyond a doubt on the sixteenth," says Steller.
+"Though I have been in Kamchatka, I have never seen more lofty
+mountains."  The shore was broken everywhere, showing inlets and
+harbors.  {26} Everybody congratulated the commander, but he only
+shrugged shoulders, saying: "We think we've done big things, eh? but
+who knows?  Nobody realizes where this is, or the distance we must sail
+back.  Winds may be contrary.  We don't know this land; and we haven't
+provisions to winter."
+
+The truth is--the maps having failed, Bering was good enough seaman to
+know these uncharted signs of a continent indicated that the _St.
+Peter_ was hopelessly lost.  Sixteen years of nagging care, harder to
+face than a line of cannon, had sucked Bering's capacity of resistance
+like a vampire.  That buoyancy, which lifts man above Anxious Fright,
+had been sapped.  The shadowy elemental powers--physical weakness,
+disease, despair--were closing round the explorer like the waves of an
+eternal sea.
+
+The boat found itself in a wonder world, that beggared romance.  The
+great peak, which they named St. Elias, hung above a snowy row of
+lesser ridges in a dome of alabaster.  Icebergs, like floating palaces,
+came washing down from the long line of precipitous shore.  As they
+neared anchorage at an island now known as Kyak, they could see billows
+of ferns, grasses, lady's slippers, rhododendrons, bluebells,
+forget-me-nots, rippling in the wind.  Perhaps they saw those palisades
+of ice, that stretch like a rampart northward along the main shore west
+of St. Elias.
+
+The _St. Peter_ moved slowly landward against a head wind.  Khitroff
+and Steller put off in the small {27} boats with fifteen men to
+reconnoitre.  Both found traces of inhabitants--timbered huts, fire
+holes, shells, smoked fish, footprints in the grass.  Steller left some
+kettles, knives, glass beads, and trinkets in the huts to replace the
+possessions of the natives, which the Russians took.  Many years later,
+another voyager met an old Indian, who told of seeing Bering's ship
+anchor at Kyak Island when he was a boy; but the terrified Indians had
+fled, only returning to find the presents in the huts, when the
+Russians had gone.[13]  Steller was as wild as a child out of school,
+and accompanied by only one Cossack went bounding over the island
+collecting specimens and botanizing.  Khitroff, meanwhile, filled
+water-casks; but on July 21, the day after the anchorage, a storm-wind
+began whistling through the rigging.  The rollers came washing down
+from the ice wall of the coast and the far offing showed the dirty fog
+that portended storm.  Only half the water-casks had been filled; but
+there was a brisk seaward breeze.  Without warning, contrary to his
+custom of consulting the other officers, Bering appeared on deck pallid
+and ashen from disease, and peremptorily ordered anchors up.
+
+In vain Steller stormed and swore, accusing the chief of pusillanimous
+homesickness, "of reducing his explorations to a six hours' anchorage
+on an island shore," "of coming from Asia to carry home American
+water."  The commander had had enough of {28} vacillation, delay,
+interference.  One-third of the crew was ailing.  Provisions for only
+three months were in the hold.  The ship was off any known course more
+than two thousand miles from any known port; and contrary winds might
+cause delay or drive the vessel on the countless reefs that lined this
+strange coast, like a ploughed field.
+
+Dense clouds and a sleety rain settled over the sea, washing out every
+outline, as the _St. Peter_ began her westward course.  But what
+baffled both Bering and the officers was the fact that the coast
+trended, not north, but south.  They were coasting that long peninsula
+of Alaska that projects an arm for a thousand miles southwestward into
+the Pacific.
+
+The roar of the rollers came from the reefs.  Through the blanketing
+fog they could discern, on the north, island after island, ghostlike
+through the mist, rocky, towering, majestic, with a thunder of surf
+among the caves, a dim outline of mountains above, like Loki, Spirit of
+Evil, smiling stonily at the dark forces closing round these puny men.
+All along Kadiak, the roily waters told of reefs.  The air was heavy
+with fogs thick to the touch; and violent winds constantly threatened a
+sudden shift that might drive the vessel on the rocks.  At midnight on
+August 1, they suddenly found themselves with only three feet of water
+below the keel.  Fortunately there was no wind, but the fog was like
+ink.  By swinging into a current, that ran a mill-race, they were
+carried out to eighteen fathoms {29} of water, where they anchored till
+daybreak.  They called this place Foggy Island.  To-day it is known as
+Ukamok.
+
+[Illustration: The _St. Peter_ and _St. Paul_, from a rough sketch by
+Bering's comrade, Steller, the scientist.]
+
+The underlings now came sharply to their senses and, at the repeatedly
+convened and distracted councils between July 25 and August 10, decided
+that there was only one thing to do--sail at once for the home port of
+Kamchatka.  The _St. Peter_ was tossing about in frightful winds among
+reefs and hurricane fog like a cork.  Half the crew lay ill and
+helpless of scurvy, {30} and only two months' provisions remained for a
+voyage of two thousand miles.  The whole crew signed the resolution to
+go home.
+
+Only twenty-five casks of water remained.  On August 30 the _St. Peter_
+anchored off a group of thirteen bald, bare, treeless rocks.  It was
+thought that if some of the scurvy-stricken sailors could be carried
+ashore, they might recover.  One, Shumagin, died as he was lifted
+ashore.  This was the first death, and his name was given to the
+islands.  Bering himself was so ill he could not stand.  Twenty
+emaciated men were laid along the shore.  Steller hurried off to hunt
+anti-scorbutic plants, while Waxel, who had taken command, and Khitroff
+ordered the water-casks filled.  Unfortunately the only pool they could
+find was connected with an arm of the sea.  The water was brackish, and
+this afterward increased disease.
+
+A fatality seemed to hang over the wonder world where they wandered.
+Voices were heard in the storm, rumblings from the sea.  Fire could be
+seen through the fog.  Was this fire from volcanoes or Indians?  And
+such a tide-rip thundered along the rocks as shook the earth and set
+the ship trembling.  Waxel knew they must not risk delay by going to
+explore, but by applying to Bering, who lay in his berth unconscious of
+the dangers on this coast, Khitroff gained permission to go from the
+vessel on a yawl with five sailors; but by the time he had rowed
+against head winds to the scene of the fire, the Indians had {31} fled,
+and such beach combers were crashing ashore, Khitroff dare not risk
+going back to the ship.  In vain Waxel ground his teeth with rage,
+signalled, and waited.  "The wind seemed to issue from a flue," says
+Steller, "with such a whistling and roaring and rumbling that we
+expected to lose mast and rudder, or be crushed among the breakers.
+The dashings of the sea sounded like a cannon."
+
+The fact was, Khitroff's yawl had been smashed to kindling wood against
+the rocks; and the six half-drowned Russians were huddling together
+waiting for help when Waxel took the other small boat and went to the
+rescue.  Barely had this been effected at the cost of four days' delay,
+in which the ship might have made five hundred miles toward home, when
+natives were seen paddling out in canoes, gesticulating for the white
+men to come ashore.  Waxel lowered away in the small boat with nine
+armed men to pay the savages a visit.  Close ashore, he beckoned the
+Indians to wade out; but they signalled him in turn to land, and he
+ordered three men out to moor the boat to a rock.  All went well
+between Russians and Indians, presents being exchanged, till a chief
+screwed up his courage to paddle out to Waxel in the boat.  With
+characteristic hospitality, Waxel at once proffered some Russian
+brandy, which, by courtesy among all Western sailors, is always known
+as "chain lightning."  The chief took but one gulp of the liquid fire,
+when with a wild yell he spat it out, shouted that he had been
+poisoned, and dashed ashore.
+
+{32} The three Russians succeeded in gaining Waxel's boat, but the
+Indians grabbed the mooring ropes and seized the Chukchee interpreter,
+whom Waxel had brought from Siberia.  Waxel ordered the rope cut, but
+the Chukchee interpreter called out pitifully to be saved.  Quick as
+flash, the Russians fired two muskets in midair.  At the crash that
+echoed among the cliffs, the Indians fell prostrate with fear, and the
+interpreter escaped; but six days had been wasted in this futile visit
+to the natives.
+
+Scarcely had they escaped this island, when such a hurricane broke over
+the _St. Peter_ for seventeen days that the ship could only scud under
+bare poles before a tornado wind that seemed to be driving
+north-northwest.  The ship was a chip in a maelstrom.  There were only
+fifteen casks of water fit to drink.  All food was exhausted but mouldy
+sea-biscuits.  One sailor a day was now dying of scurvy, and those left
+were so weak that they had no power to man the ship.  The sailors were
+so emaciated they had to be carried back and forward to the rudder, and
+the underling officers were quarrelling among themselves.  The crew
+dared not hoist sails, because not a man of the _St. Peter_ had the
+physical strength to climb and lower canvas.[14]
+
+{33} The rain turned to sleet.  The sleet froze to the rotting sails,
+to the ice-logged hull, to the wan yardarms frost-white like ghosts.
+At every lurch of the sea slush slithered down from the rigging on the
+shivering seamen.  The roar of the breakers told of a shallow sea, yet
+mist veiled the sky, and they were above waters whose shallows drop to
+sudden abysmal depths of three thousand fathoms.  Sheets of smoking
+vapor rose from the sea, sheets of flame-tinged smoke from the
+crevasses of land volcanoes which the fogs hid.  Out of the sea came
+the hoarse, strident cry of the sea-lion, and the walrus, and the hairy
+seal.  It was as if the poor Russians had sailed into some under-world.
+The decks were slippery as glass, the vessel shrouded in ice.  Over all
+settled that unspeakable dread of impending disaster, which is a
+symptom of scurvy, and saps the fight that makes a man fit to survive.
+
+Waxel, alone, held the vessel up to the wind.  Where were they?  Why
+did this coasting along unknown northern islands not lead to Kamchatka?
+
+The councils were no longer the orderly conferences of savants over
+cut-and-dried maps.  They were bedlam.  Panic was in the marrow of
+every man, even the passionate Steller, who thought all the while they
+were on the coast of Kamchatka and made loud complaint that the
+expedition had been misled by "unscrupulous leaders."
+
+At eight o'clock on the morning of October 30 it was seen that the
+ice-clogged ropes on the starboard {34} side had been snapped by the
+wind like dry sticks.  Offerings, vows, prayers went up from the
+stricken crew.  Piety became a very real thing.  The men prayed aloud
+and conferred on ways to win the favor of God.  The colder weather
+brought one relief.  The fog lifted and the air was clear.  The wind
+veered northeast, and on November 4, to their inexpressible joy, a dim
+outline sharpened to hard, clear horizon; and the gazing crew gradually
+saw a high, mountainous coast become clear beyond doubt directly ahead
+sixteen miles.  Surely, this was Kamchatka?  Surely, God had heard
+their vows?  The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to
+see land once more, and with streaming eyes thanked Heaven for the
+escape from doom.  Grief became joy; gruff, happy, hilarious laughter;
+for a few hidden casks of brandy were brought out to celebrate the end
+of their miseries, and each man began pointing out certain headlands
+that he thought he recognized.  But this ecstasy was fool joy born of
+desperation.  As the ship rounded northeastward, a strangeness came
+over the scene; a chill over the good cheer--a numbing, silent,
+unspeakable dread over the crew.  These turbulent waters running a
+mill-race between reefs looked more like a channel between two islands
+than open coast.  The men could not utter a word.  They hoped against
+hope.  They dare not voice their fears.  That night, the _St. Peter_
+stood off from land in case of storm.  Topsails were furled, and the
+wind had ripped the other {35} sails to tatters, that flared and beat
+dismally all night against the cordage.  One can imagine the anxiety of
+that long night with the roar of the breakers echoing angrily from
+shore, the whistle of the wind through the rotten rigging, the creaking
+of the timbers to the crash and growl and rebound of the tide.  Clear,
+refulgent with sunshine like the light of creation's first day, the
+sting of ozone in the air, and the freshness of a scene never before
+witnessed by human eyes--dawned the morning of November 5.
+
+The shore was of black, adamant rock rising sheer from the sea in a
+rampart wall.  Reefs, serried, rank on rank, like sentinels, guarded
+approach to the coast in jagged masses, that would rip the bottom from
+any keel like the teeth of a saw; and over these rolled the roaring
+breakers with a clutch to the back-wash that bade the gazing sailors
+beware.  Birds, birds in myriads upon myriads, screamed and circled
+over the eerie heights of the beetling cliffs.  This did not look like
+Kamchatka.  These birds were not birds of the Asiatic home port.  These
+cliffs were not like the snow-rimmed mountains of Avacha Bay.
+
+Waxel called a council.
+
+Officers and men dragged themselves to Bering's cabin.  Waxel had
+already canvassed all hands to vote for a landing to winter on these
+shores.  This, the dying Bering opposed with all his might.  "We roust
+be almost home," he said.  "We still have six casks of water, and the
+_foremast_.  Having risked so {36} much, let us risk three days more,
+let us risk everything to reach Avacha Bay."  Poor Bering!  Had his
+advice been followed, the saddest disaster of northern seas might have
+been averted; for they were less than ten days' run from the home
+harbor; but inspired by fool hopes born of fear, like the old marsh
+lights that used to lure men to the quicksands--Waxel and Khitroff
+actually persuaded themselves this _was_ Kamchatka, and when one
+lieutenant, Ofzyn, who knew the north well from charting the Arctic
+coast, would have spoken in favor of Bering's view, he was actually
+clubbed and thrown from the cabin.  The crew voted as a man to land and
+winter on this coast.  Little did they know that vote was their own
+death warrant.
+
+
+
+[1] See _Life of Peter the Great_, by Orlando Williams, 1859; _Peter
+the Great_, by John Lothrop Motley, 1877; _History of Peter I_, by John
+Mottley, 1740; _Journal of Peter the Great_, 1698; Voltaire's _Pierre
+le Grand_; Segur's _Histoire de Russie et de Pierre le Grand_.
+
+[2] Who this man _Gama_, supposed to have seen the unknown continent of
+Gamaland, was, no one knew.  The Portuguese followed the myth blindly;
+and the other geographers followed the Portuguese.  Texeira, court
+geographer in Portugal, in 1649 issued a map with a vague coast marked
+at latitude 45 degrees north, with the words "Land seen by John de
+Gama, Indian, going from China to New Spain."
+
+[3] These instructions were handed to Peter's admiral--Count Apraxin.
+
+[4] Born 1681, son of Jonas and Anna Bering, whom a petition describes,
+in 1719, as "old, miserable, decrepit people, no way able to help
+ourselves."
+
+[5] He fought in Black Sea wars of 1711; and from lieutenant-captain
+became captain of the second rank by 1717, when Russians, jealous of
+the foreigner, blocked his promotion.  He demanded promotion or
+discharge, and withdrew to Finland, where the Czar's Kamchatkan
+expedition called him from retirement.
+
+[6] The expedition left St. Petersburg February 5th.
+
+[7] The midshipman of this voyage was Peter Chaplin, whose journal was
+deposited in the Naval College of the Admiralty, St. Petersburg.  Berg
+gives a summary of this journal.  A translation by Dall is to be found
+in _Appendix 19, Coast Survey, Washington, 1890_.
+
+[8] A great dispute has waged among the finical academists, where the
+Serdze Kamen of this trip really was; the Russian observations varying
+greatly owing to fog and rude instruments.  _Lauridsen_ quarrels with
+_Mueller_ on this score.  _Mueller_ was one of the theorists whose
+wrongheadedness misled Bering.
+
+[9] It was in 1730 that Gvozdef's report of a strange land between 65
+degrees and 66 degrees became current.  Whether this land was America,
+Gamaland, or Asia, the savants could not know.
+
+[10] It is from the works of _Gmelin_, _Mueller_, and _Steller_,
+scientists named to accompany the expedition, that the most connected
+accounts are obtained.  The "menagerie," some one has called this
+collection of scientists.
+
+[11] Many of the workmen died of their hardships at this stage of the
+journey.
+
+[12] Berg says Bering's two sons, Thomas and Unos, were also with him
+in Siberia.
+
+[13] _Sauer_ relates this incident.
+
+[14] See _Mueller_, p. 93, 1764 edition: "The men, notwithstanding want,
+misery, sickness, were obliged to work continually in the cold and wet,
+and the sickness was so dreadful that the sailors who governed the
+rudder were obliged to be led to it by others, who could hardly walk.
+They durst not carry much sail, because there was nobody to lower them
+in case of need, and they were so thin a violent wind would have torn
+them to pieces.  The rain now changed to hail and snow."
+
+
+
+
+{37}
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+1741-1743
+
+CONTINUATION OF BERING, THE DANE
+
+Frightful Sufferings of the Castaways on the Commander Islands--The
+Vessel smashed in a Winter Gale, the Sick are dragged for Refuge into
+Pits of Sand--Here, Bering perishes, and the Crew Winter--The Consort
+Ship under Chirikoff Ambushed--How the Castaways reach Home
+
+
+Without pilot or captain, the _St. Peter_ drifted to the swirling current
+of the sea along a high, rocky, forbidding coast where beetling
+precipices towered sheer two thousand feet above a white fret of reefs,
+that gave the ocean the appearance of a ploughed field.  The sick crawled
+mutely back to their berths.  Bering was past caring what came and only
+semiconscious.  Waxel, who had compelled the crew to vote for landing
+here under the impression born of his own despair,--that this was the
+coast of Avacha Bay, Kamchatka,--saw with dismay in the shores gliding
+past the keel momentary proofs that he was wrong.  Poor Waxel had fought
+desperately against the depression that precedes scurvy; but now, with a
+dumb hopelessness settling over the ship, the invisible hand of the
+scourge {38} was laid on him, too.  He went below decks completely
+fordone.
+
+The underling officers still upon their feet, whose false theories had
+led Bering into all this disaster, were now quarrelling furiously among
+themselves, blaming one another.  Only Ofzyn, the lieutenant, who had
+opposed the landing, and Steller, the scientist, remained on the lookout
+with eyes alert for the impending destruction threatened from the white
+fret of the endless reefs.  Rocks rose in wild, jagged masses out of the
+sea.  Deep V-shaped ravines, shadowy in the rising moonlight, seemed to
+recede into the rock wall of the coast, and only where a river poured out
+from one of these ravines did there appear to be any gap through the long
+lines of reefs where the surf boomed like thunder.  The coast seemed to
+trend from northwest to southeast, and might have been from thirty to
+fifty miles long, with strange bizarre arches of rock overhanging endless
+fields of kelp and seaweed.  The land was absolutely treeless except for
+willow brushwood the size of one's finger.  Lichens, moss, sphagnum,
+coated the rocks.  Inland appeared nothing but billowing reaches of
+sedges and shingle and grass.
+
+[Illustration: Steller's Arch on Bering Island, named after the scientist
+Steller, of Bering's Expedition.]
+
+Suddenly Steller noticed that the ebb-tide was causing huge combing
+rollers that might dash the ship against the rocks.  Rushing below decks
+he besought Bering's permission to sound and anchor.  The early darkness
+of those northern latitudes had been followed by moon-light bright as
+day.  Within a mile of the east shore, {39} Steller ordered the anchor
+dropped, but by this time, the rollers were smashing over decks with a
+quaking that seemed to tear the ship asunder.  The sick were hurled from
+their berths.  Officers rushed on deck to be swept from their feet by
+blasts of salt spray, and just ahead, through the moonlight, could be
+seen the sharp edge of a long reef where the beach combers ran with the
+tide-rip of a whirlpool.  There is something inexpressibly terrifying
+even from a point of safety in these beach combers, clutching their long
+arms hungrily for prey.  The confusion of orders and {40} counter-orders,
+which no man had strength to carry out, of terrified cries and prayers
+and oaths--was indescribable.  The numb hopelessness was succeeded by
+sheer panic terror.  Ofzyn threw out a second anchor that raked bottom.
+Then, another mountain roller thundering over the ship with a crash--and
+the first cable snapped like a pistol shot.  The ship rebounded; then
+drove before the back-wash of the angry sea.  With no fate possible but
+the wall of rocks ahead, the terrorized crew began heaving the dead
+overboard in the moonlight; but another roaring billow smashed the _St.
+Peter_ squarely broadside.  The second hawser ripped back with the
+whistling rebound of a whip-lash, and Ofzyn was in the very act of
+dropping the third and last anchor, when straight as a bullet to the
+mark, as if hag-ridden by the northern demons of sailor fear, hurled the
+_St. Peter_ for the reef!  A third time the beach combers crashed down
+like a falling mountain.  When the booming sheets of blinding spray had
+cleared and the panic-stricken sailors could again see, the _St. Peter_
+was staggering stern foremost, shore ahead, like a drunken ship.  Quick
+as shot, Ofzyn and Steller between them heaved over the last anchor.  The
+flukes gripped--raked--then caught--and held.
+
+The ship lay rocking inside a reef in the very centre of a sheltered cove
+not six hundred yards from land.  The beach comber had either swept her
+through a gap in the reef, or hurled her clear above the reefs into
+shelter.
+
+{41} For seven hours the ship had battled against tide and
+counter-current.  Now, at midnight, with the air clear as day, Steller
+had the small boat lowered and with another--some say Waxel, others
+Pleneser, the artist, or Ofzyn, of the Arctic expedition--rowed ashore to
+reconnoitre.  Sometime between the evening of November 5 and the morning
+of November 6, their eyes met such a view as might have been witnessed by
+an Alexander Selkirk, or Robinson Crusoe.  The exact landing was four or
+five miles north of what is now known as Cape Khitroff, below the centre
+of the east coast of Bering Island.[1]  Poor Waxel would have it, they
+were on the coast of Kamchatka, and spoke of sending messengers for help
+to Petropaulovsk on Avacha Bay; but, as they were to learn soon enough,
+the nearest point in Kamchatka was one hundred miles across the sea.
+Avacha Bay was two hundred miles away.  And the Spanish possessions of
+America, three thousand.  They found the landing place literally swarming
+with animal life unknown to the world before.  An enormous mammal, more
+than three tons in weight, with hind quarters like a whale, snout and
+fore fins resembling a cow, grazed in herds on the fields of sea-kelp and
+gazed languidly without fear on the newcomer--Man.  This was the famous
+sea-cow described by the enthusiastic Steller, but long since extinct.
+Blue foxes swarmed round the very feet of the {42} men with such hungry
+boldness that half a dozen could be clubbed to death before the others
+scampered.  Later, Steller was to see the seal rookeries, that were to
+bring so much wealth to the world, the sea-lions that roared along the
+rocks till the surf shook, the sea-otter whose rare pelt, more priceless
+than beaver or sable, was to cause the exploration and devastation of the
+northern half of the Pacific coast.
+
+The land was as it had appeared to the ship--utterly treeless except for
+trailing willows.  The brooks were not yet frozen, and snow had barely
+powdered the mountains; but where the coves ran in back between the
+mountains from the sea were gullies or ditches of sand and sedge.  When
+Steller presently found a broken window casing of Kamchatka half buried
+in the sand, it gave Waxel some confidence about being on the mainland of
+Asia; but before Steller had finished his two days' reconnoitre, there
+was no mistaking the fact--this was an island, and a barren one at the
+best, without tree or shelter; and here the castaways must winter.
+
+The only provisions now remaining to the crew were grease and mouldy
+flour.  Steller at once went to work.  Digging pits in the narrow gullies
+of sand, he covered these over with driftwood, the rotten sail-cloth,
+moss, mud, and foxskins.  Cracks were then chinked up with clay and more
+foxskins.  By the 8th of November he was ready to have the crew landed;
+but the ship rolled helpless as a log to the tide, and the few well {43}
+men of the staff, without distinction of officers from sailors, had to
+stand waist-deep in ice-slush to steady the stretchers made of mast poles
+and sail-cloth, that received the sick lowered over decks.  Many of the
+scurvy stricken had not been out of their berths for six weeks.  The
+fearful depression and weakness, that forewarn scurvy, had been followed
+by the pains, the swollen limbs, the blue spots that presage death.  A
+spongy excrescence covered the gums.  The teeth loosened.  The slightest
+noise was enough to throw the patient into a paroxysm of anguished
+fright; and some died on the decks immediately on contact with the
+cuttingly cold air.  Others expired as they were lowered to the
+stretchers; others, as they were laid along the strip of sandy shore,
+where the bold foxes were already devouring the dead and could scarcely
+be driven off by the dying.  In this way perished nine of the _St.
+Peter's_ crew during the week of the landing.
+
+By November 10, all was in readiness for Bering's removal from the ship.
+As the end approached, his irritability subsided to a quieted
+cheerfulness; and he could be heard mumbling over thanks to God for the
+great success of his early life.  Wrapped in furs, fastened to a
+stretcher, the Dane was lowered over the ship, carried ashore, and laid
+in a sand pit.  All that day it had been dull and leaden; and just as
+Bering was being carried, it began to snow heavily.  Steller occupied the
+sand pit next to the commander; and in {44} addition to acting as cook
+and physician to the entire crew, became Bering's devoted attendant.
+
+By the 13th of November, a long sand pit had been roofed over as a sort
+of hospital with rug floor; and here Steller had the stricken sailors
+carried in from the shore.  Poor Waxel, who had fought so bravely, was
+himself carried ashore on November 21.
+
+Daily, officers tramped inland exploring; and daily, the different
+reconnoitring parties returned with word that not a trace of human
+habitation, of wood, or the way to Kamchatka had been discovered.
+Another island there was to the east--now known as Copper Island--and two
+little islets of rock; but beyond these, nothing could be descried from
+the highest mountains but sea--sea.  Bering Island, itself, is some fifty
+miles long by ten wide, very high at the south, very swampy at the north;
+but the Commander Group is as completely cut off from both Asia and
+America as if it were in another world.  The climate was not intensely
+cold; but it was so damp, the very clothing rotted; and the gales were so
+terrific that the men could only leave the mud huts or _yurts_ by
+crawling on all fours; and for the first three weeks after the landing,
+blast on blast of northern hurricane swept over the islands.
+
+The poor old ship rode her best at anchor through the violent storms; but
+on November 28 she was seen to snap her cable and go staggering drunkenly
+to open sea.  The terror of the castaways at this spectacle {45} was
+unspeakable.  Their one chance of escape in spring seemed lost; but the
+beach combers began rolling landward through the howling storm; and when
+next the spectators looked, the _St. Peter_ was driving ashore like a
+hurricane ship, and rushed full force, nine feet deep with her prow into
+the sands not a pistol shot away from the crew.  The next beach comber
+could not budge her.  Wind and tide left her high and dry, fast in the
+sand.
+
+
+But what had become of Chirikoff, on board the _St. Paul_, from the 20th
+of June, when the vessels were separated by storm?  Would it have been
+any easier for Bering if he had known that the consort ship had been
+zigzagging all the while less than a week's cruise from the _St. Peter_?
+When the storm, which had separated the vessels, subsided, Chirikoff let
+the _St. Paul_ drift in the hope that Bering might sight the missing
+vessel.  Then he steered southeast to latitude 48 degrees in search of
+the commander; but on June 23 a council of officers decided it was a
+waste of time to search longer, and ordered the vessel to be headed
+northeastward.  The wind was light; the water, clear; and Chirikoff knew,
+from the pilot-birds following the vessel, from the water-logged trees
+churning past, from the herds of seal floundering in the sea, that land
+must lie in this direction.  A bright lookout was kept for the first two
+weeks of July.  Two hundred and forty miles were traversed; and on a
+calm, {46} clear night between the 13th and 15th of July, there loomed
+above the horizon the dusky heights of a wooded mountainous land in
+latitude 55 degrees 21 minutes.  Chirikoff was in the Alexander
+Archipelago.  Daybreak came with the _St. Paul_ only four miles off the
+conspicuous heights of Cape Addington.  Chirikoff had discovered land
+some thirty-six hours before Bering.  The new world of mountains and
+forests roused the wildest enthusiasm among the Russians.  A small boat
+was lowered; but it failed to find a landing.  A light wind sprang up,
+and the vessel stood out under shortened sails for the night.  By morning
+the wind had increased, and fog had blurred out all outlines of the
+new-found land.  Here the ocean currents ran northward; and by morning of
+the 17th, when the sun pierced the washed air and the mountains began to
+appear again through jagged rifts of cloud-wraith, Chirikoff found
+himself at the entrance of a great bay, girt by forested mountains to the
+water's edge, beneath the high cone of what is now known as Mount
+Edgecumbe, {47} in Sitka Sound.  Sitka Sound is an indentation about
+fifteen miles from north to south, with such depths of water that there
+is no anchorage except south and southwestward of Mount Edgecumbe.
+Impenetrable woods lined the mountains to the very shore.  Great trunks
+of uprooted trees swept past the ship continually.  Even as the clouds
+cleared, leaving vast forests and mountain torrents and snowy peaks
+visible, a hazy film of intangible gloom seemed to settle over the
+shadowy harbor.[2]
+
+[Illustration: A Glacier]
+
+Chirikoff wished to refill his water-casks.  Also, he was ambitious to do
+what the scientists cursed Bering for not doing off St. Elias--explore
+thoroughly the land newly found.  The long-boat was lowered with Abraham
+Dementieff and ten armed men.  The crew was supplied with muskets, a
+brass cannon, and provisions for several days.  Chirikoff arranged a
+simple code of signals with the men--probably a column of smoke, or
+sunlight thrown back by a tin mirror--by which he could know if all went
+well.  Then, with a cheer, the first Russians to put foot on the soil of
+America bent to the oar and paddled swiftly away from the _St. Paul_ for
+the shadow of the forested mountains etched from the inland shore.  The
+long-boat seemed smaller as the distance from the _St. Paul_ increased.
+Then men and boat disappeared behind an {48} elbow of land.  A flash of
+reflected light from the hidden shore; and Chirikoff knew the little band
+of explorers had safely landed.  The rest of the crew went to work
+putting things shipshape on the _St. Paul_.  The day passed with more
+safety signals from the shore.  The crew of the _St. Paul_ slept sound
+out in mid-harbor unsuspicious of danger.  Another day passed, and
+another night.  Not so many signals!  Had the little band of Russians
+gone far inland for water, and the signals been hidden by the forest
+gloom?  A wind was singing in the rigging--threatening a landward gale
+that might carry the _St. Paul_ somewhat nearer those rocky shores than
+the Russians could wish.  Chirikoff sent a sailor spying from the lookout
+of the highest yard-arm.  No signals at all this day; nor the next day;
+nor the next!  The _St. Paul_ had only one other small boat.  Fearing the
+jolly-boat had come to grief among the rocks and counter-currents,
+Chirikoff bade Sidor Savelief, the bo'swain, and six armed sailors,
+including carpenters to repair damages, take the remaining boat and go to
+Dementieff's rescue.  The strictest orders were given that both boats
+return at once.  Barely had the second boat rounded the elbow of shore
+where the first boat had disappeared when a great column of smoke burst
+from the tree-tops of the hidden shore.  To Chirikoff's amazement, the
+second crew made no signal.  The night passed uneasily.  Sailors were on
+the watch.  Ship's rigging was put in shape.  Dawn was witnessed {49} by
+eager eyes gazing shoreward.  The relief was inexpressible when two
+boats--a long and a short one like those used by the two crews--were seen
+rounding the elbow of land.  The landward breeze was now straining the
+_St. Paul's_ hawsers.  Glad to put for open sea to weather the coming
+gale, Chirikoff ordered all hands on deck and anchors up.  The small
+boats came on with a bounce over the ocean swell; but suddenly one of
+Chirikoff's Russians pointed to the approaching crafts.  There was a
+pause in the rattle of anchor chains.  There was a pause in the bouncing
+of the small boats, too.  They were _not_ the Russian jolly-boats.  They
+were canoes; and the canoes were filled with savages as dumb with
+astonishment at the apparition of the _St. Paul_ as the Russians were at
+the canoes.  Before the Russians had come to their senses, or Chirikoff
+had time to display presents to allure the savages on board as hostages,
+the Indians rose in their places, uttered a war-whoop that set the rocks
+echoing, and beating their paddles on the gun'els, scudded for shore.
+Gradually the meaning dawned on Chirikoff.  His two crews had been
+destroyed.  His small boats were lost.  His supply of fresh water was
+running low.  The fire that he had observed had been a fire of orgies
+over mutilated men.  The _St. Paul_ was on a hostile shore with such a
+gale blowing as threatened destruction on the rocks.  There Was nothing
+to do but scud for open sea.  When the gale abated, Chirikoff returned to
+Sitka and cruised {50} the shore for some sign of the sailors: but not a
+trace of the lost men could be descried.  By this time water was so
+scarce, the men were wringing rain moisture out of the sails and
+distilling sea-water.  A council was called.  All agreed it would be
+worse than folly to risk the entire crew for the twelve men, who were
+probably already dead.  There was no small boat to land for more water;
+and the _St. Paul_ was headed about with all speed for the northwest.[3]
+
+Slant rain settled over the sea.  The wind increased and grew more
+violent.  The _St. Paul_ drove ahead like a ghost form pursued through a
+realm of mist.  Toward the end of July, when the weather cleared,
+stupendous mountains covered with snow were seen on the northwestward
+horizon like walls of ice with the base awash in thundering sea.
+Thousands of cataracts, clear as crystal, flashed against the mountain
+sides; and in places the rock wall rose sheer two thousand feet from the
+roaring tide.  Inlets, gloomy with forested mountain walls where
+impetuous streams laden with the milky silt of countless glaciers tore
+their way through the rocks to the sea, could be seen receding inland
+through the fog.  Then the foul weather settled over the sea again; and
+by the first {51} week of August, with baffling winds and choppy sea, the
+_St. Paul_ was veering southwestward where Alaska projects a long arm
+into the Pacific.  Chirikoff had passed the line where forests dwarf to
+willows, and willows to sedges, and sedges to endless leagues of rolling
+tundras.  Somewhere near Kadiak, land was again sighted.  When the fog
+lifted, the vapor of far volcanoes could be seen hanging lurid over the
+mountain tops.
+
+Wind was followed by dead calm, when the sails literally fell to pieces
+with rain-rot in the fog; and on the evening of September 8 the becalmed
+crew were suddenly aroused by the tide-rip of roaring breakers.  Heaving
+out all anchors at once, Chirikoff with difficulty made fast to rocky
+bottom.  In the morning, when the fog lifted, he found himself in the
+centre of a shallow bay surrounded by the towering cliffs of what is now
+known as Adakh Island.  While waiting for a breeze, he saw seven canoe
+loads of savages put out from shore chanting some invocation.  The
+Russians threw out presents, but the savages took no notice, gradually
+surrounding the _St. Paul_.  All this time Chirikoff had been without any
+water but the stale casks brought from Kamchatka; and he now signalled
+his desperate need to the Indians.  They responded by bringing bladders
+full of fresh water; but they refused to mount the decks.  And by evening
+fourteen canoe loads of the taciturn savages were circling threateningly
+round the Russians.  Luckily, {52} at nightfall a wind sprang up.
+Chirikoff at once slipped anchor and put to sea.
+
+By the third week of August, the rations of rye meal had been reduced to
+once a day instead of twice in order to economize water.  Only twelve
+casks of water remained; and Chirikoff was fifteen hundred miles from
+Kamchatka.  Cold, hunger, thirst, then did the rest.  Chirikoff himself
+was stricken with scurvy by the middle of September, and one sailor died
+of the scourge.  From the 26th, one death a day followed in succession.
+Though down, Chirikoff was not beaten.  Discipline was maintained among
+the hungry crew; and each day Chirikoff issued exact orders.  Without any
+attempt at steering, the ship drifted westward.  No more land was seen by
+the crew; but on the 2d of October, the weather clearing, an observation
+was taken of the sun that showed them they were nearing Kamchatka.  On
+the 8th, land was sighted; but one man alone, the pilot, Yelagin, had
+strength to stay at the helm till Avacha Bay was approached, when
+distress signals were fired from the ship's cannon to bring help from
+land.  Poor Croyere de l'Isle, kinsman to the map makers whose mistakes
+had caused disaster, sick unto death of the scurvy, had kept himself
+alive with liquor and now insisted on being carried ashore.  The first
+breath of clear air above decks was enough.  The scientist fell dead
+within the home harbor.  Chirikoff was landed the same day, all unaware
+that at times in the mist and {53} rain he had been within from fifteen
+to forty miles of poor Bering, zigzagging across the very trail of the
+afflicted sister ship.
+
+[Illustration: Sea Cows.]
+
+
+By December the entire crew of Bering's castaways, prisoners on the
+sea-girt islands of the North Pacific, were lodged in five underground
+huts on the bank of a stream.  In 1885, when these mud huts or _yurts_
+were examined, they were seen to have walls of peat three feet thick.  To
+each man was given a pound of flour.  For the rest, their food must be
+what they caught or clubbed--mainly, at first, the sea-otter, whose flesh
+was unpalatable to the taste and tough as leather.  Later, Steller
+discovered that the huge sea-cow--often thirty-five feet long--seen
+pasturing on the fields of sea-kelp at low tide, afforded food of almost
+the same quality as the land cow.  Seaweed grew in miniature forests on
+the island; and on this pastured the monster bovine of the sea--true fish
+in its hind quarters but oxlike in its head and its habits--herding
+together like cattle, snorting like a horse, moving the neck from side to
+side as it grazed, with the hind leg a fin, the fore fin a leg, udder
+between the fore legs, and in place of teeth, plates.  Nine hundred or
+more sea-otter--whose pelts afterward brought a fortune to the crew--were
+killed for food by Steller and his companions; but two sea-cows provided
+the castaways with food for six weeks.  On November 22d died the old
+mate, who had weathered northern seas for fifty {54} years.  In all, out
+of a crew of seventy-seven, there had perished by January 6, 1742, when
+the last death occurred, thirty-one men.
+
+Steller's hut was next to Bering's.  From that November day when he was
+carried from the ship through the snow to the sand pit, the commander
+sank without rallying.  Foxskins had been spread on the ground as a bed;
+but the sand loosened from the sides of the pit and kept rolling down on
+the dying man.  Toward the last he begged Steller to let the sand rest,
+as it kept in the warmth; so that he was soon covered with sand to his
+waist.  White billows and a gray sky followed the hurricane gale that had
+hurled the ship in on the beach.  All night between the evening of the
+7th and the morning of the 8th of December, the moaning of the south wind
+could be heard through the tattered rigging of the wrecked ship; and all
+night the dying Dane was communing with his God.  He was now over sixty
+years of age.  To a constitution already broken by the nagging cares of
+eight years and by hardships indescribable, by scurvy and by exposure,
+was added an acute inflammation.  Bering's power of resistance was
+sapped.  Two hours before daybreak on December 8, 1741, the brave Dane
+breathed his last.  He was interred on the 9th of December between the
+graves of the mate and the steward on the hillside; and the bearded
+Russians came down from the new-made grave that day bowed and hopeless.
+A plain Greek cross was placed above {55} his grave; and a copy of that
+cross marks the same grave to-day.
+
+The question arises--where does Bering stand among the world heroes?  The
+world loves success better than defeat; and spectacular success better
+than duty plainly done.  If success means accomplishing what one sets out
+to do in spite of almost insuperable difficulties--Bering won success.
+He set out to discover the northwest coast of America; and he perished
+doing it.  But if heroism means a something more than tangible success;
+if it means that divine quality of fighting for the truth independent of
+reward, whether one is to be beaten or not; if it means setting to one's
+self the task of perishing for a truth, without the slightest hope of
+establishing that truth--then, Bering stands very high indeed among the
+world's heroes.  Steller, who had cursed him for not remaining longer at
+Mount St. Elias, bore the highest testimony to his integrity and worth.
+It may be said that a stronger type of hero would have scrunched into
+nothingness the vampire blunderers who misled the ship; but it must be
+remembered that stronger types of heroes usually save their own skins and
+let the underlings suffer.  While Bering _might_ have averted the
+disaster that attended the expedition, it must not be forgotten that when
+he perished, there perished the very soul of the great enterprise, which
+at once crumbled to pieces.
+
+On a purely material plane, what did Bering accomplish?
+
+{56} He dispelled forever the myth of the Northeast Passage if the world
+would have but accepted his conclusions.  The coast of Japan was charted
+under his direction.  The Arctic coast of Asia was charted under his
+direction.  A country as large as from Maine to Florida, or Baltimore to
+Texas, with a river comparable only to the Mississippi, was discovered by
+him.  The furs of this country for a single year more than paid all that
+Russia spent to discover it; all that the United States later paid to
+Russia for it.
+
+
+A dead whale thrown up on the shore proved a godsend to the weak and
+famishing castaways.  As their bodies grew stronger, the spirit of
+merriment that gilds life's darkest clouds began to come back, and the
+whale was jocularly known among the Russians as "our magazine of
+provisions."
+
+Then parties of hunters began going out for the sea-otter, which hid its
+head during storm under the kelp of the sea fields.  Steller knew the
+Chinese would pay what in modern money is from one hundred to one hundred
+and fifty dollars for each of these sea-otter skins; and between nine
+hundred and one thousand were taken by the wrecked crew.  The same skin
+of prime quality sells in a London auction room to-day for one thousand
+dollars.  And in spring, when the sea-otter disappeared, there came
+herds--herds in millions upon millions--of another visitant to the shores
+of the Commander Islands--the fur seal, {57} which afforded new hunting
+to the crew, and new wealth to the world.
+
+[Illustration: Seals in a Rookery on Bering Island.]
+
+The terrible danger now was not from starvation, but mutiny, murder, or
+massacre among the branded criminals of the discontented crew.  Waxel, as
+he recovered, was afraid of tempting revolt with orders, and convened the
+crew by vote to determine all that should be done.  Officers and
+men--there was no distinction.  By March of 1742 the ground had cleared
+of snow.  Waxel called a meeting to suggest breaking up the packet vessel
+to build a smaller craft.  A vote {58} was asked.  The resolution was
+called, written out, and signed by every survivor, but afterward, when
+officers and men set themselves to the well-nigh impossible task of
+untackling the ship without implements of iron, revolt appeared among the
+workers.  Again Waxel avoided mutiny.  A meeting was called, another vote
+taken, the recalcitrants shamed down.  The crew lacked more than tools.
+There was no ship's carpenter.  Finally a Cossack, who was afterward
+raised to the nobility for his work, consented to act as director of the
+building, and on the 6th of May a vessel forty feet long, thirteen beam,
+and six deep, was on the stocks.  All June, the noise of the planking
+went on till the mast raised its yard-arms, and an eight-oared
+single-master, such as the old Vikings of the North Sea used, was well
+under way.
+
+The difficulties of such shipbuilding can hardly be realized.  There was
+no wood but the wood of the old ship, no rigging but the old hemp, no tar
+but such as could be melted out of the old hemp in earth pits; and very
+few axes.  The upper part was calked with tallow of the sea-cow, the
+under with tar from the old hull.  The men also constructed a second
+small boat or canoe.
+
+On the 10th of August, with such cheers as the island never heard before
+or since, the single-master was launched from the skids and named the
+_St. Peter_.  Cannon balls and cartridges were thrown in bottom as
+ballast.  Luckily, eight hundred pounds of {59} meal had been reserved
+for the return voyage, and Steller had salted down steaks of whale meat
+and sea-cow.  On the evening of August 16, after solemn prayer and
+devotions, with one last look to the lonely crosses on the hillside where
+lay the dead, the castaways went on board.  A sharp breeze was blowing
+from the north.  Hoisting sail, they glided out to sea.  The old
+jolly-boat bobbled behind in tow.  Late at night, when the wind fell, the
+eager mariners bent to the oar.  By noon next day they had rounded the
+southeast corner of the island.  Two days afterward, rough weather set
+the old jolly-boat bumping her nose so violently on the heels of the _St.
+Peter_, that the cable had to be cut and the small boat set adrift.  That
+night the poor tallow-calked planks leaked so badly, pumps and buckets
+were worked at fever heat, and all the ballast was thrown overboard.
+Sometime during the 25th, there shone above the silver rim where sea and
+sky met, the opal dome of far mountains, Kamchatka!
+
+The bearded men could control themselves no longer.  Shout on shout made
+the welkin ring.  Tears streamed down the rough, unwashed faces.  The
+Cossacks wept like children.  Men vied with each other to seize the oars
+and row like mad.  The tide-rip bounding--lifting--falling--racing over
+seas for the shores of Kamchatka never ran so mad and swift a course as
+the crazy craft there bouncing forward over the waves.  And when they saw
+the home harbor {60} of Petropaulovsk, Avacha Bay, on August 27,
+exultation knew no bounds.  The men fired off guns, beat oars on the deck
+rail, shouted--shouted--shouted till the mountains echoed and every
+living soul of Avacha dashed to the waterside scarcely believing the
+evidence of his eyes--that the castaways of Bering's ship had returned.
+Then one may well believe that the monks set the chapel bells ringing and
+the cannon roared a welcome from Avacha Bay.
+
+Chirikoff had in May sailed in search of Bering, passing close to the
+island where the castaways were prisoners of the sea, but he did not see
+the Commander Islands; and all hope had been given up for any word of the
+_St. Peter_.  Waxel wintered that year at Avacha Bay, crossing the
+mainland in the spring of 1743.  In September of the same year, an
+imperial decree put an end to the Northern Expedition, and Waxel set out
+across Siberia to take the crew back to St. Petersburg.  Poor Steller
+died on the way from exposure.
+
+So ended the greatest naval exploration known to the world.  Beside it,
+other expeditions to explore America pale to insignificance.  La Salle
+and La Verendrye ascended the St. Lawrence, crossed inland plains, rafted
+down the mighty tide of the great inland rivers; but La Salle stopped at
+the mouth of the Mississippi, and La Verendrye was checked by the barrier
+of the Rockies.  Lewis and Clark accomplished yet more.  After ascending
+the Missouri and crossing the plains, they traversed the Rockies; but
+they were {61} stopped at the Pacific.  When Bering had crossed the
+rivers and mountains of the two continents--first Europe, then Asia--and
+reached the Pacific, his expedition had _only begun_.  Little remains to
+Russia of what he accomplished but the group of rocky islets where he
+perished.  But judged by the difficulties which he overcame; by the
+duties desperately impossible, done plainly and doggedly, by death heroic
+in defeat--Bering's expedition to northwestern America is without a peer
+in the annals of the New World discovery.[4]
+
+
+
+[1] I adopt the views of Dr. Stejneger, of the National Museum,
+Washington, on this point, as he has personally gone over every foot of
+the ground.
+
+[2] Dr. George Davidson, President of the Geographical Society of the
+Pacific, has written an irrefutable pamphlet on why Kyak Island and Sitka
+Sound must be accepted as the landfalls of Bering and Chirikoff.
+
+[3] Thus the terrible Sitkan massacre of a later day was preceded by the
+slaughter of the first Russians to reach America.  The Russian government
+of a later day originated a comical claim to more territory on the ground
+that descendants of these lost Russians had formed settlements farther
+down the coast, alleging in proof that subsequent explorers had found
+red-headed and light-complexioned people as far south as the Chinook
+tribes.  To such means will statecraft stoop.
+
+[4] Coxe's _Discoveries of the Russians between Asia and America_ (Paris,
+1781) supplies local data on Siberia in the time of Bering.  _Voyages
+from Asia to America_, by S. Mueller of the Royal Academy, St. Petersburg,
+1764, is simply excellent in that part of the voyage dealing with the
+wreck.  _Peter Lauridsen's Vitus Bering translated from the Danish by
+Olson_ covers all three aims of the expedition, Japanese and Arctic
+voyages as well as American.
+
+
+
+
+{62}
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+1741-1760
+
+THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS
+
+How the Sea-otter Pelts brought back by Bering's Crew led to the
+Exploitation of the Northwest Coast of America--Difference of Sea-otter
+from Other Fur-bearing Animals of the West--Perils of the Hunt
+
+
+When the castaway crew of Vitus Bering looked about for means to exist
+on the barren islands where they were wrecked, they found the kelp beds
+and seaweed fields of the North Pacific literally alive with a little
+animal, which the Russians called "the sea-beaver."  Sailors of
+Kamchatka and eastern Siberia knew the sea-beaver well, for it had been
+found on the Asiatic side of the Pacific, and its pelt was regarded as
+priceless by Chinese and Tartar merchants.  But where did this strange
+denizen of northern waters live?  Only in rare seasons did the herds
+assemble on the rocky islets of Kamchatka and Japan.  And when spring
+came, the sea-beaver disappeared.  Asia was not its home.  Where did it
+go?
+
+Russian adventurers who rafted the coast of Siberia {63} in crazy
+skiffs, related that the sea-beaver always disappeared northeastward,
+whence the spruce driftwood and dead whales with harpoons of strange
+hunters and occasionally wrecks of walrus-skin boats came washing from
+an unknown land.
+
+It was only when Bering's crew were left prisoners of the sea on an
+island barren as a billiard ball that the hunger-desperate men found
+the habitat of the sea-beaver to be the kelp beds of the Aleutian
+Islands and northwestern America.  But what use were priceless pelts
+where neither money nor merchant was, and men mad with hunger were
+thrown back on the primal necessities without thought of gain?
+
+The hungry Russian sailors fell on the kelp beds, clubbing right and
+left regardless of pelts.  What matter if the flesh was tough as
+leather and rank as musk?  It filled the empty stomachs of fifty
+desperate men; and the skins were used on the treeless isle as rugs, as
+coats, as walls, as stuff to chink the cracks of earth pits, where the
+sailors huddled like animals in underground caves with no ceiling but
+the tattered sails.  So passed a year--the most desolate year in the
+annals of ocean voyaging, and when the castaways rafted back to Asia on
+a skiff made of their wrecked ship, they were clad in the raw skins of
+the sea-otter, which they had eaten.  In all, nearly a thousand skins
+were carried back; and for those skins, which the Russian sailors had
+scarcely valued, Chinese merchants paid what in modern money would be
+from {64} one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a pelt.[1]
+
+After that, the Russians of Siberia needed no incentive to hunt the
+sea-beaver.  Its habitat was known, and all the riffraff adventurers of
+Siberian exile, Tartars, Kamchatkans, Russians, criminals, and officers
+of royal lineage, engaged in the fur trade of western America.  Danger
+made no difference.  All that was needed was a boat; and the boat was
+usually rough-hewn out of the green timbers of Kamchatka.  If iron
+bolts were lacking so far from Europe as the width of two continents,
+the boat builders used deer sinew, or thongs of walrus hide.  Tallow
+took the place of tar, deerskin the place of hemp, and courage the
+place of caution.  A Siberian merchant then chanced an outfit of
+supplies for half what the returns might be.  The commander--officer or
+exile--then enlisted sailors among landsmen.  Landsmen were preferable
+for this kind of voyaging.  Either in the sublime courage of ignorance,
+or with the audacity of desperation, the poor landsmen dared dangers
+which no sailors would risk on such crazy craft, two thousand miles
+from a home port on an outrageous sea.
+
+England and the United States became involved in the exploitation of
+the Pacific coast in almost the same way.  When Captain Cook was at
+Nootka Sound thirty years after Bering's death, his crews traded {65}
+trinkets over the taffrail netting for any kind of furs the natives of
+the west coast chose to exchange.  In the long voyaging to Arctic
+waters afterward, these furs went to waste with rain-rot.  More than
+two-thirds were thrown or given away.  The remaining third sold in
+China on the home voyage of the ships for what would be more than ten
+thousand dollars of modern money.  News of that fact was enough.
+Boston, New York, London, rubbed their eyes to possibilities of fur
+trade on the Pacific coast.  As the world knows, Boston's efforts
+resulted in the chance discovery of the Columbia; New York's efforts,
+in the foundation of the Astor fortunes.  East India, France, England,
+Spain, the United States, vied with each other for the prize of
+America's west coast.
+
+Just as the beaver led French voyagers westward from Quebec to the
+Rocky Mountains, south to Texas, north to the Athabasca, so the hunt of
+the sea-beaver led to the exploration of the North Pacific coast.
+
+
+"Sea-beaver" the Russians called the owner of the rare pelt.
+"Sea-otter" it was known to the English and American hunters.  But it
+is like neither the otter nor beaver, though its habits are akin to
+both.  Its nearest relative is probably the fur seal.  Like the seal,
+its pelt has an ebony shimmer, showing silver when blown open, soft
+black tipped with white, when examined hair by hair.  Six feet, the
+full-grown sea-otter measures from nose to stumpy tail, with a {66}
+beaver-shaped face, teeth like a cat, and short webbed feet.  Some
+hunters say the sea-otter is literally born on the tumbling waves--a
+single pup at a time; others, that the sea-otter retire to some
+solitary rocky islet to bring forth their young.  Certain it is they
+are rocked on the deep from their birth, "cradled" in the sea, sleeping
+on their backs in the water, clasping the young in their arms like a
+human being, tossing up seaweed in play by the hour like mischievous
+monkeys, or crawling out on some safe, sea-girt rocklet, where they
+shake the water from their fur and make their toilet, stretching and
+arranging and rearranging hair like a cat.  Only the fiercest gales
+drive the sea-otter ashore, for it must come above water to breathe;
+and it must come ashore to sleep where it _can_ breathe; for the ocean
+wash in a storm would smother the sleeper.  And its favorite sleeping
+grounds are in the forests of kelp and seaweed, where it can bury its
+head, and like the ostrich think itself hidden.  A sound, a whiff--the
+faintest tinge--of smoke from miles away is enough to frighten the
+sleeper, who leaps up with a fierce courage unequalled in the animal
+world, and makes for sea in lightning-flash bounds.
+
+When Bering found the northwest coast of America, the sea-otter
+frequented all the way from what is now California to the Commander
+Islands, the last link of the chain from America to Asia.  Sea-otter
+were found and taken in thousands at Sitka Sound, in Yakutat Bay,
+Prince William Sound, Cook's Inlet, and all {67} along the chain of
+eleven hundred Aleutian Islands to the Commander Group, off Kamchatka.
+Where they were found in thousands then, they are seen only in tens and
+hundreds to-day.  Where they are in hundreds one year, they may not
+come at all the next, having been too hard hunted.  This explains why
+there used to be returns of five thousand in a single year at Kadiak or
+Oonalaska or Cook's Inlet; and the next year, less than a hundred from
+the same places.  Japan long ago moved for laws to protect the
+sea-otter as vigorously as the seal; but Japan was only snubbed by
+England and the United States for her pains, and to-day the only
+adequate protection afforded the diminishing sea-otter is in the tiny
+remnant of Russia's once vast American possessions--on the Commander
+Islands where by law only two hundred sea-otter may be taken a year,
+and the sea-otter rookeries are more jealously guarded than diamond
+mines.  The decreasing hunt has brought back primitive methods.
+Instead of firearms, the primitive club and net and spear are again
+used, giving the sea-otter a fair chance against his antagonist--Man.
+Except that the hunters are few and now dress in San Francisco clothes,
+they go to the hunt in the same old way as when Baranof, head of the
+Russian Fur Company, led his battalions out in companies of a thousand
+and two thousand "bidarkies"--walrus-skin skiffs taut as a drumhead,
+with seams tallowed and an oilskin wound round each of the manholes, so
+that the boat {68} could turn a somerset in the water, or be pitched
+off a rock into the surf, and come right side up without taking water,
+paddler erect.
+
+The first thing the hunter had to look to was boat and hunting gear.
+Westward of Cook's Inlet and Kadiak was no timber but driftwood, and
+the tide wash of wrecks; so the hunter, who set out on the trail of the
+pathless sea, framed his boat on the bones of the whale.  There were
+two kinds of boats--the long ones, for from twelve to twenty men, the
+little skiffs which Eskimos of the Atlantic call kyacks--with two or
+three, seldom more, manholes.  Over the whalebone frame was stretched
+the wet elastic hide of walrus or sea-lion.  The big boat was open on
+top like a Newfoundland fisherman's dory or Frenchman's bateau, the
+little boat covered over the top except for the manholes round which
+were wound oilskins to keep the water out when the paddler had seated
+himself inside.  Then the wet skin was allowed to dry in sunshine and
+wind.  Hot seal oil and tallow poured over the seams and cracks, calked
+the leaks.  More sunshine and wind, double-bladed paddles for the
+little boats, strong oars and a sail for the big ones, and the skiffs
+were ready for water.  Eastward of Kadiak, particularly south of Sitka,
+the boats might be hollowed trees, carved wooden canoes, or
+dugouts--not half so light to ride shallow, tempestuous seas as the
+skin skiff of the Aleut hunter.
+
+We supercilious civilized folk laugh at the odd dress {69} of the
+savage; but it was exactly adapted to the need.  The otter hunter wore
+the fur in, because that was warmer; and the skin out, because cured in
+oil, that was waterproof; and the chimney-pot capote, because that tied
+tight enough around his neck kept the ice-water from going down his
+back when the bidarka turned heels up; and the skin boots, because
+they, too, were waterproof; and the sedge grass padding in place of
+stockings, because it protected the feet from the jar of rocks in wild
+runs through surf and kelp after the game.  On land, the skin side of
+the coats could be turned in and the fur out.
+
+
+Oonalaska, westward of the Aleutian chain of islands and Kadiak, just
+south of the great Alaskan peninsula, were the two main points whence
+radiated the hunting flotillas for the sea-otter grounds.  Formerly, a
+single Russian schooner or packet boat would lead the way with a
+procession of a thousand bidarkas.  Later, schooners, thirty or forty
+of them, gathered the hunters at some main fur post, stowed the light
+skin kyacks in piles on the decks, and carried the Aleuts to the otter
+grounds.  This might be at Atka, where the finest otter hunters in the
+world lived, or on the south shore of Oonalaska, or in Cook's Inlet
+where the rip of the tide runs a mill-race, or just off Kadiak on the
+Saanach coast, where twenty miles of beach boulders and surf waters and
+little islets of sea-kelp provide ideal fields for the sea-otter.  Here
+the sweeping tides and {70} booming back-wash keep up such a roar of
+tumbling seas, the shy, wary otter, alert as an eagle, do not easily
+get scent or sound of human intruder.  Surf washes out the scent of the
+man track.  Surf out-sounds noise of the man killer; and no fires are
+lighted, be it winter or summer, unless the wind is straight from the
+southward; for the sea-otter always frequent the south shores.  The
+only provisions on the carrying schooner are hams, rancid butter or
+grease, some rye bread and flour; the only clothing, what the Aleut
+hunters wear.
+
+No sooner has the schooner sheered off the hunting-grounds, than the
+Aleuts are over decks with the agility of performing monkeys, the
+schooner captain wishing each good luck, the eager hunters leaping into
+their bidarkas following the lead of a chief.  The schooner then
+returns to the home harbor, leaving the hunters on islands bare as a
+planed board for two, three, four months.  On the Commander Group,
+otter hunters are now restricted to the use of the net alone, but
+formerly the nature of the hunting was determined entirely by the
+weather.  If a tide ran with heavy surf and wind landward to conceal
+sound and sight, the hunters lined alongshore of the kelp beds and
+engaged in the hunt known as surf-shooting.  Their rifles would carry a
+thousand yards.  Whoever saw the little round black head bob above the
+surface of the water, shot, and the surf wash carried in the dead body.
+If the weather was dead calm, fog or clear, bands of twenty {71} and
+thirty men deployed in a circle to spear their quarry.  This was the
+spearing-surround.  Or if such a hurricane gale was churning the sea so
+that gusty spray and sleet storm washed out every outline, sweeping the
+kelp beds naked one minute, inundating them with mountainous rollers
+that thundered up the rocks the next, the Aleut hunters risked life,
+scudded out on the back of the raging storm, now riding the rollers,
+now dipping to the trough of the sea, now scooting with lightning
+paddle-strokes right through the blasts of spray athwart wave wash and
+trough--straight for the kelp beds or rocky boulders, where the
+sea-otter must have been driven for refuge by the storm.  This hunting
+is the very incarnation of the storm spirit itself, for the wilder the
+gale, the more sea-otter have come ashore; the less likely they will be
+to see or hear or smell the hunter.  Gaff or paddle in hand, the Aleut
+leaps from rock to rock, or dashes among the tumbling beds of tossed
+kelp.  A quick blow of the bludgeon; the otter never knows how death
+came.  This is the club hunt.  But where the shore is honeycombed with
+caves and narrow inlets of kelp fields, is a safer kind of hunting.
+Huge nets now made of twine, formerly of sinew, with wooden floaters
+above, iron sinkers below, are spread athwart the kelp fields.  The
+tide sweeps in, washing the net flat.  And the sea-otter swim in with
+the tide.  The tide sweeps out, washing the net up, but the otter are
+enmeshed in a tangle that holds neck and feet.  This is, perhaps, the
+{72} best kind of otter hunting, for the females and young can be
+thrown back in the sea.
+
+Barely has the supply schooner dipped over the offing, when the
+cockle-shell bidarkas skimming over the sea make for the shore of the
+hunting-grounds.  Camping is a simple matter, for no fires are to be
+lighted, and the tenting place is chosen if possible on the north side
+of some knoll.  If it is warm weather, the Aleut will turn his skin
+skiff upside down, crawl into the hole head first and sleep there.  Or
+he may erect the V-shaped tent such as the prairie tepee.  But if it is
+cold, he has a better plan yet.  He will dig a hole in the ground and
+cover over the top with sail-cloth.  Let the wind roar above and the
+ice bang the shore rocks, the Aleut swathed in furs sleeps sound close
+to earth.  If driftwood lines the shore, he is in luck; for he props up
+the poles, covers them with furs, and has what might be mistaken for a
+wigwam, except that these Indians construct their tents round-topped
+and always turn the skin side of the fur out.
+
+For provisions, he has brought very little from the ship.  He will
+depend on the winds driving in a dead whale, or on the fish of the
+shore, or on the eggs of the sea-birds that nest on these rocks
+millions upon millions--such myriads of birds they seem to crowd each
+other for foot room, and the noise of their wings is like a great
+wind.[2]  The Aleut himself is what any race of men {73} would become
+in generations of such a life.  His skin is more like bronze than
+leather.  His chest is like a bellows, but his legs are ill developed
+from the cramped posture of knees in the manhole.  Indeed, more than
+knees go under the manhole.  When pressed for room, the Aleut has been
+known to crawl head foremost, body whole, right under the manhole and
+lie there prone between the feet of the paddlers with nothing between
+him and the abysmal depths of a hissing sea but the parchment keel of
+the bidarka, thin as paper.
+
+How do these thin skin boats escape wreckage on a sea where tide-rip
+washes over the reefs all summer and ice hummocks sweep out from the
+shore in winter tempest?  To begin with, the frost that creates the ice
+clears the air of fog, and the steel-shod pole either sheers the
+bidarka off from the ice, or the ice off from the bidarka.  Then, when
+the fog lies knife-thick over the dangerous rocks in summer time, there
+is a certain signal to these deep-sea plunderers.  The huge Pacific
+walrus--the largest species of walrus in the world--lie in herds of
+hundreds on these danger rocks, and the walrus snorts through the gray
+mist like a continual fog-horn.  No better danger signal exists among
+the rocks of the North Pacific than this same snorting walrus, who for
+all his noise and size is a floundering coward.  The great danger to
+the nutshell skin's is from becoming ice-logged when the sleet storms
+fall and freeze; and for the rest, the sea makes small matter of a
+hunter more or less.
+
+{74} No landsman's still-hunt affords the thrilling excitement of the
+otter hunter's spearing-surrounds.  Fifteen or twenty-five little skin
+skiffs, with two or three men in each, paddle out under a chief elected
+by common consent.  Whether fog or clear, the spearing is done only in
+calm weather.  The long line of bidarkas circles silently over the
+silver sea.  Not a word is spoken, not a paddle blade allowed to click
+against the bone gun'els of the skiff.  Double-bladed paddles are
+frequently used, so shift of paddle is made from side to side of the
+canoe without a change of hands.  The skin shallops take to the water
+as noiselessly as the glide of a duck.  Yonder, where the boulders lie
+mile on mile awash in the surf, kelp rafts--forests of seaweed--lift
+and fall with the rhythmical wash of the tide.  Hither the otter
+hunters steer, silent as shadows.  The circle widens, deploys, forms a
+cordon round the outermost rim of the kelp fields.  Suddenly a black
+object is seen floating on the surface of the waters--a sea-otter
+asleep.  Quick as flash, the steersman lifts his paddle.  Not a word is
+spoken, but so keen is the hearing of the sleeping otter, the drip of
+the lifted paddle has not splashed into the sea before the otter has
+awakened, looked and dived like lightning to the bottom of the sea
+before one of the Aleut hunters can hurl his spear.  Silently, not a
+whisper, the steersman signals again.  The hunters deploy in a circle
+half a mile broad round the place where the sea-otter disappeared; for
+they know that in fifteen or twenty {75} minutes the animal must come
+up for breath, and it cannot run farther than half a mile under sea
+before it reappears.
+
+Suddenly somebody sees a round black-red head poke above water, perhaps
+close to the line of watchers.  With a wild shout, the nearest bidarkas
+dart forward.  Whether the spear-throw has hit or missed, the shout has
+done enough.  The terrified otter dives before it has breath.  Over the
+second diving spot a hunter is stationed, and the circle narrows, for
+the otter must come up quicker this time.  It must have breath.  Again
+and again, the little round head peeps up.  Again the shout greets it.
+Again the lightning dive.  Sometimes only a bubble gurgling to the top
+of the water guides the watchers.  Presently the body is so full of
+gases from suppressed breathing, it can no longer sink, and a quick
+spear-throw secures the quarry.  One animal against, perhaps, sixty
+men.  Is the quest fair?  Yonder thunders the surf below beetling
+precipices.  Then the tide wash comes in with a rip like a whirlpool,
+or the ebb sets the beach combers rolling--lashing billows of tumbling
+waters that crash together and set the sheets of blinding spray
+shattering.  Or the fog comes down over a choppy sea with a whizzing
+wind that sets the whitecaps flying backward like a horse's mane.  The
+chase may have led farther and farther from land.  As long as the
+little black head comes up, as long as the gurgling bubble tells of a
+struggling breather below, the hunters follow, be it {76} near or far,
+till, at the end of two or three hours, the exhausted sea-otter is
+taken.  Perhaps forty men have risked their lives for a single pelt for
+which the trader cannot pay more than forty dollars; for he must have
+his profit, and the skin must be dressed, and the middlemen must have
+their profit; so that if it sells even for eleven hundred dollars in
+London--though the average is nearer one hundred and fifty dollars--the
+Aleut is lucky to receive forty or fifty dollars.  Day after day, three
+months at a time, warm or cold, not daring to light fires on the
+island, the Aleut hunters go out to the spearing-surround, till the
+schooner returns for them from the main post; and whether the hunt is
+harder on man or beast may be judged from the fact that where the
+hunting battalions used to rally out in companies of thousands, they
+to-day go forth only in twenties and forties.  True, the sea-otter has
+decreased and is almost extinct in places; but then, where game laws
+protect it, as in the Commander Islands, it is on the increase, and as
+for the Aleut hunters--their thousands lie in the bottom of the sea;
+and of the thousands who rallied forth long ago, often only a few
+hundred returned.
+
+But while the spearing-surround was chiefly followed in battalions
+under the direction of a trading company, the clubbing was done by the
+individuals--the dauntless hunters, who scudded out in twos and threes
+in the wake of the blast, lost themselves in the shattering sheets of
+spray, with the wind screaming mad riot in their ears {77} and the
+roily rollers running a mill-race against tide and wind.  How did they
+steer their cockle-shell skiffs--these Vikings of the North Pacific; or
+did they steer at all, or only fly before the gale on the wings of the
+mad north winds?  Who can tell?  The feet of man leave earth sometimes
+when the spirit rides out reckless of land or sea, or heaven or hell,
+and these plunderers of the deep took no reckoning of life or death
+when they rode out on the gale, where the beach combers shattered up
+the rocks, and the creatures of the sea came huddling landward to take
+refuge among the kelp rafts.
+
+Tossing the skin skiffs high and dry on some rock, with perhaps the
+weight of a boulder to keep them from blowing away, the hunters rushed
+off to the surf wash armed only with a stout stick.
+
+The otters must be approached away from the wind, and the noise of the
+surf will deaden the hunter's approach; so beating their way against
+hurricane gales--winds that throw them from their feet at
+times--scrambling over rocks slippery as glass with ice, running out on
+long reefs where the crash of spray confuses earth and air, wading
+waist-deep in ice slush, the hunters dash out for the kelp beds and
+rocks where the otter are asleep.  Clubbing sounds brutal, but this
+kind of hunting is, perhaps, the most merciful of all--to the animal,
+not the man.  The otter is asleep.  The gale conceals the approaching
+danger.  One blow of the gaff, and the otter never awakes.  In this way
+have three hunters killed as many as a hundred otter {78} in two hours;
+and in this way have the thousands of Aleutian otter hunters, who used
+to throng the inlets of the northern islands, perished and dwindled to
+a population of poverty stricken, scattered men.
+
+
+What were the rewards for all this risk of life?  A glance at the
+records of the old fur companies tells why the Russian and American and
+English traders preferred sea-otter to the gold mines of the Spaniards
+in Mexico.  Less than ten years after Cook's crew had sold their
+sea-otter for ten thousand dollars, the East India Company sold six
+hundred sea-otter for from sixty to one hundred dollars each.  Two
+years later, Portlock and Dixon sold their cargo for fifty-five
+thousand dollars; and when it is remembered that two hundred
+sea-otter--twelve thousand dollars' worth at the lowest average--were
+sometimes got from the Nootka tribes for a few dollars' worth of old
+chisel iron--the profit can be estimated.
+
+In 1785 five thousand sea-otter were sold in China for one hundred and
+sixty thousand dollars.  A capital of fifty thousand usually yielded
+three hundred thousand dollars; that is--if the ships escaped the
+dangers of hostile Indians and treacherous seas.  What the Russians
+made from sea-otter will probably never be known; for so many different
+companies were engaged in the trade; and a hundred years ago, as many
+as fifteen thousand Indian hunters went out for the Russians yearly.
+One ship, the year after Bering's wreck, {79} is known to have made
+half a million dollars from its cargo.  By definite figures--not
+including returns not tabulated in the fur companies--two hundred
+thousand sea-otter were taken for the Russians in half a century.  Just
+before the United States took over Alaska, Russia was content with four
+hundred sea-otter a year; but by 1875 the Americans were getting three
+thousand a year.  Those gathered at Kadiak have totalled as many as six
+thousand in a year during the heyday of the hunt, at Oonalaska three
+thousand, on the Prybilofs now noted for their seal, five thousand.  In
+1785 Cook's Inlet yielded three thousand; in 1812, only one hundred.
+Yakutat gave two thousand in 1794, only three hundred, six years later.
+Fifteen thousand were gathered at Sitka in 1804, only one hundred and
+fifty thirty years later.  Of course the Russians obtained such results
+only by a system of musket, bludgeon, and outrage, that are repellent
+to the modern mind.  Women were seized as hostages for a big hunt.
+Women were even murdered as a punishment for small returns.  Men were
+sacrificed like dogs by the "promyshleniki"--riffraff blackguard
+Russian hunters from the Siberian exile population; but this is a story
+of outrageous wrong followed by its own terrible and unshunnable
+Nemesis which shall be told by itself.
+
+
+
+[1] The price of the sea-otter varied, falling in seasons when the
+market was glutted to $40 a pelt, selling as high, in cases of rare
+beauty, as $1000 a pelt.
+
+[2] See John Burroughs's account of birds observed during the Harriman
+Expedition.  Elliott and Stejenger have remarked on the same phenomenon.
+
+
+
+
+{80}
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+1760-1770
+
+THE OUTLAW HUNTERS
+
+The American Coast becomes the Great Rendezvous for Siberian Criminals
+and Political Exiles--Beyond Reach of Law, Cossacks and Criminals
+perpetrate Outrages on the Indians--The Indians' Revenge wipes out
+Russian Forts in America--The Pursuit of Four Refugee Russians from
+Cave to Cave over the Sea at Night--How they escape after a Year's Chase
+
+
+"_God was high in the Heavens, and the Czar was far away_," as the
+Russians say, and the Siberian exiles--coureurs of the sea--who flocked
+to the west coast of America to hunt the sea-otter after Bering's
+discoveries in 1741 took small thought and recked no consequences of
+God or the Czar.
+
+They timbered their crazy craft from green wood in Kamchatka, or on the
+Okhotsk Sea, or among the forests of Siberian rivers.  They lashed the
+rude planks together, hoisted a sail of deer hide above a deck of,
+perhaps, sixty feet, and steering by instinct across seas as chartless
+as the forests where French coureurs ran, struck out from Asia for
+America with wilder {81} dreams of plunder than ever Spanish galleon or
+English freebooter hoped coasting the high seas.
+
+The crews were criminals with the brands of their crimes worn
+uncovered, banded together by some Siberian merchant who had provided
+goods for trade, and set adrift under charge of half a dozen Cossacks
+supposed to keep order and collect tribute of one-tenth as homage from
+American Indians for the Czar.  English buccaneers didn't scruple as to
+blood when they sacked Spanish cities for Spanish gold.  These Russian
+outlaws scrupled less, when their only hope of bettering a desperate
+exile was the booty of precious furs plundered, or bludgeoned, or
+exacted as tribute from the Indians of Northwest America.  The plunder,
+when successful, or trade, if the crazy planks did not go to pieces
+above some of the reefs that cut up the North Pacific, was halved
+between outfitter and crew.  If the cargo amounted to half a million
+dollars in modern money--as one of Drusenin's first trips did--then a
+quarter of a million was a tidy sum to be divided among a crew of, say,
+thirty or forty.  Often as not, the long-planked single-master fell to
+pieces in a gale, when the Russians went to the bottom of the sea, or
+stranded among the Aleutian Islands westward of Alaska, when the
+castaways took up comfortable quarters among the Indians, who knew no
+other code of existence than the _rights of the strong_; and the
+Russians with their firearms seemed strong, indeed, to the Aleuts.  As
+long as the newcomer demanded only furs, {82} on his own terms of
+trade--the Indians acquiesced.  Their one hope was to become strong as
+the Russians by getting iron in "toes"--bands two inches thick, two
+feet long.  It was that ideal state, which finical philosophers
+describe as the "survival of the fit," and it worked well till the
+other party to the arrangement resolved he would play the same game and
+become fit, too, when there resulted a cataclysm of bloodshed.  The
+Indians bowed the neck submissively before oppression.  Abuse, cruelty,
+outrage, accumulated on the heads of the poor Aleuts.  They had reached
+the fine point where it is better for the weak to die trying to
+overthrow strength, than to live under the iron heel of brute
+oppression.
+
+The immediate cause of revolt is a type of all that preceded it.[1]
+Running out for a thousand miles from the coast of Alaska is the long
+chain of Aleutian Islands linking across the Pacific toward Asia.
+Oonalaska, the most important and middle of these, is as far from
+Oregon as Oregon is from New York.  Near Oonalaska were the finest
+sea-otter fields in the world; and the Aleutians numbered twenty
+thousand hunters--men, women, children--born to the light skin boat as
+plainsmen were born to the saddle.  On Oonalaska and its next-door
+neighbor westward were at least ten thousand of these Indian otter
+hunters, when Russia first sent her ships to America.  Bassof came
+soonest after Bering's discovery; and he carried back {83} on each of
+three trips to the Commander Islands a cargo of furs worth from
+seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars in modern money.
+The effect on the Siberian mind was the same as a gold find.  All the
+riffraff adventurers of Siberia swarmed to the west coast of America.
+
+We have only the Russian version of the story--not the Indians'--and
+may infer that we have the side most favorable to Russia.  When booty
+of half a million was to be had for the taking, what Siberian exiles
+would permit an Indian village to stand between them and wealth?  At
+first only children were seized as hostages of good conduct on the part
+of the Indians while the white hunters coasted the islands.  Then
+daughters and wives were lured and held on the ships, only to be
+returned when the husbands and fathers came back with a big hunt for
+the white masters.  Then the men were shot down; safer dead, thought
+the Russians; no fear of ambush or surprise; and the women were held as
+slaves to be knouted and done to death at their masters' pleasure.
+
+In 1745--four years after Russia's discovery of western America--a
+whole village in Attoo was destroyed so that the Russians could seize
+the women and children fleeing for hiding to the hills.  The next year
+Russians were caught putting poison in the food of another village: the
+men ate first among the Indians.  The women would be left as slaves to
+the Russians; and these same Russians carried a pagan boy home to {84}
+be baptized in the Christian faith; for the little convert could come
+back to the Aleutian Islands as interpreter.  It was as thorough a
+scheme of subjugation as the wolf code of existence could have entailed.
+
+The culmination came with the crew of Betshevin, a Siberian merchant,
+in 1760.  There were forty Russians, including Cossacks, and twenty
+other Asiatic hunters and sailors.  Four of the merchant's agents went
+along to enforce honest returns.  Sergeant Pushkareff of the Cossacks
+was there to collect tribute from Russia's Indian subjects on the west
+coast of America.  The ship was evidently better than the general run,
+with ample room in the hold for cargo, and wide deck room where the
+crew slept in hammocks without cover--usually a gruff, bearded, ragged,
+vermin-infested horde.  The vessel touched at Oomnak, after having met
+a sister ship, perhaps with an increase of aggressiveness toward the
+natives owing to the presence of these other Russians under Alixei
+Drusenin; and passed on eastward to the next otter resort, Oonalaska
+Island.
+
+Oonalaska is like a human hand spread out, with the fingers northeast,
+the arm end down seventy miles long toward Oomnak Island.  The entire
+broken coast probably reaches a circuit of over two hundred miles.
+Down the centre and out each spur are high volcanic mountains, two of
+them smoking volcanoes, all pitted with caves and hot springs whose
+course can be traced in winter by the runnels of steam {85} down the
+mountain side.  On the south side, reefs line all approach.  North,
+east, and west are countless abrupt inlets opening directly into the
+heart of the mountains down whose black cliffs shatter plumes of spray
+and cataract.  Not a tree grows on the island.  From base to summit the
+hills are a velvet sward, willow shrubs the size of one's finger, grass
+waist high, and such a wealth of flowers--poppy fields, anemones,
+snowdrops, rhododendrons--that one might be in a southern climate
+instead of close proximity to frozen zones.  Fogs wreathe the island
+three-quarters of the time; and though snow lies five feet deep in
+winter, and such blizzards riot in from the north as would tear trees
+up by the roots, and drive all human beings to their underground
+dwellings, it is never cold, never below zero, and the harbors are
+always open.  Whaling, fishing, fur hunting--those were the occupations
+of the islanders then, as now.
+
+Here, then, came Pushkareff in 1762 after two years' cruising about the
+Aleutian Islands.  The natives are friendly, thinking to obtain iron,
+and knives, and firearms like the other islanders who have traded with
+the Russians.  Children are given as hostages of good conduct for the
+Oonalaskan men, who lead the Russians off to the hunt, coasting from
+point to point.  Pushkareff, the Cossack, himself goes off with twenty
+men to explore; but somehow things go wrong at the native villages on
+this trip.  The hostages find they are not guests, but slaves.  Anyway,
+Betshevin's {86} agent is set upon and murdered.  Two more Russians are
+speared to death under Pushkareff's eyes, two wounded, and the Cossack
+himself, with his fourteen men, forced to beat a hasty retreat back to
+ships and huts on the coast.  Here, strange enough, things have gone
+wrong, too!  More women and children objecting to their masters'
+pleasure--slavery, the knout, the branding iron, death by starvation
+and abuse.  Two Russians have been slain bathing in the hot springs
+near Makushin Volcano, four murdered at the huts, four wounded; and the
+barrack is burned to the ground.  Promptly the Cossack wreaks vengeance
+by slaughtering seven of the hostages on the spot; but he deems it wise
+to take refuge on his ship, weigh anchor and slip out to sea carrying
+with him by way of a lesson to the natives, two interpreters, three
+boys, and twenty-five women, two of whom die of cruelty before the ship
+is well out of Oonalaskan waters.
+
+He may have intended dropping the captives at some near island on his
+way westward; for only blind rage could have rendered him so
+indifferent to their fate as to carry such a cargo of human beings back
+to the home harbor of Kamchatka.  Meanwhile a hurricane caught
+Pushkareff's ship, chopping the wave tops off and driving her ahead
+under bare poles.  When the gale abated, the ship was off Kamchatka's
+shore and the Cossack in a quandary about entering the home port with
+proofs of his cruelty in the cowering group of Indian women huddled
+above the deck.  {87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors
+were landed with fourteen women.  Two watched their chance and dashed
+for liberty in the hills.  On the way back to the ship, one woman was
+brained to death by a sailor, Gorelin; seeing which, the others on
+board the jolly-boat took advantage of the confusion, sprang overboard,
+and suicided.  But there were still a dozen hostages on the ship.
+These might relate the crime of their companions' murder.  It was an
+old trick out of an ugly predicament--destroy the victim in order to
+dodge retribution, or torture it so it would destroy itself.  Fourteen
+had been tortured into suicide.  The rest Pushkareff seized, bound, and
+threw into the sea.
+
+To be sure, on official investigation, Betshevin, the Siberian
+merchant, was subjected to penal tortures for this crime on his ship;
+and an imperial decree put an end to free trade among the fur hunters
+to America.  Henceforth a government permit must be obtained; but that
+did not undo the wrong to the Aleutian Islanders.  Primal instincts,
+unhampered by law, have a swift, sure, short-cut to justice; to the
+fine equipoise between weak and strong.  It was two years before
+punishment was meted out by the Russian government for this crime.
+What did the Aleut Indian care for the law's slow jargon?  His only law
+was self-preservation.  His furs had been plundered from him; his
+hunting-fields overrun by brigands from he knew not where; his home
+outraged; his warriors poisoned, bludgeoned, done to death; his women
+and children {88} kidnapped to lifelong slavery; the very basic, brute
+instincts of his nature tantalized, baited, tortured to dare!
+
+It was from January to September of 1762, that Pushkareff had run his
+mad course of outrage on Oonalaska Island.  It was in September of the
+same year, that four other Russian ships, all unconscious of the
+reception Pushkareff's evil doings had prepared for them, left
+Kamchatka for the Aleutian Islands.  Each of the ships was under a
+commander who had been to the islands before and dealt fairly by the
+Indians.
+
+Betshevin's ship with Pushkareff, the Cossack, reached Kamchatka
+September 25.  On the 6th there had come to winter at the harbor a ship
+under the same Alexei Drusenin, who had met Pushkareff the year before
+on the way to Oonalaska.  Drusenin was outward bound and must have
+heard the tales told of Pushkareff's crew; but the latter had brought
+back in all nearly two thousand otter,--half sent by Drusenin, half
+brought by himself,--and Oonalaska became the lodestar of the otter
+hunters.  The spring of '63 found Drusenin coasting the Aleutians.
+Sure enough, others had heard news of the great find of the new
+hunting-grounds.  Three other Russian vessels were on the grounds
+before him, Glottoff and Medvedeff at Oomnak, Korovin halfway up
+Oonalaska.  No time for Drusenin to lose!  A spy sent out came back
+with the report that every part of Oomnak and {89} Oonalaska was being
+thoroughly hunted except the extreme northeast, where the mountain
+spurs of Oonalaska stretch out in the sea like a hand.  Up to the
+northeast end, then, where the tide-rip thunders up the rock wall like
+an inverted cataract, posts Drusenin where he anchors his ship in
+Captain Harbor, and has winter quarters built before snow-fall of '63.
+
+An odd thing was--the Indian chiefs became so very friendly they
+voluntarily brought hostages of good conduct to Drusenin.  Surely
+Drusenin was in luck!  The best otter-hunting grounds in the world!  A
+harbor as smooth as glass, mountain-girt, sheltered as a hole in a
+wall, right in the centre of the hunting-grounds, yet shut off from the
+rioting north winds that shook the rickety vessels to pieces!  And best
+of all, along the sandy shore between the ship and the mountains that
+receded inland tier on tier into the clouds--the dome-roofed,
+underground dwellings of two or three thousand native hunters ready to
+risk the surf of the otter hunt at Drusenin's beck!  Just to make sure
+of safety after Pushkareff's losses of ten men on this island, Drusenin
+exchanges a letter or two with the commanders of those other three
+Russian vessels.  Then he laid his plans for the winter's hunt.  But so
+did the Aleut Indians; and their plans were for a man-hunt of every
+Russian within the limits of Oonalaska.
+
+A curious story is told of how the Aleuts arranged to have the uprising
+simultaneous and certain.  A bunch of sticks was carried to the chief
+of every tribe.  {90} These were burned one a day, like the skin wick
+in the seal oil of the Aleut's stone lamp.  When the last stick had
+burned, the Aleuts were to rise.
+
+Now, the northeast coast was like the fingers of a hand.  Drusenin had
+anchored between two mountain spurs like fingers.  Eastward, across the
+next mountain spur was another village--Kalekhta, of some forty houses;
+eastward of Kalekhta, again, ten miles across, another village of
+seventy families on the island of Inalook.  Drusenin decided to divide
+his crew into three hunting parties: one of nine men to guard the ship
+and trade with the main village of Captain Harbor; a second of eleven,
+to cross to the native huts at Kalekhta; a third of eleven, to cross
+the hills, and paddle out to the little island of Inalook.  To the
+island ten miles off shore, Drusenin went himself, with Korelin, a
+wrecked Russian whom he had picked up on the voyage.  On the way they
+must have passed all three mountains, that guard the harbor of
+Oonalaska, the waterfalls that pour over the cliffs near Kalekhta, and
+the little village itself where eleven men remained to build huts for
+the winter.  From the village to the easternmost point was over quaking
+moss ankle-deep, or through long, rank grass, waist-high and
+water-rotted with sea-fog.  Here they launched their boat of sea-lion
+skin on a bone frame, and pulled across a bay of ten miles to the
+farthermost hunting-grounds.  Again, the natives overwhelm Drusenin
+with kindness.  The Russian keeps his sentinels as {91} vigilant as
+ever pacing before the doors of the hut; but he goes unguarded and
+unharmed among the native dwellings.  Perhaps, poor Drusenin was not
+above swaggering a little, belted in the gay uniform Russian officers
+loved to wear, to the confounding of the poor Aleut who looked on the
+pistols in belt, the cutlass dangling at heel, the bright shoulder
+straps and colored cuffs, as insignia of a power almighty.  Anyway,
+after Drusenin had sent five hunters out in the fields to lay
+fox-traps, early in the morning of December 4, he set out with a couple
+of Cossack friends to visit a native house.  Korelin, the rescued
+castaway, and two other men kept guard at the huts.[2]
+
+At that time, and until very recently, the Aleuts' winter dwelling was
+a domed, thatched roof over a cellar excavation three or four feet
+deep, circular and big enough to lodge a dozen families.  The entrance
+to this was a low-roofed, hall-like annex, dark as night, leading with
+a sudden pitch downward into the main circle.  Now, whether the Aleut
+had counted burning fagots, or kept tally some other way, the count was
+up.  Barely had Drusenin stepped into the dark of the inner circle,
+when a blow clubbed down on his skull that felled him to earth.  The
+Cossack, coming second, had stumbled over the prostrate body before
+either had any suspicion of danger; and in a {92} second, both were cut
+to pieces by knives traded to the Indians the day before for otter
+skins.
+
+Shevyrin, the third man, happened to be carrying an axe.  One against a
+score, he yet kept his face to the enemy, beat a retreat backward
+striking right and left with the axe, then turned and fled for very
+life, with a shower of arrows and lances falling about him, that
+drenched him in his own blood.  Already a crash of muskets told of
+battle at the huts.  More dead than alive, the pursued Russian turned
+but to strike his assailants back.  Then, he was at the huts almost
+stumbling over the man who had probably been doing sentinel duty but
+was now under the spears of the crowd--when the hut door opened; and
+Korelin, the Russian, dashed out flourishing a yard-long bear knife
+under protection of the other guard's musket fire from the window,
+slashed to death two of the nearest Indians, cut a swath that sent the
+others scattering, seized the two wounded men, dragged them inside the
+hut, and slammed the door to the enraged yells of the baffled warriors.
+
+Some one has said that Oonalaska and Oomnak are the smelting furnaces
+of America.  Certainly, the volcanic caves supplied sulphur that the
+natives knew how to use as match lighters.  The savages were without
+firearms, but might have burned out the Russians had it not been for
+the constant fusillade of musketry from door and roof and parchment
+windows of the hut.  Two of the Russians were wounded and weak {93}
+from loss of blood.  The other two never remitted their guard day or
+night for four days, neither sleeping nor eating, till the wounded
+pair, having recovered somewhat, seized pistols and cutlasses, waited
+till a quelling of the musketry tempted the Indians near, then sallied
+out with a flare of their pistols, that dropped three Aleuts on the
+spot, wounded others, and drove the rest to a distance.  But in the
+sortie, there had been flaunted in their very faces, the coats and caps
+and daggers of the five hunters Drusenin had sent fox trapping.
+Plainly, the fox hunters had been massacred.  The four men were alone
+surrounded by hundreds of hostiles, ten miles from the shores of
+Oonalaska, twenty from the other hunting detachments and the ship.  But
+water was becoming a desperate need.  To stay cooped up in the hut was
+to be forced into surrender.  Their only chance was to risk all by a
+dash from the island.  Dark was gathering.  Through the shadowy dusk
+watched the Aleuts; but the pointed muskets of the two wounded men kept
+hostiles beyond distance of spear-tossing, while the other two Russians
+destroyed what they could not carry away, hauled down their skin boat
+to the water loaded with provisions, ammunition, and firearms, then
+under guard of levelled pistols, pulled off in the darkness across the
+sea, heaving and thundering to the night tide.
+
+But the sea was the lesser danger.  Once away from the enemy, the four
+fugitives pulled for dear life {94} across the tumbling waves--ten
+miles the way they went, one account says--to the main shore of
+Oonalaska.  It was pitch dark.  When they reached the shore, they could
+neither hear nor see a sign of life; but the moss trail through the
+snows had probably become well beaten to the ship by this time--four
+months from Drusenin's landing--or else the fugitives found their way
+by a kind of desperation; for before daybreak they had run within
+shouting distance of the second detachment of hunters stationed at
+Kalekhta.  Not a sound!  Not a light!  Perhaps they had missed their
+way!  Perhaps the Indians on the main island are still friendly!
+Shevyrin or Korelin utters a shout, followed by the signal of a musket
+shot for that second party of hunters to come out and help.  Scarcely
+had the crash died over the snows, when out of the dark leaped a
+hundred lances, a hundred faces, a hundred shrieking, bloodthirsty
+savages.  Now they realize the mistake of having landed, of having
+abandoned the skin boat back on the beach there!  But no time to
+retrace steps!  Only a wild dash through the dark, catching by each
+other to keep together, up to a high precipitous rock they know is
+somewhere here, with the sea behind, sheer drop on each side, and but
+one narrow approach!  Here they make their stand, muskets and sword in
+hand, beating the assailants back, wherever a stealthy form comes
+climbing up the rock to hurl spear or lance!  Presently, a
+well-directed fusillade drives the savages off!  While night still hid
+{95} them, the four fugitives scrambled down the side of the rock
+farthest from the savages, and ran for the roadstead where the ship had
+anchored.
+
+As dawn comes up over the harbor something catches the attention of the
+runners.  It is the main hatch, the planking, the mast poles of the
+ship, drawn up and scattered on the beach.  Drusenin's ship has been
+destroyed.  The crew is massacred; they, alone, have escaped; and the
+nearest help is one of those three other Russian ships anchored
+somewhere seventy miles west.  Without waiting to look more, the three
+men ran for the mountains of the interior, found hiding in one of the
+deep-grassed ravines, scooped out a hole in the sand, covered this with
+a sail white as snow, and crawled under in hiding for the day.
+
+The next night they came down to the shore, in the hope, perhaps, of
+finding refugees like themselves.  They discovered only the mangled
+bodies of their comrades, literally hacked to pieces.  A saint's image
+and a book of prayers lay along the sand.  Scattered everywhere were
+flour sacks, provisions, ships' planking.  These they carried back as
+well as they could three miles in the mountains.  A pretty legend is
+told of a native hunter following their tracks to this retreat, and not
+only refusing to betray them but secretly carrying provisions; and some
+such explanation is needed to know how the four men lived hidden in the
+mountains from December 9 to February 2, 1764.
+
+If they had known where those other Russian ships {96} were anchored,
+they might have struck across country to them, or followed the coast by
+night; but rival hunters did not tell each other where they anchored,
+and tracks across country could have been followed.  The trackless sea
+was safer.
+
+There is another story of how the men hid in mountain caves all those
+weeks, kept alive by the warmth of hot springs, feeding on clams and
+shell-fish gathered at night.  This, too, may be true; for the
+mountains inland of Oonalaska Harbor are honeycombed with caves, and
+there are well-known hot springs.
+
+By February they had succeeded in making a skin skiff of the leather
+sacks.  They launched this on the harbor and, stealing away unseen,
+rounded the northwest coast of Oonalaska's hand projecting into the
+sea, travelling at night southwestward, seeking the ships of Korovin,
+or Medvedeff, or Glottoff.  Now the majority of voyagers don't care to
+coast this part of Oonalaska at night during the winter in a safe ship;
+and these men had nothing between them and the abyss of the sea but the
+thickness of a leather sack badly oiled to keep out water.  Their one
+hope was--a trader's vessel.
+
+All night, for a week, they coasted within the shadow of the shore
+rocks, hiding by day, passing three Indian villages undiscovered.
+Distance gave them courage.  They now paddled by day, and just as they
+rounded Makushin Volcano, lying like a great white corpse five thousand
+feet above Bering Sea, they came on five {97} Indians, who at once
+landed and running alongshore gave the alarm.  The refugees for the
+second time sought safety on a rock; but the rising tide drove them
+off.  Seizing the light boat, they ran for shelter in a famous cave of
+the volcanic mountain.  Here, for five weeks, they resisted constant
+siege, not a Russian of the four daring to appear within twenty yards
+of the cave entrance before a shower of arrows fell inside.  Their only
+food now was the shell-fish gathered at night; their only water, snow
+scooped from gutters of the cave.  Each night one watched by turn while
+the others slept; and each night one must make a dash to gather the
+shell-fish.  Five weeks at last tired the Indians' vigilance out.  One
+dark night the Russians succeeded in launching out undetected.  That
+day they hid, but daybreak of the next long pull showed them a ship in
+the folds of the mountain coast--Korovin's vessel.  They reached the
+ship on the 30th of March.  Poor Shevyrin soon after died from his
+wounds in the underground hut, but Korovin's troubles had only begun.
+
+Ivan Korovin's vessel had sailed out of Avacha Bay, Kamchatka, just two
+weeks before Pushkareff's crew of criminals came home.  It had become
+customary for the hunting vessels to sail to the Commander
+Islands--Bering and Copper--nearest Kamchatka, and winter there, laying
+up a store of sea-cow meat, the huge bovine of the sea, which was soon
+to be exterminated by the hunters.  Here Korovin met Denis Medvedeff's
+{98} crew, also securing a year's supply of meat for the hunt of the
+sea-otter.  The two leaders must have had some inkling of trouble
+ahead, for Medvedeff gave Korovin ten more sailors, and the two signed
+a written contract to help each other in time of need.
+
+In spring (1763) both sailed for the best sea-otter fields then
+known--Oonalaska and Oomnak, Korovin with thirty-seven men, Medvedeff,
+forty-nine.  In order not to interfere with each other's hunt,
+Medvedeff stopped at Oomnak, Korovin went on to Oonalaska.  Anchoring
+sixty yards from shore, not very far from the volcano caves, where
+Drusenin's four fugitives were to fight for their lives the following
+spring, Korovin landed with fourteen men to reconnoitre.  Deserted
+houses he saw, but never a living soul.  Going back to the ship for
+more men, he set out again and went inland five miles where he found a
+village of three hundred souls.  Three chiefs welcomed him, showed
+receipts for tribute of furs given by the Cossack collector of a
+previous ship, and gave over three boys as hostages of good
+conduct--one, called Alexis, the son of a chief.  Meanwhile, letters
+were exchanged with Medvedeff down a hundred miles at Oomnak.  All was
+well.  The time had not come.  It was only September--about the same
+time that Drusenin up north was sending out his hunters in three
+detachments.
+
+Korovin was so thoroughly satisfied all was safe, that he landed his
+entire cargo and crew, and while the carpenters were building wintering
+huts out of {99} driftwood, set out himself, with two skin boats, to
+coast northeast.  For four days he followed the very shore that the
+four escaping men were to cruise in an opposite direction.  About forty
+miles from the anchorage he met Drusenin himself, leading twenty-five
+Russian hunters out from Captain Harbor.  Surely, if ever hunters were
+safe, Korovin's were, with Medvedeff's forty-nine men southwest a
+hundred miles, and Drusenin's thirty sailors forty miles northeast.
+Korovin decided to hunt midway between Drusenin's crew and Medvedeff's.
+It is likely that the letters exchanged among the different commanders
+from September to December were arranging that Drusenin should keep to
+the east of Oonalaska, Korovin to the west of the island, while
+Medvedeff hunted exclusively on the other island--Oomnak.
+
+By December Korovin had scattered twenty-three hunters southwest,
+keeping a guard of only sixteen for the huts and boat.  Among the
+sixteen was little Alexis, the hostage Indian boy.  The warning of
+danger was from the mother of the little Aleut, who reported that sixty
+hostiles were advancing on the ship under pretence of trading
+sea-otter.  Between the barracks and the sea front flowed a stream.
+Here the Cossack guard took their stand, armed head to foot, permitting
+only ten Indians at a time to enter the huts for trade.  The Aleuts
+exchanged their sea-otter for what iron they could get, and departed
+without any sign.  Korovin had almost concluded it was a false {100}
+alarm, when three Indian servants of Drusenin's ship came dashing
+breathless across country with news that the ship and all the Russians
+on the east end of Oonalaska had been destroyed.
+
+Including the three newcomers, Korovin had only nineteen men; and his
+hostages numbered almost as strong.  The panic-stricken sailors were
+for burning huts and ship, and escaping overland to the twenty-three
+hunters somewhere southwest.
+
+It was the 10th of December--the very night when Drusenin's fugitives
+had taken to hiding in the north mountains.  While Korovin was still
+debating what to do, an alarm came from beneath the keel of the ship.
+In the darkness, the sea was suddenly alive with hundreds of skin
+skiffs each carrying from eight to twenty Indian warriors.  One can
+well believe that lanterns swinging from bow and stern, and lights
+behind the talc windows of the huts, were put suddenly out to avoid
+giving targets for the hurricane of lances and darts and javelins that
+came hurtling through the air.  Two Russians fell dead, reducing
+Korovin's defence to fourteen; but a quick swing of musketry exacted
+five Indian lives for the two dead whites.  At the end of four days,
+the Russians were completely exhausted.  The besiegers withdrew to a
+cave on the mountain side, perhaps to tempt Korovin on land.
+
+Quick as thought, Korovin buried his iron deep under the barracks, set
+fire to the huts, and concentrated all his forces on the vessel, where
+he wisely carried the {101} hostages with him and sheered fifty yards
+farther off shore.  Had the riot of winter winds not been driving
+mountain billows along the outer coast, he might have put to sea; but
+he had no proof the twenty-three men gone inland hunting to the south
+might not be yet alive, and a winter gale would have dashed his ship to
+kindling wood outside the sheltered harbor.
+
+Food was short, water was short, and the ship over-crowded with
+hostages.  To make matters worse, scurvy broke out among the crew; and
+the hostiles renewed the attack, surrounding the Russian ship in forty
+canoes with ten to twenty warriors in each.  An ocean vessel of the
+time, or even a pirate ship, could have scattered the assailants in a
+few minutes; but the Russian hunting vessels were long, low,
+flat-bottomed, rickety-planked craft, of perhaps sixty feet in length,
+with no living accommodation below decks, and very poor hammock space
+above.  Hostages and scurvy-stricken Russians were packed in the hold
+with the meat stores and furs like dying rats in a garbage barrel.  It
+was as much as a Russian's life was worth, to show his head above the
+hatchway; and the siege lasted from the middle of December to the 30th
+of March, when Drusenin's four refugees, led by Korelin, made a final
+dash from Makushin Volcano, and gained Korovin's ship.
+
+
+With the addition of the fugitives, Korovin now had eighteen Russians.
+The Indian father of the hostage, {102} Alexis, had come to demand back
+his son.  Korovin freed the boy at once.  By the end of April, the
+spring gales had subsided, and though half his men were prostrate with
+scurvy, there was nothing for Korovin to do but dare the sea.  They
+sailed out from Oonalaska on April 26 heading back toward Oomnak, where
+Medvedeff had anchored.
+
+In the straits between the different Aleutian Islands runs a terrific
+tide-rip.  Crossing from Oonalaska to Oomnak, Korovin's ship was caught
+by the counter-currents and cross winds.  Not more than five men were
+well enough to stand upon their feet.  The ship drifted without pilot
+or oarsmen, and driving the full force of wind and tide foundered on
+the end of Oomnak Island.  Ammunition, sails, and skins for fresh
+rowboats were all that could be saved of the wreck.  One
+scurvy-stricken sailor was drowned trying to reach land; another died
+on being lifted from the stiflingly close hold to fresh air.  Eight
+hostages sprang overboard and escaped.  Of the sixteen white men and
+four hostages left, three were powerless from scurvy.  This last blow
+on top of a winter's siege was too much for the Russians.  Their
+enfeebled bodies were totally exhausted.  Stretching sails round as a
+tent and stationing ten men at a time as sentinels, they slept the
+first unbroken sleep they had known in five months.  The tired-out
+sentinels must have fallen asleep at their places; for just as day
+dawned came a hundred savages, stealthy and silent, seeking the ship
+that had slipped {103} out from Oonalaska.  Landing without a sound,
+they crept up within ten yards of the tents, stabbed the sleeping
+sentinels to death, and let go such a whiz of arrows and lances at the
+tent walls, that three of the Indian hostages inside were killed and
+every Russian wounded.
+
+Korovin had not even time to seize his firearms.  Cutlass in hand,
+followed by four men--all wounded and bleeding like himself--he dashed
+out, slashed two savages to death, and scattered the rest at the sword
+point.  A shower of spears was the Indians' answer to this.  Wounded
+anew, the five Russians could scarcely drag themselves back to the tent
+where by this time the others had seized the firearms.
+
+All that day and night, a tempest lashed the shore.  The stranded ship
+fell to pieces like a boat of paper; and the attacking islanders
+strewed the provisions to the winds with shrieks of laughter.  On the
+30th of April, the assailants began firing muskets, which they had
+captured from Korovin's massacred hunters; but the shots fell wide of
+the mark.  Then they brought sulphur from the volcanic caves, and set
+fire to the long grass on the windward side of the tents.  Again,
+Korovin sallied out, drove them off, and extinguished the fire.  May,
+June, and half July he lay stranded here, waiting for his men to
+recover, and when they recovered, setting them to build a boat of skin
+and driftwood.
+
+Toward the third week of July, a skin boat twenty-four feet long was
+finished.  In this were laid the wounded; and the well men took to the
+paddles.  All {104} night they paddled westward and still westward,
+night after night, seeking the third vessel--that of Denis Medvedeff,
+who had come with them the year before from Bering Island.  On the
+tenth day, Russian huts and a stone bath-house were seen on the shore
+of a broad inlet.  Not a soul was stirring.  As Korovin's boat
+approached, bits of sail, ships' wreckage, and provisions were seen
+scattered on the shore.  Fearing the worst, Korovin landed.  Signs of a
+struggle were on every hand; and in the bath-house, still clothed but
+with thongs round their necks as if they had been strangled to death,
+lay twenty of Medvedeff's crew.  Closer examination showed Medvedeff
+himself among the slain.  Not a soul was left to tell the story of the
+massacre, not a word ever heard about the fate of the others in the
+crew.  Korovin's last hope was gone.  There was no third ship to carry
+him home.  He was in the very act of ordering his men to construct
+winter quarters, when Stephen Glottoff, a famous hunter on the way back
+from Kadiak westward, appeared marching across the sands followed by
+eight men.  Glottoff had heard of the massacres from natives on the
+north shore with whom he was friendly; and had sent out rescue parties
+to seek the survivors on the south coast of whom the Indian spies told.
+
+The poor fugitives embraced Glottoff, and went almost mad with joy.
+But like the prospector, who suffers untold hardships seeking the
+wealth of gold, these seekers of wealth in furs could not relinquish
+the {105} wild freedom of the perilous life.  They signed contracts to
+hunt with Glottoff for the year.
+
+
+It is no part of this story to tell how the Cossack, Solovieff, entered
+on a campaign of punishment for the Aleuts when he came.  Whole
+villages were blown up by mines of powder in birch bark.  Fugitives
+dashing from the conflagration were sabred by the Russians, as many as
+a hundred Aleuts butchered at a time, villages of three hundred
+scattered to the winds, warriors bound hand and foot in line, and shot
+down.
+
+Suffice it to say, scurvy slaked Solovieff's vengeance.  Both Aleuts
+and Russians had learned the one all-important lesson--the Christian's
+doctrine of retribution, the scientist's law of equilibrium--that brute
+force met by brute force ends only in mutual destruction, in anarchy,
+in death.  Thirty years later, Vancouver visiting the Russians could
+report that their influence on the Indians was of the sort that springs
+from deep-rooted kindness and identity of interests.  Both sides had
+learned there was a better way than the wolf code.[3]
+
+
+
+[1] See Coxe's _Discoveries of the Russians_.
+
+[2] Some of the old records spell the name of this wrecked Russian
+"Korelin," as if it were "Gorelin," the sailor, of Pushkareff's crew,
+who brained the Indian girl; I am unable to determine whether "Korelin"
+and "Gorelin" are the same man or not.  If so, then the punishment came
+home indeed.
+
+[3] It would be almost impossible to quote all the authorities on this
+massacre of the Russians, and every one who has written on Russian fur
+trade in America gives different scraps of the tragedy; but nearly all
+can be traced back to the detailed account in Coxe's _Discoveries of
+the Russians between Asia and America_, and on this I have relied, the
+French edition of 1781.  The Census Report, Vol. VIII, 1880, by Ivan
+Petroff, is invaluable for topography and ethnology of this period and
+region.  It was from Korelin, one of the four refugees, that the
+Russian archivists took the first account of the massacre; and Coxe's
+narrative is based on Korelin's story, though the tradition of the
+massacre has been handed down from father to child among Oonalaskans to
+this day, so that certain caves near Captain Harbor, and Makushin
+Volcano are still pointed out as the refuge of the four pursued
+Russians.
+
+
+
+
+{106}
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+1768-1772
+
+COUNT MAURITIUS BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
+
+Siberian Exiles under Polish Soldier of Fortune plot to overthrow
+Garrison of Kamchatka and escape to West Coast of America as Fur
+Traders--A Bloody Melodrama enacted at Bolcheresk--The Count and his
+Criminal Crew sail to America
+
+
+Fur hunters, world over, live much the same life.  It was the beaver
+led French voyageurs westward to the Rocky Mountains.  It was the
+sea-otter brought Russian coasters cruising southward from Alaska to
+California; and it was the little sable set the mad pace of the
+Cossacks' wild rush clear across Siberia to the shores of the Pacific.
+The tribute that the riotous Cossacks collected, whether from Siberia
+or America, was tribute in furs.
+
+The farther the hunters wandered, the harder it was to obtain supplies
+from the cities.  In each case--in New France, on the Missouri, in
+Siberia--this compelled resort to the same plan; a grand rallying
+place, a yearly rendezvous, a stamping-ground for hunters and traders.
+Here merchants brought their goods; {107} hunters, their furs;
+light-fingered gentry, offscourings from everywhere, horses to sell, or
+smuggled whiskey, or plunder that had been picked up in ways untold.
+
+The great meeting place for Russian fur traders was on a plain east of
+the Lena River, not far from Yakutsk, a thousand miles in a crow line
+from the Pacific.  In the fall of 1770 there had gathered here as
+lawless birds of a feather as ever scoured earth for prey.  Merchants
+from the inland cities had floated down supplies to the plain on white
+and black and lemon-painted river barges.  Long caravans of pack horses
+and mules and tented wagons came rumbling dust-covered across the
+fields, bells ajingle, driven by Cossacks all the way from St.
+Petersburg, six thousand miles.  Through snow-padded forests, over
+wind-swept plains, across the heaving mountains of two continents,
+along deserts and Siberian rivers, almost a year had the caravans
+travelled.  These, for the most part, carried ship supplies--cordage,
+tackling, iron--for vessels to be built on the Pacific to sail for
+America.
+
+Then there rode in at furious pace, from the northern steppes of
+Siberia, the Cossack tribute collectors--four hundred of them centred
+here--who gathered one-tenth of the furs for the Czar, nine-tenths for
+themselves: drunken brawlers they were, lawless as Arabs; and the only
+law they knew was the law they wielded.  Tartar hordes came with horses
+to sell, freebooters of the boundless desert, banditti in league with
+the Cossacks to smuggle across the {108} borders of the Chinese.  And
+Chinese smugglers, splendid in silk attire, hobnobbed with exiles, who
+included every class from courtiers banished for political offences to
+criminals with ears cut off and faces slit open.  What with drink and
+play and free fights--if the Czar did not hear, it was because he was
+far away.
+
+On this August night half a dozen new exiles had come in with the St.
+Petersburg cavalcade.  The prisoners were set free on parole to see the
+sights, while their Cossack guard went on a spree.  The new-comers
+seemed above the common run of criminals sent to Siberia, better
+clothed, of the air born to command, and in possession of money.  The
+leading spirit among them was a young Pole, twenty-eight years or
+thereabouts, of noble rank, Mauritius Benyowsky, very lame from a
+battle wound, but plainly a soldier of fortune who could trump every
+trick fate played him, and give as good knocks as he got.  Four others
+were officers of the army in St. Petersburg, exiled for political
+reasons.  Only one, Hippolite Stephanow, was a criminal in the sense of
+having broken law.
+
+Hoffman, a German surgeon, welcomed them to his quarters at Yakutsk.
+Where were they going?--To the Pacific?--"Ah; a long journey from St.
+Petersburg; seven thousand miles!" That was where he was to go when he
+had finished surgical duties on the Lena.  By that they knew he, too,
+was an exile, practising his profession on parole.  He would advise
+{109} them--cautiously feeling his ground--to get transferred as soon
+as they could from the Pacific coast to the Peninsula of Kamchatka;
+that was safer for an exile--fewer guards, farther from the Cossacks of
+the mainland; in fact, nearer America, where exiles might make a
+fortune in the fur trade.  Had they heard of schemes in the air among
+Russians for ships to plunder furs in America "with powder and hatchets
+and the help of God," as the Russians say?
+
+[Illustration: Mauritius Augustus, Count Benyowsky.]
+
+Benyowsky, the Pole, jumped to the bait like a trout to the fly.  If
+"powder and hatchets and the help of God"--_and an exile crew_--could
+capture wealth in the fur trade of western America, why not a break for
+freedom?
+
+They didn't scruple as to means, these men.  Why should they?  They had
+been penned in festering dungeons, where the dead lay, corrupting the
+air till living and dead became a diseased mass.  They had been knouted
+for differences of political opinion.  They {110} had been whisked off
+at midnight from St. Petersburg--mile after mile, week after week,
+month after month, across the snows, with never a word of explanation,
+knowing only from the jingle of many bells that other prisoners were in
+the long procession.  Now their hopes took fire from Hoffman's tales of
+Russian plans for fur trade.  The path of the trackless sea seems
+always to lead to a boundless freedom.
+
+In a word, before they had left Hoffman, they had bound themselves by
+oath to try to seize a fur-trading ship to escape across the Pacific.
+Stephanow, the common convict, was the one danger.  He might play spy
+and obtain freedom by betraying all.  To prevent this, each man was
+required to sign his name to an avowal of the conspirators' aim.
+Hoffman was to follow as soon as he could.  Meanwhile he kept the
+documents, which were written in German; and Benyowsky, the Pole, was
+elected chief.
+
+
+The Cossack guards came sulkily back from their gambling bout.  The
+exiles were placed in elk-team sleds, and the remaining thousand miles
+to the Pacific resumed.  But the spree had left the soldiers with sore
+heads.  At the first camping place they were gambling again.  On the
+sixth day out luck turned so heavily against one soldier that he lost
+his entire belongings to the captain of the troops, flew in a towering
+rage, and called his officer some blackguard name.  The officer
+nonchalantly took over the {111} gains, swallowed the insult, and
+commanded the other Cossacks to tie the fellow up and give him a
+hundred lashes.
+
+For a moment consternation reigned.  There are some unwritten laws even
+among the Cossacks.  To play the equal, when there was money to win,
+then act the despot when offended, was not according to the laws of
+good fellows among Cossacks.  Before the officer knew where he was, he
+had been seized, bundled out of the tent, stripped naked and flogged on
+the bare back three hundred strokes.
+
+He was still roaring with rage and pain and fear when a coureur came
+thundering over the path from Yakutsk with word that Hoffman had died
+suddenly, leaving certain papers suspected of conspiracy, which were
+being forwarded for examination to the commander on the Pacific.  The
+coureur handed the paper to the officer of the guards.  Not a man of
+the Cossacks could read German.  What the papers were the terrified
+exiles knew.  If word of the plot reached the Pacific, they might
+expect knouting, perhaps mutilation, or lifelong, hopeless servitude in
+the chain-gangs of the mines.
+
+One chance of frustrating detection remained--the Cossack officer
+looked to the exiles for protection against his men.  For a week the
+cavalcade moved sullenly on, the soldiers jeering in open revolt at the
+officer, the officer in terror for his life, the exiles quaking with
+fear.  The road led to a swift, somewhat {112} dangerous river.  The
+Cossacks were ordered to swim the elk teams across.  The officer went
+on the raft to guard the prisoners, on whose safe delivery his own life
+depended.  With hoots of laughter, that could not be reported as
+disobedience, the Cossacks hustled the snorting elk teams against the
+raft.  A deft hoist from the pole of some unseen diver below, and the
+raft load was turned helter-skelter upside down in the middle of the
+river, the commander going under heels up!  When officer and exiles
+came scrambling up the bank wet as water-rats, they were welcomed with
+shouts by the Cossacks.  Officer and prisoners lighted a fire to dry
+clothes.  Soldiers rummaged out the brandy casks, and were presently so
+deep in drunken sleep not a man of the guard was on his feet.
+Benyowsky waited till the commander, too, slept.  Then the Pole limped,
+careful as a cat over cut glass, to the coat drying before the fire,
+drew out the packet of documents, and found what the exiles had
+feared--Hoffman's papers in German, with orders to the commander on the
+Pacific to keep the conspirators fettered till instructions came the
+next year from St. Petersburg.
+
+The prisoners realized that all must be risked in one desperate cast of
+the dice.  "I and time against all men," says the proverb.  No fresh
+caravan would be likely to come till spring.  Meanwhile they must play
+against time.  Burning the packet to ashes, they replaced it with a
+forged order instructing the commander on the Pacific to treat the
+exiles with all {113} freedom and liberality, and to forward them by
+the first boat outward bound for Kamchatka.
+
+The governor at Okhotsk did precisely as the packet instructed.  He
+allowed them out on parole.  He supplied them with clothing and money.
+He forwarded them to Kamchatka on the first boat outward bound, the
+_St. Peter and Paul_, with forty-three of a crew and ten cannon, which
+had just come back from punishing American Indians for massacring the
+Russians.
+
+A year less two days from the night they had been whisked out of St.
+Petersburg, the exiles reached their destination--the little log fort
+or _ostrog_ of Bolcheresk, about twenty miles up from the sea on the
+inner side of Kamchatka, one hundred and fifty miles overland from the
+Pacific.  The rowboat conducting the exiles up-stream met rafts of
+workmen gliding down the current.  Rafts and rowboat paused within
+call.  The raftsmen wanted news from Europe.  Benyowsky answered that
+exiles had no news.  "Who are you?" an officer demanded bluntly.
+Always and unconsciously playing the hero part of melodrama, Benyowsky
+replied--"Once a soldier and a general, now a slave."  Shouts of
+laughter broke from the raftsmen.  The enraged Pole was for leaping
+overboard and thrashing them to a man for their mockery; but they
+called out, "no offence had been meant": they, too, were exiles; their
+laughter was welcome; they had suffered enough in Kamchatka to know
+that when men must laugh or weep, better, much better, laugh!  Even as
+they {114} laughed came the tears.  With a rear sweep, the rafts headed
+about and escorted the newcomers to the fortress, where they were
+locked for the night.  After all, a welcome to exile was a sardonic
+sort of mirth.
+
+
+Kamchatka occupies very much the same position on the Pacific as Italy
+to the Mediterranean, or Norway to the North Sea.  Its people were
+nomads, wild as American Indians, but Russia had established garrisons
+of Cossacks--collectors of tribute in furs--all over the peninsula, of
+whom four hundred were usually moving from place to place, three
+hundred stationed at Bolcheresk, the seat of government, on the inner
+coast of the peninsula.
+
+The capital itself was a curious conglomeration of log huts stuck away
+at the back of beyond, with all the gold lace and court satins and
+regimental formalities of St. Petersburg in miniature.  On one side of
+a deep ravine, was the fort or _ostrog_--a palisaded courtyard of some
+two or three hundred houses, joined together like the face of a street,
+with assembly rooms, living apartments, and mess rooms on one side of a
+passageway, kitchens, servants' quarters, and barracks for the Cossacks
+on the other side of the aisle.  Two or three streets of these
+double-rowed houses made up the fort.  Few of the houses contained more
+than three rooms, but the rooms were large as halls, one hundred by
+eighty feet, some of them, with whip-sawed floors, clay-chinked log
+walls, parchment {115} windows, and furniture hewed out of the green
+fir trees of the mountains.  But the luxurious living made up for the
+bareness of furnishings.  Shining samovars sung in every room.  Rugs of
+priceless fur concealed the rough flooring.  Chinese silks, Japanese
+damasks,--Oriental tapestries smuggled in by the fur traders,--covered
+the walls; and richest of silk attired the Russian officers and their
+ladies, compelled to beguile time here, where the only break in
+monotony was the arrival of fresh ships from America, or exiles from
+St. Petersburg, or gambling or drinking or dancing or feasting the long
+winter nights through, with, perhaps, a duel in the morning to settle
+midnight debts.  Just across a deep ravine from the fort was another
+kind of settlement--ten or a dozen _yurts_, thatch-roofed, circular
+houses half underground like cellars, grouped about a square hall or
+barracks in the centre.  In this village dwelt the exiles, earning
+their living by hunting or acting as servants for the officers of the
+Cossacks.
+
+Here, then, came Benyowsky and his companions, well received because of
+forged letters sent on, but with no time to lose; for the first spring
+packet overland might reveal their conspiracy.  The raftsmen, who had
+welcomed them, now turned hosts and housed the newcomers.  The Pole was
+assigned to an educated Russian, who had been eight years in exile.
+
+"How can you stand it?  Do you fear death too much to dare one blow for
+liberty?" Benyowsky asked the other, as they sat over their tea that
+first night.
+
+{116} But a spy might ask the same question.  The Russian evaded
+answer, and a few hours later showed the Pole books of travel, among
+which were maps of the Philippines, where twenty or thirty exiles might
+go _if they had a leader_.
+
+Leader?  Benyowsky leaped to his feet with hands on pistol and cutlass
+with which he had been armed that morning when Governor Nilow liberated
+them to hunt on parole.  Leader?  Were they men?  Was this settlement,
+too, ready to rise if they had a leader?
+
+No time to lose!  Within a month, cautious as a man living over a
+volcano, the Polish nobleman had enlisted twenty recruits from the
+exile settlement, bound to secrecy by oath, and a score more from a
+crew of sailor exiles back from America, mutinous over brutal treatment
+by their captain.  In addition to secrecy, each conspirator bound
+himself to implicit and instant obedience to Benyowsky, their chief,
+and to slay each with his own hand any member of the band found guilty
+of betrayal.  But what gave the Pole his greatest power was his
+relation to the governor.  The coming of the young nobleman had caused
+a flutter in the social life of the dull little fort.  He had been
+appointed secretary to Governor Nilow, and tutor to his children.  The
+governor's lady was the widow of a Swedish exile; and it took the Pole
+but a few interviews to discover that wife and family favored the
+exiles rather than their Russian lord.  In fact, the good woman
+suggested to the Pole that he {117} should prevent her sixteen-year-old
+daughter becoming wife to a Cossack by marrying her himself.
+
+The Pole's first move was to ask the governor's permission to establish
+a colony of exile farmers in the south of the peninsula.  The request
+was granted.  This created a good excuse for the gathering of the
+provisions that would be needed for the voyage on the Pacific; but when
+the exiles further requested a fur-trading vessel to transport the
+provisions to the new colony, their design was balked by the
+unsuspecting governor granting them half a hundred row boats, too frail
+to go a mile from the coast.  There seemed no other course but to seize
+a vessel by force and escape, but Benyowsky again played for time.  The
+governor's daughter discovered his plot through her servant planning to
+follow one of the exiles to sea; but instead of betraying him to her
+Russian father, she promised to send him red clippings of thread as
+danger signals if the governor or his chancellor got wind of the
+treason.
+
+Their one aim was to get away from Asia before fresh orders could come
+overland from Yakutsk.  Ice still blocked the harbor in April, but the
+_St. Peter and Paul_, the armed vessel that had brought the exiles
+across the sea from the mainland, lay in port and was already enlisting
+a crew for the summer voyage to America.  The Pole sent twelve of his
+men to enlist among the crew, and nightly store provisions in the hold.
+The rest of the band were set to manufacturing cartridges, and buying
+or borrowing all the firearms {118} they could obtain on the pretence
+of hunting.  Word was secretly carried from man to man that, when a
+light was hoisted on the end of a flagstaff above the Benyowsky hut,
+all were to rally for the settlement across the ravine from the fort.
+
+The crisis came before the harbor had opened.  Benyowsky was on a sled
+journey inland with the governor, when an exile came to him by night
+with word that one of the conspirators had lost his nerve and
+determined to save his own neck by confessing all to the governor.
+
+The traitor was even now hard on the trail to overtake the governor.
+Without a moment's wavering, Benyowsky sent the messenger with a flask
+of poisoned brandy back to meet the man.
+
+The Pole had scarcely returned to his hut in the exile village, when
+the governor's daughter came to him in tears.  Ismyloff, a young
+Russian trader, who had all winter tried to join the conspirators as a
+spy, had been on the trail when the traitor was poisoned and was even
+now closeted with Governor Nilow.
+
+It was the night of April 23.  No sooner had the daughter gone than the
+light was run up on the flagstaff, the bridge across the ravine broken
+down, arms dragged from hiding in the cellars, windows and doors
+barricaded, sentinels placed in hiding along the ditch between village
+and fort.  For a whole day, no word came.  Governor and chancellor were
+still busy examining witnesses.  In the morning came a maid {119} from
+the governor's daughter with a red thread of warning, and none too
+soon, for at ten o'clock, a Cossack sergeant brought a polite
+invitation from the governor for the pleasure of M. Benyowsky's company
+at breakfast.
+
+M. Benyowsky returns polite regrets that he is slightly indisposed, but
+hopes to give himself the pleasure later.
+
+The sergeant winked his eyes and opined it was wiser to go by fair
+means than to be dragged by main force.
+
+The Pole advised the sergeant to make his will before repeating that
+threat.
+
+Noon saw two Cossacks and an officer thundering at the Pole's door.
+The door opened wide.  In marched the soldiers, armed to the teeth; but
+before their clicking heels had ceased to mark time, the door was shut
+again.  Benyowsky had whistled.  A dozen exiles rose out of the floor.
+Cossacks and captors rolled in a heap.  The soldiers were bound head to
+feet, and bundled into the cellar.  Meanwhile the sentinels hidden in
+the ravine had captured Ismyloff, the nephew of the chancellor, and two
+other Russians, who were added to the captives in the cellar; and the
+governor changed his tactics.  A letter was received from the
+governor's daughter pleading with her lover to come and be reconciled
+with her father, who had now no prejudice against the exiles; but in
+the letter were two or three tiny red threads such as might have {120}
+been pulled out of a dress sleeve.  The letter had been written under
+force.
+
+Benyowsky's answer was to marshal his fifty-seven men in three
+divisions round the village; one round the house, the largest hidden in
+the dark on the fort side of the ravine, a decoy group stationed in the
+ditch to draw an attack.
+
+By midnight, the sentinels sent word that the main guard of Cossacks
+had reached the ravine.  The decoy had made a feint of resistance.  The
+Cossacks sent back to the fort for reinforcements.  The Pole waited
+only till nearly all the Cossacks were on the ditch bank, then
+instructing the little band of decoys to keep up a sham fight, poured
+his main forces through the dark, across the plain at a run, for the
+fort.  Palisades were scaled, gates broken down, guards stabbed where
+they stood!  Benyowsky's men had the fort and the gates barricaded
+again before the governor could collect his senses.  As Benyowsky
+entered the main rooms, the enraged commander seized a pistol, which
+missed fire, and sprang at the Pole's throat, roaring out he would see
+the exiles dead before he would surrender.  The Pole, being lame, had
+swayed back under the onslaught, when the circular slash of a cutlass
+in the hand of an exile officer severed the governor's head from his
+body.
+
+Twenty-eight Cossacks were put to the sword inside the fort; but the
+exiles were not yet out of their troubles.  Though they had seized the
+armed vessel at once and {121} transferred to the hold the entire loot
+of the fort,--furs, silks, supplies, gold,--it would be two weeks
+before the ice would leave the port.  Meanwhile the two hundred
+defeated Cossacks had retreated to a hill, and sent coureurs scurrying
+for help to the other forts of Kamchatka.  Within two weeks seven
+hundred Cossacks would be on the hills; and the exiles, whose supplies
+were on board the vessel, would be cut off in the fort and starved into
+surrender.
+
+No time to waste, Benyowsky!  Not a woman or child was harmed, but
+every family in the fort was quickly rounded up in the chapel.  Round
+this, outside, were piled chairs, furniture, pitch, tar, powder,
+whale-oil.  Promptly at nine in the morning, three women and twelve
+young girls--wives and daughters of the Cossack officers--were
+despatched to the Cossack besiegers on the hill with word that unless
+the Cossacks surrendered their arms to the exiles and sent down fifty
+soldiers as hostages of safety for the exiles till the ship could
+sail--precisely at ten o'clock the church would be set on fire.
+
+The women were seen to ascend the hill.  No signal came from the
+Cossacks.  At a quarter past nine Benyowsky kindled fires at each of
+the four angles of the church.  As the flames began to mount a forest
+of handkerchiefs and white sheets waved above the hill, and a host of
+men came spurring to the fort with all the Cossacks' arms and fifty-two
+hostages.
+
+{122} The exiles now togged themselves out in all the gay regimentals
+of the Russian officers.  Salutes of triumph were fired from the
+cannon.  A _Te Deum_ was sung.  Feast and mad wassail filled both day
+and night till the harbor cleared.  Even the Cossacks caught the madcap
+spirit of the escapade, and helped to load ammunition on the _St. Peter
+and Paul_.  Nor were old wrongs forgiven.  Ismyloff was bundled on the
+vessel in irons.  The chancellor's secretary was seized and compelled
+to act as cook.  Men, who had played the spy and tyrant, now felt the
+merciless knout.  Witnesses, who had tried to pry into the exiles'
+plot, were hanged at the yard-arm.  Nine women, relatives of exiles,
+who had been compelled to become the wives of Cossacks, now threw off
+the yoke of slavery, donned the costly Chinese silks, and joined the
+pirates.  Among these was the governor's daughter, who was to have
+married a Cossack.
+
+On May 11, 1771, the Polish flag was run up on the _St. Peter and
+Paul_.  The fort fired a God-speed--a heartily sincere one, no
+doubt--of twenty-one guns.  Again the _Te Deum_ was chanted; again, the
+oath of obedience taken by kissing Benyowsky's sword; and at five
+o'clock in the evening the ship dropped down the river for the sea,
+with ninety-six exiles on board, of whom nine were women; one, an
+archdeacon; half a dozen, officers of the imperial army; one, a
+gentleman in waiting to the Empress; at least a dozen, convicts of the
+blackest dye.
+
+{123} The rest of Benyowsky's adventures read more like a page from
+some pirate romance than sober record of events on the west coast of
+America.  Barely had the vessel rounded the southern cape of the
+peninsula into the Pacific, when Ismyloff, the young Russian trader,
+who had been carried on board in irons, rallied round Benyowsky such a
+clamor of mutineers, duels were fought on the quarter-deck, the
+malcontents clapped in handcuffs again, and the ringleaders tied to the
+masts, where knouting enough was laid on to make them sue for peace.
+
+The middle of May saw the vessel anchoring on the west coast of Bering
+Island, where a sharp lookout was kept for Russian fur traders, and
+armed men must go ashore to reconnoitre before Benyowsky dared venture
+from the ship.  The Pole's position was chancy enough to satisfy even
+his melodramatic soul.  Apart from four or five Swedes, the entire crew
+of ninety-six was Russian.  Benyowsky was for sailing south at once to
+take up quarters on some South Sea island, or to claim the protection
+of some European power.  The Russian exiles, of whom half were
+criminals, were for coasting the Pacific on pirate venture, and
+compelled the Pole to steer his vessel for the fur hunters' islands of
+Alaska.
+
+The men sent to reconnoitre Bering Island came back with word that
+while they were gathering driftwood on the south shore, they had heard
+shots and met five Russians belonging to a Saxon exile, who had {124}
+turned fur hunter, deposed the master of his ships, gathered one
+hundred exiles around him, and become a trader on his own account.  The
+Saxon requested an interview with Benyowsky.  What was the Pole to do?
+Was this a decoy to test his strength?  Was the Saxon planning to
+scuttle the Pole's vessel, too?  Benyowsky's answer was that he would
+be pleased to meet his Saxon comrade in arms on the south shore, each
+side to approach with four men only, laying down arms instantly on
+sight of each other.  The two exile pirates met.  Each side laid down
+arms as agreed.  Ochotyn, the Saxon, was a man of thirty-six years, who
+had come an exile on fur trading vessels, gathered a crew of one
+hundred and thirty-four around him, and, like the Pole, become a
+pirate.  His plan in meeting Benyowsky was to propose vengeance on
+Russia: let the two ships unite, go back to Siberia, and sack the
+Russian ports on the Pacific.  But the Pole had had enough of Russia.
+He contented himself with presenting his brother pirate with one
+hundred pounds of ammunition; and the two exiles sat round a campfire
+of driftwood far into the night, spinning yarns of blasted hopes back
+in Europe, and desperate venture here on the Pacific.  The Saxon's
+headquarters were on Kadiak, where he had formed alliance with the
+Indians.  Hither he advised the Pole to sail for a cargo of furs.
+
+Ismyloff, the mutineer, was marooned on Bering Island.  Ice-drift had
+seemed to bar the way {125} northward through Bering Straits.  June saw
+Benyowsky far eastward at Kadiak on the south shore of Alaska,
+gathering in a cargo of furs; and from the sea-otter fields of Kadiak
+and Oonalaska, Benyowsky sailed southwest, past the smoking volcanoes
+of the Aleutians, vaguely heading for some of those South Sea islands
+of which he used to read in the exile village of Kamchatka.
+
+Not a man of the crew knew as much about navigation as a schoolboy.
+They had no idea where they were going, or where the ship was.  As day
+after day slipped past with no sight but the heaving sea, the Russian
+landsmen became restive.  Provisions had dwindled to one fish a day;
+and scarcely a pint of water for each man was left in the hold.  In
+flying from Siberian exile, were they courting a worse fate?
+Stephanow, the criminal convict, who had crossed Siberia with the Pole,
+dashed on deck demanding a better allowance of water as the ship
+entered warmer and warmer zones.  The next thing the Pole knew,
+Stephanow had burst open the barrel hoops of the water kegs to quench
+his thirst.  By the time the guard had gone down the main hatch to
+intercept him, Stephanow and a band of Russian mutineers had trundled
+the brandy casks to the deck and were in a wild debauch.  The main
+hatch was clapped down, leaving the mutineers in possession of the
+deck, till all fell in drunken torpor, when Benyowsky rushed his
+soldiers up the fore scuttle, snapped handcuffs on {126} the rebels,
+and tied them to the masts.  In the midst of this disorder, such a
+hurricane broke over the ocean that the tossing yard-arms alternately
+touched water.
+
+To be sure, Benyowsky had escaped exile; but his ship was a hornets'
+nest.  After the storm all hands were busy sewing new sails.  The old
+sails were distributed as trousers for the ragamuffin crew.  For ten
+days no food was tasted but soup made from sea-otter skins.  Then birds
+were seen, and seaweed drifted past the vessel; and a wild hope mounted
+every heart of reaching some part of Japan.
+
+On sunset of July 15, the Pole's watch-dog was noticed standing at the
+bow, sniffing and barking.  Two or three of the ship's hands dashed up
+to the masthead, vowing they would not come down till they saw land.
+Suddenly the lookout shouted, Land!  The exiles forgot their woes.
+Even the mutineers tied to the masts cheered.  Darker and darker grew
+the cloud on the horizon.  By daybreak the cloud had resolved itself to
+a shore before the eager eyes of the watching crew.  The ship had
+scarcely anchored before every man was overboard in a wild rush for the
+fresh water to be found on land.  Tents were pitched on the island; and
+the wanderers of the sea rested.
+
+
+It is no part of this narrative to tell of Benyowsky's adventures on
+Luzon of the Philippines, or the Ladrones,--whichever it was,--how he
+scuttled {127} Japanese sampans of gold and pearls, fought a campaign
+in Formosa, and wound up at Macao, China, where all the rich cargo of
+sea-otter brought from America was found to be water rotted; and
+Stephanow, the criminal convict, left the Pole destitute by stealing
+and selling all the Japanese loot.
+
+This part of the story does not concern America; and the Pole's whole
+life has been told by Jokai, the Hungarian novelist, and Kotzebue, the
+Russian dramatist.
+
+Benyowsky got passage to Europe from China on one of the East India
+Company ships, whose captain was uneasy enough at having so many
+pirates on board.  In France he obtained an appointment to look after
+French forts in Madagascar; but this was too tame an undertaking for
+the adventure-loving Pole.  He threw up his appointment, returned to
+Europe, interested English merchants in a new venture, sailed to
+Baltimore in the _Robert Anne_ of twenty cannon and four hundred and
+fifty tons, interested merchants there in his schemes, and departed
+from Baltimore October 25, 1784, to conquer Madagascar and set up an
+independent commercial government.  Here he was slain by the French
+troops on the 23d of May, 1786--to the ruin of those Baltimore and
+London merchants who had advanced him capital.  His own account of his
+adventures is full of gross exaggerations; but even the Russians were
+so impressed with the prowess of his valor that a few years later, when
+Cook sailed to Alaska, Ismyloff could not be brought to mention his
+name; {128} and when the English ships went on to Kamchatka, they found
+the inhabitants hidden in the cellars, for fear the Polish pirate had
+returned.  But like many heroes of misfortune, Benyowsky could not
+stand success.  It turned his head.  He entered Macao with the airs of
+an emperor, that at once discredited him with the solid people.  If he
+had returned to the west coast of America, as a fur trader, he might
+have wrested more honors from Russia; but his scheme to capture an
+island of which he was to be king, ended in ruin for himself and his
+friends.[1]
+
+
+
+
+[1] It may as well be acknowledged that Mauritius Augustus, Count
+Benyowsky (pronounced by himself Be-nyov-sky), is a liar without a peer
+among the adventurers of early American history.  If it were not that
+his life was known to the famous men of his time, his entire memoirs
+from 1741 to 1771 might be rejected as fiction of the yellow order; but
+the comical thing is, the mendacious fellow cut a tremendous swath in
+his day.  The garrisons of Kamchatka trembled at his name twenty-five
+years after his escapades.  Ismyloff, who became a famous trader in the
+Russian Fur Company, could not be induced to open his mouth about the
+Pole to Cook, and actually made use of the universal fear of Benyowsky
+among Russians, to keep Cook from learning Russian fur trade secrets,
+when the Englishman went to Kamchatka, by representing that Cook was a
+pirate, too.  The _Gentleman's Magazine_ for June, 1772, contained a
+letter from Canton, dated November 19, 1771, giving a full account of
+the pirate's arrival there with his mutineers and women refugees.  The
+Bishop Le Bon of Macao writes, September 24, 1771: "Out of his
+equipage, there remain no more than eight men in health.  All the rest
+are confined to their beds.  For two months they suffered hunger and
+thirst."  Captain King of Cook's staff writes of Kamchatka: "We were
+informed that an exiled Polish officer named Beniowski had seized upon
+a galliott, lying at the entrance of the harbor, and had forced on
+board a number of Russian sailors, sufficient to navigate her; that he
+had put on shore a part of the crew . . . among the rest, Ismyloff."
+In Paris he met and interested Benjamin Franklin.  Hyacinth de
+Magellan, a descendant of the great discoverer, advanced Benyowsky
+money for the Madagascar filibustering expedition.  So did certain
+merchants of Baltimore in 1785.  On leaving England, Benyowsky gave his
+memoirs to Magellan, who passed their editing over to William Nicholson
+of the Royal Society, by {129} whom they were given to the world in
+1790.  German, French, and Russian translations followed.  This called
+forth Russia's account of the matter, written by Ivan Ryumin, edited by
+Berg, St. Petersburg, 1822.  These accounts, with the facts as cited
+from contemporaries, enable one to check the preposterous exaggerations
+of the Pole.  Of late years, between drama and novels, quite a
+Benyowsky literature has sprung up about this Cagliostro of the sea.
+His record in the continental armies preceding his exile would fill a
+book by itself; and throughout all, Benyowsky appears in the same
+light, an unscrupulous braggart lying gloriously, but withal as
+courageous as he was mendacious.
+
+[Transcriber's note: the "e" and "o" in the above "Be-nyov-sky" are
+actually e-macron (Unicode U+0113) and o-macron (Unicode U+014D).]
+
+
+
+
+{131}
+
+PART II
+
+AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ADVENTURERS ON THE WEST COAST
+  OF AMERICA--FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA--COOK, FROM
+  BRITISH COLUMBIA TO ALASKA--LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER
+  OF LEWIS AND CLARK--GRAY, THE DISCOVERER OF THE
+  COLUMBIA--VANCOUVER, THE LAST OF THE WEST COAST NAVIGATORS
+
+
+
+{133}
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1562-1595
+
+FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA
+
+How the Sea Rover was attacked and ruined as a Boy on the Spanish Main
+off Mexico--His Revenge in sacking Spanish Treasure Houses and crossing
+Panama--The Richest Man in England, he sails to the Forbidden Sea,
+scuttles all the Spanish Ports up the West Coast of South America and
+takes Possession of New Albion (California) for England
+
+
+If a region were discovered where gold was valued less than cartloads
+of clay, and ropes of pearls could be obtained in barter for strings of
+glass beads, the modern mind would have some idea of the frenzy that
+prevailed in Spain after the discovery of America by Columbus.  Native
+temples were found in Chile, in Peru, in Central America, in Mexico,
+where gold literally lined the walls, silver paved the floors, and
+handfuls of pearls were as thoughtlessly thrown in the laps of the
+conquerors as shells might be tossed at a modern clam-bake.
+
+Within half a century from the time Spain first learned of America,
+Cortes not only penetrated Mexico, but sent his corsairs up the west
+coast of the {134} continent.  Pizarro conquered Peru.  Spanish ships
+plied a trade rich beyond dreams of avarice between the gold realms of
+Peru and the spice islands of the Philippines.  The chivalry of the
+Spanish nobility suddenly became a chivalry of the high seas.
+Religious zeal burned to a flame against those gold-lined pagan
+temples.  It was easy to believe that the transfer of wedges of pure
+gold from heathen hands to Spain was a veritable despoiling of the
+devil's treasure boxes, glorious in the sight of God.  The trackless
+sea became the path to fortune.  Balboa had deeper motives than
+loyalty, when, in 1513, on his march across Panama and discovery of the
+Pacific, he rushed mid-deep into the water, shouting out in swelling
+words that he took possession of earth, air, and water for Spain "for
+all time, past, present, or to come, without contradiction, . . . north
+and south, with all the seas from the Pole Arctic to the Pole
+Antarctic, . . . both now, and as long as the world endures, until the
+final day of judgment." [1]
+
+Shorn of noise, the motive was simply to shut out the rest of the world
+from Spain's treasure box.  The Monroe Doctrine was not yet born.  _The
+whole Pacific was to be a closed sea_!  To be sure, Vasco da Gama had
+found the way round the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean; and
+Magellan soon after passed through the strait of his name below South
+America {135} right into the Pacific Ocean; but round the world by the
+Indian Ocean was a far cry for tiny craft of a few hundred tons; and
+the Straits of Magellan were so storm-bound, it soon became a common
+saying that they were a closed door.  Spain sent her sailors across
+Panama to build ships for the Pacific.  The sea that bore her treasure
+craft--millions upon millions of pounds sterling in pure gold, silver,
+emeralds, pearls--was as closed to the rest of the world as if walled
+round with only one chain-gate; and that at Panama, where Spain kept
+the key.
+
+That is, the sea _was_ shut till Drake came coursing round the world;
+and his coming was so utterly impossible to the Spanish mind that half
+the treasure ships scuttled by the English pirate mistook him for a
+visiting Spaniard till the rallying cry, "God and Saint George!"
+wakened them from their dream.
+
+
+It was by accident the English first found themselves in the waters of
+the Spanish Main.  John Hawkins had been cruising the West Indies
+exchanging slaves for gold, when an ominous stillness fell on the sea.
+The palm trees took on the hard glister of metal leaves.  The sunless
+sky turned yellow, the sea to brass; and before the six English ships
+could find shelter, a hurricane broke that flailed the fleet under
+sails torn to tatters clear across the Gulf of Mexico to Vera Cruz, the
+stronghold of Spanish power.
+
+[Illustration: Sir John Hawkins.]
+
+But Hawkins feared neither man nor devil.  He {136} reefed his
+storm-torn sails, had the stoppers pulled out of his cannon in
+readiness, his gunners alert, ran up the English ensign, and boldly
+towed his fleet into port directly under Spanish guns.  Sending a
+messenger ashore, he explained that he was sorry to intrude on
+forbidden waters, but that he needed to careen his ships for the repair
+of leakages, and now asked permission from the viceroy to refit.
+Perhaps, in his heart, the English adventurer wasn't sorry to get an
+inner glimpse of Mexico's defences.  As he waited for permission, there
+sailed into the harbor the Spanish fleet itself, twelve merchantmen
+rigged as frigates, loaded with treasure to the value of one million
+eight hundred thousand pounds.  The viceroy of Mexico, Don Martin
+Henriquez himself, commanded the fleet.  English and Spanish ships
+dipped colors to each other as courteous hidalgoes might have doffed
+hats; and the guns roared each other salutes, that set the seas
+churning.  Master John Hawkins quaffed mug after mug of foaming beer
+with a boisterous boast that if the Spaniards thought to frighten _him_
+with a waste of powder and smoke, he could play the same game, and
+"singe the don's beard."
+
+Came a messenger, then, clad in mail to his teeth, very pompous, very
+gracious, very profuse of welcome, with a guarantee in writing from the
+viceroy of security for Hawkins while dismantling the English ships.
+In order to avoid clashes among the common soldiers, the fortified
+island was assigned for the English to {137} disembark.  It was the
+12th of August, 1568.  Darkness fell with the warm velvet caress of a
+tropic sea.  Half the crew had landed, half the cannon been trundled
+ashore for the vessels to be beached next day, when Hawkins noticed
+torches--a thousand torches--glistening above the mailed armor of a
+thousand Spanish soldiers marching down from the fort and being swiftly
+transferred to the frigates.  A blare of Spanish trumpets blew to arms!
+The waters were suddenly alight with the flare of five fire-rafts
+drifting straight where the disarmed English fleet lay moored.  Hawkins
+had just called his page to hand round mugs of beer, when a cannon-shot
+splintering through the mast arms overhead ripped the tankard out of
+his hand.[2]
+
+"God and Saint George," thundered the enraged Englishman, "down with
+the traitorous devils!"
+
+No time to save sailors ashore!  The blazing rafts had already bumped
+keels with the moored fleet.  No chance to raise anchors!  The Spanish
+frigates were already abreast in a life-and-death grapple, soldiers
+boarding the English decks, sabring the crews, hurling hand grenades
+down the hatches to blow up the powder magazines.  Hawkins roared "to
+cut the cables."  It was a hand-to-hand slaughter on decks slippery
+with blood.  No light but the musketry fire and glare of burning masts!
+The little English company were fighting like a wild beast trapped,
+when with a {138} thunderclap that tore bottom out of hull--Hawkins's
+ship flew into mid-air, a flaring, fiery wreck--then sank in the
+heaving trough of the sea, carrying down five hundred Spaniards to a
+watery grave.  Cutlass in hand, head over heels went Hawkins into the
+sea.  The hell of smoke, of flaming mast poles, of blazing musketry, of
+churning waters--hid him.  Then a rope's end flung out by some friend
+gave handhold.  He was up the sides of a ship, that had cut hawsers and
+off before the fire-rafts came!  Sails were hoisted to the seaward
+breeze.  In the carnage of fire and blood, the Spaniards did not see
+the two smallest English vessels scudding before the wind as if
+fiend-chased.  Every light on the decks was put out.  Then the dark of
+the tropic night hid them.  Without food, without arms, with scarcely a
+remnant of their crews--the two ships drifted to sea.
+
+Not a man of the sailors ashore escaped.  All were butchered, or taken
+prisoners for a fate worse than butchery--to be torn apart in the
+market-place of Vera Cruz, baited in the streets to the yells of
+on-lookers, hung by the arms to out-of-doors scaffolding to die by
+inches, or be torn by vultures.  The two ships at sea were in terrible
+plight.  North, west, south was the Spanish foe.  Food there was none.
+The crews ate the dogs, monkeys, parrots on board.  Then they set traps
+for the rats of the hold.  The starving seamen begged to be marooned.
+They would risk Spanish cruelty to escape starvation.  Hawkins landed
+{139} three-quarters of the remnant crews either in Yucatan or Florida.
+Then he crept lamely back to England, where he moored in January, 1569.
+
+Of the six splendid ships that had spread their sails from Plymouth,
+only the _Minion_ and _Judith_ came back; and those two had been under
+command of a thick-set, stocky, red-haired English boy about
+twenty-four years of age--Francis Drake of Devon, one of twelve sons of
+a poor clergyman, who eked out a living by reading prayers for the
+Queen's Navy Sundays, playing sailor week days.  Francis, the eldest
+son, was born in the hull of an old vessel where the family had taken
+refuge in time of religious persecution.  In spite of his humble
+origin, Sir Francis Russell had stood his godfather at baptism.  The
+Earl of Bedford had been his patron.  John Hawkins, a relative,
+supplied money for his education.  Apprenticed before the mast from his
+twelfth year, Drake became purser to Biscay at eighteen; and so
+faithfully had he worked his way, when the master of the sloop died, it
+was bequeathed to young Drake.  Emulous of becoming a great sailor like
+Hawkins, Drake sold the sloop and invested everything he owned in
+Hawkins's venture to the West Indies.  He was ruined to his last penny
+by Spanish treachery.  It was almost a religion for England to hate
+Spain at that time.  Drake hated tenfold more now.  Spain had taught
+the world to keep off her treasure box.  Would Drake accept the lesson,
+or challenge it?
+
+{140} Men who master destiny rise, like the Phenix, from the ashes of
+their own ruin.  In the language of the street, when they fall--these
+men of destiny--they make a point of falling _up_stairs.  Amid the ruin
+of massacre in Mexico, Drake brought away one fact--memory of Spanish
+gold to the value of one million eight hundred thousand pounds.  Where
+did it come from?  Was the secret of that gold the true reason for
+Spain's resentment against all intruders?  Drake had coasted Florida
+and the West Indies.  He knew they yielded no such harvest.  Then it
+must come from one of three other regions--South America, Central
+America, Mexico.
+
+For two years Drake prospected for the sources of that golden wealth.
+In the _Dragon_ and _Swan_, he cruised the Spanish Main during 1570.
+In 1571 he was out again in the _Swan_.  By 1572 he knew the secret of
+that gold--gold in ship-loads, in caravans of one thousand mules, in
+masses that filled from cellar to attic of the King's Treasure House,
+where tribute of one-fifth was collected for royalty.  It came from the
+subjugated Kingdom of Peru, by boat up the Pacific to the Port of
+Panama, by pack-train across the isthmus--mountainous, rugged, forests
+of mangroves tangled with vines, bogs that were bottomless--to Nombre
+de Dios, the Spanish fort on the Atlantic side, which had become the
+storehouse of all New Spain.  Drake took counsel of no one.
+
+Next year he was back on the Spanish Main, in the {141} _Pacha_,
+forty-seven men; his brother John commanding the _Swan_ with twenty-six
+of a crew, only one man older than fifty, the rest mere boys with hate
+in their hearts for Spanish blood, love in their hearts for Spanish
+gold.  Touching at a hidden cove for provisions left the year before,
+Drake found this warning from a former comrade, stuck to the bark of a
+tree by a hunting knife:--
+
+"_Captain Drake--if you do fortune into this port, haste away; for the
+Spaniards have betrayed this place, and taken all away that you left
+here--your loving friend--John Garret._"
+
+Heeding the warning, Drake hastened away to the Isle of Pinos, off the
+isthmus, left the ships at a concealed cove here, armed fifty-three of
+his boldest fellows with muskets, crossbows, pikes, and spontoons.
+Then he called for drummers and trumpeters, and rowed in a small boat
+for Nombre de Dios, the treasure house of New Spain.  The small boat
+kept on the offing till dark, then sent ashore for some
+Indians--half-breeds whom Spanish cruelty had driven to revolt.  This
+increased Drake's force to one hundred and fifty men.  Silently, just
+as the moon emerged from clouds lighting up harbor and town, the
+long-boat glided into Nombre de Dios.  A high platform, mounted with
+brass cannon, fronted the water.  Behind were thirty houses,
+thatch-roofed, whitewashed, palisaded, surrounded by courtyards with an
+almost European pomp.  The King's Treasure House stood at one end of
+the market.  Near it was a chapel with high wooden steeple.
+
+{142} A Spanish ship lay furled in port.  From this glided out a punt
+poled like mad by a Spaniard racing to reach the platform first.  Drake
+got athwart the fellow's path, knocked him over, gagged his yells, and
+was up the platform before the sleepy gunner on guard was well awake.
+The sentry only paused to make sure that the men scrambling up the fort
+were not ghosts.  Then he tore at the top of his speed for the
+alarm-bell of the chapel and, clapping down the hatch door of the
+steeple stairs in the faces of the pursuing Englishmen, rang the bells
+like a demon possessed.
+
+Leaving twelve men to hold the platform as a retreat, Drake sent
+sixteen to attack the King's Treasure just at the moment he himself,
+with his hundred men, should succeed in drawing the entire Spanish
+garrison to a sham battle on the market-place.  The cannon on the
+platform were spiked and overturned.  Drums beating, trumpets blowing,
+torches aflare, the English freebooter marched straight to the market.
+Up at the Treasure House, John Drake and Oxenham had burst open the
+doors of the store-room just as the saddled mules came galloping to
+carry the booty beyond danger.  A lighted candle on the cellar stair
+showed silver piled bar on bar to the value of one million pounds.
+Down on the market, the English trumpeter lay dead.  Drake had fallen
+from a sword slash and, snatched up by comrades, the wound stanched by
+a scarf, was carried back to the boat, where the raiders made good
+their escape, richer by a million pounds with the loss of only one man.
+
+{143} Drake cruised the Spanish Main for six more months.  From the
+Indians he learned that the mule trains with the yearly output of
+Peruvian gold would leave the Pacific in midwinter to cross overland to
+Nombre de Dios.  No use trying to raid the fort again!  Spain would not
+be caught napping a second time.  But Pedro, a Panama Indian, had
+volunteered to guide a small band of lightly equipped English inland
+behind Nombre de Dios, to the halfway house where the gold caravans
+stopped.  The audacity of the project is unparalleled.  Eighteen boys
+led by a man not yet in his thirtieth year accompanied by Indians were
+to invade a tangled thicket of hostile country, cut off from retreat,
+the forts of the enemy--the cruelest enemy in Christendom--on each
+side, no provisions but what each carried in his haversack!
+
+Led by the Indian Pedro, the freebooters struck across country, picked
+up the trail behind Nombre de Dios, marched by night, hid by day,
+Indian scouts sending back word when a Spaniard was seen, the English
+scudding to ambush in the tangled woods.  Twelve days and nights they
+marched.  At ten in the morning of February 11, they were on the Great
+Divide.  Pedro led Drake to the top of the hill.  Up the trunk of an
+enormous tree, the Indians had cut steps to a kind of bower, or
+lookout.  Up clambered Francis Drake.  Then he looked westward.
+
+Mountains, hills, forested valleys, rolled from his feet westward.
+Beyond--what?  The shining {144} expanse of the fabled South Sea!  The
+Pacific silver in the morning light!  A New World of Waters, where the
+sun's track seemed to pave a new path, a path of gold, to the mystic
+Orient!  Never before had English eyes seen these waters!  Never yet
+English prow cut these waves!  Where did they lead--the endlessly
+rolling billows?  For Drake, they seemed to lead to a New World of
+Dreams--dreams of gold, of glory, of immortal fame.  He came down from
+the lookout so overcome with a great inspiration that he could not
+speak.  Then, as with Balboa, the fire of a splendid enthusiasm lighted
+up the mean purposes of the adventurer to a higher manhood.  Before his
+followers, he fell on his knees and prayed Almighty God to grant him
+the supreme honor of sailing an English ship on that sea!
+
+That night the Indian came back with word that the mule train laden
+with gold was close on the trail.  Drake scattered his men on each side
+of the road flat on their faces in high grass.  Wealth was almost in
+their grasp.  Hope beat riotous in the young bloods.  No sound but the
+whir of wings as great tropic insects flitted through the dark with
+flashes of fire; or the clank of a soldier unstrapping haversack to
+steel courage by a drink of grog!  An hour passed!  Two hours before
+the eager ears pressed to earth detected a padded hoof-beat over grass.
+Then a bell tinkled, as the leader of the pack came in sight.  Drunk
+with the glory of the day, or too much grog, some fool sailor leaped in
+{145} mid-air with an exultant yell!  In a second the mule train had
+stampeded.
+
+By the time Drake came to the halfway house,[3] the gold was hidden in
+the woods, and the Spaniards fleeing for their lives; though an old
+chronicle declares "the general" went from house to house assuring the
+Spanish ladies they were safe.  The Spaniards of Tierra Firme were
+simply paralyzed with fright at the apparition of pirates in the centre
+of the kingdom.  Then scouts brought word of double danger: on the
+Atlantic side, Spanish frigates were searching for Drake's ships; from
+the Pacific, two hundred horsemen were advancing in hot pursuit.
+Between the two--was he trapped?--Not he!  Overland went a scout to the
+ships--Drake's own gold toothpick as token--bidding them keep offshore;
+he would find means to come out to them.  Then he retreated over the
+trail at lightning pace, sleeping only in ambush, eating in snatches,
+coming out on the coast far distant from Nombre de Dios and Spanish
+frigates.  Binding driftwood into a raft, Drake hoisted sail of flour
+sacks.  Saying good-by to the Indian, the freebooter noticed Pedro's
+eyes wander to the gold-embossed Turkish cimeter in his own hand, and
+at once presented scabbard and blade to the astonished savage.  In
+gratitude the Indian tossed three wedges of gold to the raft now
+sheering out with the tide to sea.  These Drake gave {146} to his men.
+Six hours the raft was drifting to the sails on the offing, and such
+seas were slopping across the water-logged driftwood, the men were to
+their waists in water when the sail-boats came to the rescue.
+
+On Sunday morning, August 9, 1573, the ships were once more in
+Plymouth.  Whispers ran through the assembled congregations of the
+churches that Drake, the bold sea-rover, was entering port loaded with
+foreign treasure; and out rushed every man, woman, and child, leaving
+the scandalized preachers thundering to empty pews.
+
+Drake was now one of the richest men in England.  At his own cost he
+equipped three frigates for service under Essex in Ireland, and through
+the young Earl was introduced to the circle of Elizabeth's advisers.
+To the Queen he told his plans for sailing an English ship on the South
+Sea.  To her, no doubt, he related the tales of Spanish gold freighting
+that sea, closed to the rest of the world.  Good reason for
+England--Spain's enemy--to prove that the ocean, like air, was free to
+all nations!  The Pope's Bull dividing off the southern hemisphere
+between Portugal and Spain mattered little to a nation belligerently
+Protestant, and less to a seaman whose dauntless daring had raised him
+from a wharf-rat to Queen's adviser.  Elizabeth could not yet wound
+Spain openly; but she received Drake in audience, and presented him a
+magnificent sword with the words--"Who striketh thee, Drake, striketh
+us!"
+
+[Illustration: Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake.]
+
+{147} Five ships, this time, he led out from Plymouth in November of
+1577.  Gales drove him back.  It was December before his fleet was at
+sea--the _Pelican_ of one hundred tons and twenty or thirty cannon
+under Drake, Thomas Doughty, a courtier second to Drake, the
+_Elizabeth_ of eighty tons, the _Swan_, _Christopher_, and _Marygold_
+no larger than fishing schooners; manned in all by one hundred and
+sixty sailors, mostly boys.
+
+Outward bound for trade in Egypt, the world was told, but as
+merchantmen, the ships were regally equipped--Drake in velvets and gold
+braid, served by ten young gentlemen of noble birth, who never sat or
+covered in his presence without permission; service of gold plate at
+the mess table, where Drake dined alone like a king to the music of
+viols and harps; military drill at every port, and provisions enough
+aboard to go round the world, not just to Egypt.
+
+January saw the fleet far enough from Egypt, at the islands off the
+west coast of Africa, where three vessels were scuttled, the crews all
+put ashore but one Portuguese pilot carried along to Brazil as guide.
+Thomas Doughty now fell in disfavor by openly acting as equal in
+command with Drake.  Not in Egypt, but at Port St. Julian--a southern
+harbor of South America--anchored Drake's fleet.  The scaffold where
+Magellan had executed mutineers half a century before still stood in
+the sands.
+
+The _Christopher_ had already been sent adrift as useless.  The _Swan_
+was now broken up as unseaworthy, {148} leaving only the _Pelican_, the
+_Elizabeth_, and the _Marygold_.  One thing more remained to be
+done--the greatest blot across the glory of Drake.  Doughty was
+defiant, a party growing in his favor.  When sent as prisoner to the
+_Marygold_, he had angered every man of the crew by high-handed
+authority.  Drake dared not go on to unknown, hostile seas with a
+mutiny, or the chance of a mutiny brewing.  Whether justly or unjustly,
+Doughty was tried at Port St. Julian under the shadow of Magellan's old
+scaffold, for disrespect to his commander and mutiny; and was
+pronounced guilty by a jury of twelve.  A council of forty voted his
+death.  The witnesses had contradicted themselves as if in terror of
+Drake's displeasure; and some plainly pleaded that the jealous crew of
+the _Marygold_ were doing an innocent gentleman to death.  The one
+thing Drake would not do, was carry the trouble maker along on the
+voyage.  Like dominant spirits world over, he did not permit a life
+more or less to obstruct his purpose.  He granted Doughty a choice of
+fates--to be marooned in Patagonia, or suffer death on the spot.
+Protesting his innocence, Doughty spurned the least favor from his
+rival.  He refused the choice.
+
+Solemnly the two, accuser and accused, took Holy Communion together.
+Solemnly each called on God as witness to the truth.  A day each spent
+in prayer, these pirate fellows, who mixed their religion with their
+robbery, perhaps using piety as sugar-coating for their ill-deeds.
+Then they dined together in the {149} commander's tent,--Fletcher, the
+horrified chaplain, looking on,--drank hilariously to each other's
+healths, to each other's voyage whatever the end might be, looked each
+in the eye of the other without quailing, talking nonchalantly, never
+flinching courage nor balking at the grim shadow of their own stubborn
+temper.  Doughty then rose to his feet, drank his last bumper, thanked
+Drake graciously for former kindness, walked calmly out to the old
+scaffold, laid his head on the block, and suffered death.  Horror fell
+on the crew.  Even Drake was shaken from his wonted calm; for he sat
+apart, his velvet cloak thrown back, slapping his crossed knees, and
+railing at the defenders of the dead man.[4]  To rouse the men, he had
+solemn service held for the crew, and for the first time revealed to
+them his project for the voyage on the Pacific.  After painting the
+glories of a campaign against Spanish ports of the South Seas, he wound
+up an inspiriting address with the rousing assurance that after this
+voyage, "_the worst boy aboard would never nede to goe agayne to sea,
+but be able to lyve in England like a right good gentleman_."
+Fletcher, the chaplain, who secretly advocated the dead man's cause,
+was tied to a mast pole in bilboes, with the inscription hung to his
+neck--"_Falsest knave that liveth_."
+
+On August 17 they departed from "the port {150} accursed," for the
+Straits of Magellan, that were to lead to Spanish wealth on the
+Pacific.[5]
+
+The superstitious crews' fears of disaster for the death of Doughty
+seemed to become very real in the terrific tempests that assailed the
+three ships as they entered the straits.  Gales lashed the cross tides
+to a height of thirty feet, threatening to swamp the little craft.
+Mountains emerged shadowy through the mists on the south.  Roiling
+waters met the prows from end to end of the straits.  Topsails were
+dipped, psalms of thanks chanted, and prayers held as the ships came
+out on the west side into the Pacific on the 6th of September.  In
+honor of the first English vessel to enter this ocean, Drake renamed
+his ship "_Golden Hind_."  {151} The gales continued so furiously,
+Drake jocosely called the sea, _Mare Furiosum_, instead of Pacific.
+The first week of October storms compelled the vessels to anchor.  In
+the raging darkness that night, the explosive rip of a snapping hawser
+was heard behind the stern of the _Golden Hind_.  Fearful cries rose
+from the waves for help.  The dark form of a phantom ship lurched past
+in the running seas--the _Marygold_ adrift, loose from her anchor,
+driving to the open storm; fearful judgment--as the listeners
+thought--for the crew's false testimony against Doughty; for, as one
+old record states, "they could by no means help {152} spooming along
+before the sea;" and the _Marygold_ was never more seen.
+
+[Illustration: The Golden Hind.]
+
+Meanwhile like disaster had befallen the _Golden Hind_, the cable
+snapping weak as thread against the drive of tide and wind.  Only the
+_Elizabeth_ kept her anchor grip, and her crew became so
+panic-stricken, they only waited till the storm abated, then turned
+back through the straits, swift heels to the stormy, ill-fated sea, and
+steered straight for England, where they moored in June.  Towed by the
+_Golden Hind_, now driving southward before the tempest, was a
+jolly-boat with eight men.  The mountain seas finally wrenched the
+tow-rope from the big ship, and the men were adrift in the open boat.
+Their fortunes are a story in itself.  Only one of the eight survived
+to reach England after nine years' wandering in Brazil.[6]
+
+Onward, sails furled, bare poles straining to the storm, drifted Drake
+in the _Golden Hind_.  Luck, that so often favors daring, or the
+courage, that is its own talisman, kept him from the rocks.  With
+battened hatches he drove before what he could not {153} stem,
+southward and south, clear down where Atlantic and Pacific met at Cape
+Horn, now for the first time seen by navigator.  Here at last, on
+October 30, came a lull.  Drake landed, and took possession of this
+earth's end for the Queen.  Then he headed his prow northward for the
+forbidden waters of the Pacific bordering New Spain.  Not a Spaniard
+was seen up to the Bay of San Filipe off Chile, where by the end of
+November Drake came on an Indian fisherman.  Thinking the ship Spanish,
+the fellow offered to pilot her back eighteen miles to the harbor of
+Valparaiso.
+
+Spanish vessels lay rocking to the tide as Drake glided into the port.
+So utterly impossible was it deemed for any foreign ship to enter the
+Pacific, that the Spanish commander of the fleet at anchor dipped
+colors in salute to the pirate heretic, thinking him a messenger from
+Spain, and beat him a rattling welcome on the drum as the _Golden Hind_
+knocked keels with the Spanish bark.  Drake, doubtless, smiled as he
+returned the salute by a wave of his plumed hat.  The Spaniards
+actually had wine jars out to drown the newcomers ashore, when a quick
+clamping of iron hooks locked the Spanish vessel in death grapple to
+the _Golden Hind_.  An English sailor leaped over decks to the Spanish
+galleon with a yell of "_Downe, Spanish dogges_!"  The crew of sixty
+English pirates had swarmed across the vessel like hornets before the
+poor hidalgo knew what had happened.  Head over heels, down the
+hatchway, reeled the astonished dons.  Drake clapped down {154}
+hatches, and had the Spaniards trapped while his men went ashore to
+sack the town.  One Spaniard had succeeded in swimming across to warn
+the port.[7]  When Drake landed, the entire population had fled to the
+hills.  Rich plunder in wedges of pure gold, and gems, was carried off
+from the fort.  Not a drop of blood was shed.  Crews of the scuttled
+vessels were set ashore, the dismantled ships sent drifting to open
+sea.  The whole fiasco was conducted as harmlessly as a melodrama, with
+a moral thrown in; for were not these zealous Protestants despoiling
+these zealous Catholics, whose zeal, in turn, had led them to despoil
+the Indian?  There was a moral; but it wore a coat of many colors.
+
+[Illustration: Francis Drake.]
+
+The Indian was rewarded, and a Greek pilot forced on board to steer to
+Lima, the great treasury of Peruvian gold.  Giving up all hope of the
+other English vessels joining him, Drake had paused at Coquimbo to put
+together a small sloop, when down swooped five hundred Spanish
+soldiers.  In the wild scramble for the _Golden Hind_, one sailor was
+left behind.  He was torn to pieces by the Spaniards before the eyes of
+Drake's crew.  Northling again sailed Drake, piloted inshore by the
+Greek to Tarapaca, where Spanish treasure was sent out over the hills
+to await the call of ship; and sure enough, sound asleep in the
+sunlight, fatigued from his trip lay a Spanish carrier, {155} thirteen
+bars of silver piled beside him on the sand.  When that carrier
+wakened, the ship had called!  Farther on the English moored and went
+inland to see if more treasure might be coming over the hills.  Along
+the sheep trails came a lad whistling as he drove eight Peruvian sheep
+laden with black leather sacks full of gold.
+
+Drake's men were intoxicated with their success.  It was impossible to
+attack Panama with only the _Golden Hind_; but what if the _Golden
+Hind_ could catch the _Glory of the South Seas_--the splendid Spanish
+galleon that yearly carried Peruvian gold up to Panama?  Drake gained
+first news of the treasure ship being afloat while he was rifling three
+barks at Aricara below Lima; but he knew coureurs were already speeding
+overland to warn the capital against the _Golden Hind_.  Drake pressed
+sail to outstrip the land messenger, and glided into Callao, the port
+of Lima, before the thirty ships lying dismantled had the slightest
+inkling of his presence.
+
+Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo of Lima thought the overland coureur
+mad.  A pirate heretic in the South Seas!  Preposterous!  Some Spanish
+rascal had turned pirate; so the governor gathered up two thousand
+soldiers to march with all speed for Callao, with hot wrath and swift
+punishment for the culprit.  Drake had already sacked Callao, but he
+had missed the treasure ship.  She had just left for Panama.  The
+_Golden Hind_ was lying outside the port becalmed {156} when Don Toledo
+came pouring his two thousand soldiers down to the wharves.  The
+Spaniards dashed to embark on the rifled ships with a wild halloo!  He
+was becalmed, the blackguard pirate,--whoever he was,--they would tow
+out!  Divine Providence had surely given him into their hands; but just
+as they began rowing might and main, a fresh wind ruffled the water.
+The _Golden Hind_ spread her wings to the wind and was off like a bird!
+Drake knew no ship afloat could outsail his swift little craft; and the
+Spaniards had embarked in such haste, they had come without provisions.
+Famine turned the pursuers back near the equator, the disgusted viceroy
+hastening to equip frigates that would catch the English pirate when
+famine must compel him to head southward.
+
+Drake slackened sail to capture another gold cargo.  The crew of this
+caravel were so grateful to be put ashore instead of having their
+throats cut, that they revealed to Drake the stimulating fact that the
+_Glory of the South Seas_, the treasure ship, was only two days ahead
+laden with golden wealth untold.
+
+It was now a wild race for gold--for gold enough to enrich every man of
+the crew; for treasure that might buy up half a dozen European kingdoms
+and leave the buyer rich; for gold in huge slabs the shape of the
+legendary wedges long ago given the rulers of the Incas by the
+descendants of the gods; gold to be had for the taking by the striking
+of one sure blow at England's enemy!  Drake called on the crew to
+acquit {157} themselves like men.  The sailors answered with a shout.
+Every inch of sail was spread.  Old muskets and cutlasses were scoured
+till they shone like the sun.  Men scrambled up the mast poles to gaze
+seaward for sight of sail to the fore.  Every nerve was braced.  They
+were now across the equator.  A few hundred miles more, and the _Glory
+of the South Seas_ would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama.
+Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice
+offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first
+descry the sails of the Spanish treasure.  For once his luck failed
+him.  The wind suddenly fell.  Before Drake needed to issue the order,
+his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for
+dear life, towing the _Golden Hind_.  Day or night from February
+twenty-fourth, they did not slack, scarcely pausing to eat or sleep.
+Not to lose the tremendous prize by seeing the _Glory of the South
+Seas_ sail into Panama Bay at the last lap of the desperate race, had
+these bold pirates ploughed a furrow round the world, daring death or
+devil!
+
+At three in the afternoon of March the 1st, John Drake, the commander's
+brother, shouted out from the mast top where he clung, "Sail ho!" and
+the blood of every Englishman aboard jumped to the words!  At six in
+the evening, just off Cape Francisco, they were so close to the _Glory
+of the South Seas_, they could see that she was compelled to sail
+slowly, owing to the weight of her cargo.  So unaware of danger was
+{158} the captain that he thought Drake some messenger sent by the
+viceroy, and instead of getting arms in readiness and pressing sail, he
+lowered canvas, came to anchor, and waited![8]  Drake's announcement
+was a roaring cannonade that blew the mast poles off the Spanish ship,
+crippling her like a bird with wings broken.  For the rest, the scene
+was what has been enacted wherever pirates have played their game--a
+furious fusillade from the cannon mouths belching from decks and
+port-holes, the unscathed ship riding down on the staggering victim
+like a beast on its prey, the clapping of the grappling hooks that
+bound the captive to the sides of her victor, the rush over decks, the
+flash of naked sword, the decks swimming in blood, and the quick
+surrender.  The booty from this treasure ship was roughly estimated at
+twenty-six tons of pure silver, thirteen chests of gold plate, eighty
+pounds of pure gold, and precious jewels--emeralds and pearls--to the
+value in modern money of seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
+
+Drake realized now that he dared not return to England by the Straits
+of Magellan.  All the Spanish frigates of the Pacific were on the
+watch.  The _Golden Hind_ was so heavily freighted with treasure, it
+was actually necessary to lighten ballast by throwing spices and silks
+overboard.  One can guess that the orchestra played a stirring refrain
+off Cape Francisco that night.  The Northeast Passage from Asia to
+Europe was {159} still a myth of the geographers.  Drake's friend,
+Frobisher, had thought he found it on the Atlantic side.  After taking
+counsel with his ten chosen advisers, Drake decided to give the Spanish
+frigates the slip by returning through the mythical Northeast Passage.
+Stop was made at Guatalco, off the west coast of New Spain, for
+repairs.  Here, the poor Portuguese pilot brought all the way from the
+islands off the west coast of Africa, was put ashore.[9]  He was
+tortured by the Spaniards for piloting Drake to the South Seas.  In the
+course of rifling port and ship at Guatalco, charts to the Philippines
+and Indian Ocean were found; so that even if the voyage to England by
+the Northeast Passage proved impossible, the _Golden Hind_ could follow
+these charts home round the world by the Indian Ocean and Good Hope up
+Africa.
+
+It was needless for Drake to sack more Spanish floats.  He had all the
+plunder he could carry.  From the charts he learned that the Spaniards
+always struck north for favorable winds.  Heading north, month after
+month, the _Golden Hind_ sailed for the shore that should have led
+northeast, and that puzzled the mariners by sheering west and yet west;
+fourteen hundred leagues she sailed along a leafy wilderness of tangled
+trees and ropy mosses, beauty and decay, the froth of the beach combers
+aripple on the very roots of the {160} trees; dolphins coursing round
+the hull like greyhounds; flying fish with mica for wings flitting over
+the decks; forests of seaweed warning out to deeper water.  Then, a
+sudden cold fell, cold and fogs that chilled the mariners of tropic
+seas to the bone.  The veering coast pushed them out farther westward,
+far north of what the Spanish charts showed.  Instead of flying fish
+now, were whales, whales in schools of thousands that gambolled round
+the _Golden Hind_.  As the north winds--"frozen nimphes," the record
+calls them--blew down the cold Arctic fogs, Drake's men thought they
+were certainly nearing the Arctic regions.  Where were they?  Plainly
+lost, lost somewhere along what are now known as Mendocino, and Blanco,
+and Flattery.  In a word, perhaps up as far as Oregon, and Washington.
+One record says they went to latitude 43.  Another record, purporting
+to be more correct, says 48.  The Spaniards had been north as far as
+California, but beyond this, however far he may have gone, Drake was a
+discoverer in the true sense of the word.  Mountains covered with snow
+they saw, and white cliffs, and low shelving shores, which is more
+descriptive of Oregon and Washington than California; but only the
+sudden transition from tropic heat to chilling northern fogs can
+explain the crew's exaggerated idea of cold along the Pacific coast.
+Land was sighted at 42, north of Mendocino, and an effort made to
+anchor farther north; but contrary winds and a rock bottom gave
+insecure mooring.  {161} This was not surprising, as it was on this
+coast that Cook and Vancouver failed to find good harborage.  The coast
+still seemed to trend westward, dispelling hopes of a Northeast
+Passage, and if the world could have accepted Drake's conclusions on
+the matter, a deal of expenditure in human life and effort might have
+been saved.
+
+Two centuries before the deaths of Bering and Cook, trying to find that
+Passage, Drake's chronicler wrote: "_The cause of this extreme cold we
+conceive to be the large spreading of the Asian and American continent,
+if they be not fully joined, yet seem they to come very neere, from
+whose high and snow-covered mountains, the north and north-west winds
+send abroad their frozen nimphes to the infecting of the whole
+air--hence comes it that in the middest of their summer, the snow
+hardly departeth from these hills at all; hence come those thicke mists
+and most stinking fogges, . . . for these reasons we coniecture that
+either there is no passage at all through these Northerne coasts, which
+is most likely, or if there be, that it is unnavigable. . . .  Adde
+there unto, that though we searched the coast diligently even unto the
+48 degree, yet found we not the land to trend in any place towards the
+East, but rather running continually North-west, as if it went directly
+to meet with Asia. . . . of which we infallibly concluded rather than
+coniectured, that there was none._"
+
+Giving up all idea of a Northeast Passage, Drake turned south, and on
+June 17 anchored in a bay now {162} thoroughly identified as Drake's
+Bay, north of San Francisco.
+
+The next morning, while the English were yet on the _Golden Hind_, came
+an Indian in a canoe, shouting out oration of welcome, blowing feather
+down on the air as a sign of dovelike peace, and finally after three
+times essaying courage, coming near enough the English to toss a rush
+basket full of tobacco into the ship.  In vain Drake threw out presents
+to allure the Indian on board.  The terrified fellow scampered ashore,
+refusing everything but a gorgeous hat, that floated out on the water.
+For years the legend of Drake's ship was handed down as a tradition
+among the Indians of this bay.[10]
+
+By the 21st tents were erected, and a rude fortification of stone
+thrown round in protection where the precious cargo of gold could be
+stored while the ship was to be careened and scraped.  At the foot of
+the hill, the poor Indians gathered and gazed spellbound at the sight
+of this great winged bird of the ocean, sending thirty cannon trundling
+ashore, and herself beginning to rise up from the tide on piles and
+scaffolding.  As Drake sent the assembled tribe presents, the Indians
+laid down their bows and spears.  So marvellously did the wonders of
+the white men grow--sticks that emitted puffs of fire (muskets), a ship
+so large it could have carried their tribe, clothing in velvet and gold
+braid gorgeous as the plumage of a {163} bird, cutlasses of steel--that
+by the 23d great assemblages of Indians were on their knees at the foot
+of the hill, offering sacrifices to the wonderful beings in the fort.
+Whatever the English pirate's faults, he deserves credit for treating
+the Indians with an honor that puts later navigators to shame.  When he
+saw them gashing bodies in sacrifice, his superstition took fire with
+fear of Divine displeasure for the sacrilege; and the man who did not
+scruple to treat black slaves picked up among the Spaniards baser than
+he would have treated dogs, now fell "to prayers," as the old chronicle
+says, reading the Bible aloud, and setting his crew to singing psalms,
+and pointing to the sky, at which the Indians grunted approvals of
+"ho--ho!"
+
+Three days later came coureurs from the "King of the Indians"--the
+chief--bidding the strangers prepare for the great sachem's visit.  The
+coureurs advanced gyrating and singing; so that the English saw in this
+strange people nomads like the races of Scripture, whose ceremony was
+one of song and dance.  The warriors preceding the chief carried what
+the English thought "a sceptre," but what we moderns would call a
+peace-pipe.  The chains in their hands were probably strings of bears'
+claws, or something like wampum; the "crowns of feathers," plumed
+head-dresses; the gifts in the rush baskets borne by the women to the
+rear, maize and tobacco.
+
+Drake drew his soldiers up in line, and with trumpets sounding and
+armor at gleam marched out to {164} welcome the Indian chief.  Then the
+whole company of savages broke out in singing and dancing.  Drake was
+signalled to sit down in the centre.  Barely had he obeyed when to the
+shouting and dancing of the multitude, "a chain" was thrown over his
+neck, "a crown" placed on his head, and "the sceptre" put in his hand.
+According to Indian custom, Drake was welcomed by the ceremony of
+adoption in the tribe, "the sceptre" being a peace-pipe; "the crown,"
+an Indian warrior's head-dress.  Far otherwise the ceremony appeared to
+the romantic treasure hunters.  "_In the name and to the use of Her
+Most Excellent Majesty_," records the chaplain, "_he (Drake) tooke the
+sceptre, crowne, and dignity of the sayd countrie into his hand;_"
+though, added the pious chaplain of pirates, when he witnessed the
+Indians bringing the sick to be healed by the master pirate's
+touch,--"_we groane in spirit to see the power of Sathan so farre
+prevails_."
+
+[Illustration: The Crowning of Drake in California.]
+
+To avert disaster for the sacrilege of the sacred touch of healing,
+Drake added to his prayers strong lotions and good ginger plasters.
+Sometime in the next five weeks, Drake travelled inland with the
+Indians, and because of patriotism to his native land and the
+resemblance of the white sand cliffs to that land, called the region
+"New Albion."  "New Albion" would be an offset to "New Spain."  Drake
+saw himself a second Cortes, and nailed to a tree a brass plate on
+which was graven the Queen's name, the year, the free surrender of the
+country to the {165} Queen, and Drake's own name; for, says the
+chaplain, quite ignorant of Spanish voyages, "_the Spaniards never had
+any dealing, or so much as set a foot in this country, the utmost of
+their discoveries reaching only many degrees Southward of this place_."
+
+Drake's misunderstanding of the Indian ceremony would be comical if it
+were not that later historians have solemnly argued whether an act of
+possession by a pirate should hold good in international law.
+
+On the 23d of July the English pirate bade farewell to the Indians.  As
+he looked back from the sea, they were running along the hilltops
+burning more of the fires which he thought were sacrifices.
+
+
+Following the chart taken from the Spanish ship, Drake steered for the
+Philippines, thence southward through the East Indies to the Indian
+Ocean, and past Good Hope, back to Plymouth, where he came to anchor on
+September 26, 1580.  Bells were set ringing.  Post went spurring to
+London with word that Drake, the corsair, who had turned the Spanish
+world upside down, had come home.  For a week the little world of
+England gave itself up to feasting.  Ballads rang with the fame of
+Drake.  His name was on every tongue.  One of his first acts was to
+visit his old parents.  Then he took the _Golden Hind_ round the
+Channel to be dry-docked in Deptford.
+
+For the once, the tactful Queen was in a quandary.  Complaints were
+pouring in from Spain.  The {166} Spanish ambassador was furious, and
+presented bills of sequestration against Drake, but as the amount
+sequestered, pending investigation, was only fifty-six thousand pounds,
+one may suspect that Elizabeth let Drake protect in his own way what he
+had taken in his own way.  For six months, while the world resounded
+with his fame, the court withheld approval.  Jealous courtiers "deemed
+Drake the master thief of the unknown world," till Elizabeth cut the
+Gordian knot by one of her defiant strokes.  On April 4 she went in
+state to dine on the _Golden Hind_, to the music of those stringed
+instruments that had harped away Drake's fear of death or devil as he
+ploughed an English keel round the world.  After the dinner, she bade
+him fall to his knees and with a light touch of the sword gave him the
+title that was seal of the court's approval.  The _Golden Hind_ was
+kept as a public relic till it fell to pieces on the Thames, and the
+wood was made into a memorial chair for Oxford.
+
+[Illustration: The Silver Map of the World.  Both sides of a medal
+struck off at the time of Drake's return to England, commemorating his
+voyage around the world.  The faint dotted line shows the course sailed
+by him in the _Golden Hind_.]
+
+After all the perils Drake saw in the subsequent war--Cadiz and the
+Armada--it seems strange that he should return to the scene of his past
+exploits to die.  He was with Hawkins in the campaign of 1595 against
+Spain in the New World.  Things had not gone well.  He had not approved
+of Hawkins's plans of attack, and the venture was being bungled.  Sick
+of the equatorial fever, or of chagrin from failure, Drake died off
+Porto Bello in the fifty-first year of his age.  His body {167} was
+placed in a leaden coffin, and solemnly committed to that sea where he
+had won his first glory.[11]
+
+
+
+[1] This is but a brief epitome of the Spaniard's swelling words.  Only
+the Heavens above were omitted from Spain's claim.
+
+[2] The exact position of the English towards the port is hard to give,
+at the site of Vera Cruz has been changed three times.
+
+[3] This halfway station was known as Venta Cruz.  Seven of the traders
+lost their lives in Drake's attack.
+
+[4] The _Hakluyt Society Proceedings_, 1854, give all details of this
+terrible crime.  Fletcher, the chaplain, thought Doughty innocent; but
+Drake considered the chaplain "the falsest knave that liveth."
+
+[5] Don Francisco de Zarate, commander of a Spanish ship scuttled by
+Drake off Guatalco, gives this description to the Spanish government of
+the Englishman's equipage: "The general of the Englishmen is the same
+who five years ago took Nombre de Dios, about thirty-five years old,
+short, with a ruddy beard, one of the greatest mariners there are on
+the sea, alike for his skill and power of command.  His ship is a
+galleon of four hundred tons, a very fast sailer, and there are aboard
+her, one hundred men, all skilled hands and of warlike age, and all so
+well trained that they might be old soldiers--they keep their
+harquebusses clean.  He treats them with affection, they him with
+respect.  He carries with him nine or ten gentlemen cadets of high
+families in England.  These are his council.  He calls them together,
+tho' he takes counsel of no one.  He has no favorite.  These are
+admitted to his table, as well as a Portuguese pilot whom he brought
+from England.  (?)  He is served with much plate with gilt borders
+engraved with his arms and has all possible kinds of delicacies and
+scents, which . . . the Queen gave him.  (?)  None of the gentlemen sit
+or cover in his presence without first being ordered once or even
+several times.  The galleon carries thirty pieces of heavy ordnance,
+fireworks and ammunition.  They dine and sup to the music of violins.
+He carries carpenters, caulkers, careeners.  The ship is sheathed.  The
+men are paid and not regular pirates.  No one takes plunder and the
+slightest fault is punished."  The don goes on to say that what
+troubled him most was that Drake captured Spanish charts of the
+Pacific, which would guide other intruders on the Pacific.
+
+[6] The eight castaways in the shallop succeeded in passing back
+through the straits.  At Plata they were attacked by the Indians; four,
+wounded, succeeded in escaping.  The others were captured.  Reaching
+islands off the coast of Patagonia, two of the wounded died.  The
+remaining two suffered shipwreck on a barren island, where the only
+food was fruit; the only drink, the juice of the fruits.  Making a raft
+of floating planks ten feet long, the two committed themselves to God
+and steered for the mainland.  Here Pilcher died two hours after they
+had landed from drinking too much water.  The survivor, Peter Carder,
+lived among the savages of Brazil for eight years before he escaped and
+got passage to England, where he related his adventures to Queen
+Elizabeth.  The Queen gave him twenty-two angels and sent him to
+Admiral Howard for employment.  _Purchas' Pilgrims_, Vol. IV.
+
+[7] The plunder of this port was 60,000 pesos of gold, jewels, and
+goods (pesos about 8 shillings, $2); 1770 jars of wine, together with
+the silver of the chapel altar, which was given to Fletcher.
+
+[8] The captain was a Biscayan, one Juan de Anton.
+
+[9] Nuno Silva is the name of this pilot.  It is from his story that
+many of the details of this part of the voyage are obtained.
+
+[10] See Professor George Davidson's pamphlet on _Drake_.
+
+[11] To give even a brief account of Drake's life would fill a small
+encyclopaedia.  The story of his first ruin off Vera Cruz, of his
+campaign of vengeance, of his piratical voyage to the Pacific, of his
+doings with the California Indians, of his fight in the Armada--any one
+of these would fill an ordinary volume.  Only that part of his life
+bearing on American exploration has been given here, and that
+sacrificed in detail to keep from cumbering the sweep of his adventure.
+No attempt has been made to pass judgment on Drake's character.  Like
+Baranof of a later day, he was a curious mixture of the supremely
+selfish egoist, and of the religious enthusiast, alternately using his
+egoism as a support for his religion, and his religion as a support for
+his egoism; and each reader will probably pass judgment on Drake
+according as the reader's ideal of manhood is the altruist or the
+egoist, the Christ-type or "the great blond beast" of modern
+philosophic thought, the man supremely indifferent to all but self,
+glorying in triumph though it be knee-deep in blood.  Nor must we
+moderns pass too hypocritical judgment on the hero of the Drake type.
+Drake had invested capital in his venture.  He had the blessing of
+Church and State on what he was about to do, and what he did was _to
+take_ what he had strength and dexterity to take independent of the Ten
+Commandments, which is not so far different from many commercial
+methods of to-day.  We may appear as unmoral in our methods to future
+judges as Drake appears to us.  Just as no attempt has been made to
+analyze Drake's character--to balance his lack of morals with his
+courage--so minor details, that would have led off from the main
+current of events, have been omitted.  For instance, Drake spilled very
+little Spanish blood and was Christian in his treatment of the Indians;
+but are these credit marks offset by his brutality toward the black
+servants whom the pirates picked up among the Spaniards, of whom one
+poor colored girl was marooned on a Pacific island to live or die or
+rot?  To be sure, the Portuguese pilot taken from a scuttled caravel
+off the west coast of Africa on the way out, and forced to pilot Drake
+to the Pacific, was well treated on the voyage.  At least, there is no
+mention to the contrary; but when Drake had finished with the fellow,
+though the English might have known very well what terrible vengeance
+Spain would take, the pilot was dumped off on the coast of New Spain,
+where, one old record states, he was tortured, almost torn to pieces,
+for having guided Drake.
+
+The great, indeed, primary and only authorities for Drake's adventures
+are, of course, Hakluyt, Vol. III; for the fate of the lost crews,
+_Purchas' Pilgrims_, Vol. III and Vol. I, Book II, and Vol. IV; and the
+_Hakluyt Society Proceedings_, 1854, which are really a reprint of _The
+World Encompassed_, by Francis Fletcher, the chaplain, in 1628, with
+the addition of documents contemporary with Fletcher's by unknown
+writers.  The title-page of _The World Encompassed_ reads almost like
+an old ballad--"_for the stirring up of heroick spirits to benefit
+their countries, and eternize their names by like {168} attempts_."
+Kohl and Davidson's _Reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey_, 1884
+and 1886, are also invaluable as establishing Drake's land-fall in
+California.  Miller Christy's Silver Map of the World gives a splendid
+facsimile of the medal issued to commemorate Drake's return, of which
+the original is in the British Museum.  Among biographers, Corbett's
+_Drake_, and Barrow's _Life of Sir Francis Drake_, give full details of
+his early and personal life, including, of course, his great services
+in the Armada.
+
+Furious controversy has waged over Drake on two points: Did he murder
+Doughty?  Did he go as far north on the west coast of America as 48
+degrees?  Hakluyt's account says 43 degrees; _The World Encompassed_,
+by Fletcher, the chaplain, says 48 degrees, though all accounts agree
+it was at 38 degrees he made harbor.  I have not dealt with either
+dispute, stating the bare facts, leaving each reader to draw his own
+conclusions, though it seems to me a little foolish to contend that the
+claim of the 48th degree was an afterthought interpolated by the writer
+to stretch British possessions over a broader swath; for even two
+hundred years after the issue of the Silver Map of the World, when Cook
+was on this coast, so little was known of the west shores of America by
+Englishmen that men were still looking out for a Gamaland, or imaginary
+continent in the middle of the Pacific.
+
+The words of the narrative bearing on America are: "We came to 42
+degree of North latitude, where on the night following (June 3) we
+found such alterations of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our
+men in general did grievously complain thereof, some of them feeling
+their health much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in
+the night alone, but the day following carried with it not only the
+markes, but the stings and force of the night. . .; besides that the
+pinching and biting air was nothing altered, the very ropes of our ship
+were stiffe, and the rain which fell was an unnatural congealed and
+frozen substance so that we seemed to be rather in the frozen Zone than
+any where so neere unto the sun or these hotter climates . . . it came
+to that extremity in sayling but two degrees farther to the northward
+in our course, that though seamen lack not good stomachs . . . it was a
+question whether hands should feed their mouths, or rather keepe from
+the pinching cold that did benumme them . . . our meate as soone as it
+was remooved from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen up,
+and our ropes and tackling in a few days were growne to that
+stiffnesse . . . yet would not our general be discouraged but as well
+by comfortable speeches, of the divine providence, and of God's loving
+care over his children, out of the Scriptures . . . the land in that
+part of America, beares farther out into the West than we before
+imagined, we were neerer on it than we were aware; yet the neerer still
+we came unto it, the more extremity of cold did sease upon us.  The
+fifth day of June, we were forced by contrary windes to runne in with
+the shoare, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad
+bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where we were
+not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes
+that beate upon us, which if they ceased, and were still at any
+time . . . there followed most vile, thicke and stinking fogges against
+which the sea prevailed nothing {169} . . . to go further North, the
+extremity of the cold would not permit us and the winds directly bent
+against us, having once gotten us under sayle againe, commanded us to
+the Southward whether we would or no.
+
+"From the height of 48 degrees in which now we were to 38, we found the
+land by coasting alongst it, to be but low and plaine--every hill
+whereof we saw many but none were high, though it were in June, and the
+sunne in his nearest approach . . . being covered with snow. . . .  In
+38 deg. 30 min. we fell with a convenient and fit harborough and June
+17 came to anchor therein, where we continued till the 23rd day of July
+following . . . neither could we at any time in whole fourteen days
+together find the aire so cleare as to be able to take the height of
+sunne or starre . . . after our departure from the heate we always
+found our bodies, not as sponges, but strong and hardened, more able to
+beare out cold, though we came out of the excesse of heate, then
+chamber champions could hae beene, who lye in their feather beds till
+they go to sea.
+
+". . .  Trees without leaves, and the ground without greennes in these
+months of June and July . . . as for the cause of this extremity, they
+seem . . . chiefest we conceive to be the large spreading of the Asian
+and American continent, which (somewhat Northward of these parts) if
+they be not fully joyned, yet seeme they to come very neere one to the
+other.  From whose high and snow-covered mountains, the North and
+Northwest winds (the constant visitants of those coasts) send abroad
+their frozen nimphes, to the infecting of the whole aire with this
+insufferable sharpnesse. . . .  Hence comes the generall squalidnesse
+and barrennesse of the countrie, hence comes it that in the midst of
+their summer, the snow hardly departeth . . . from their hils at all,
+hence come those thicke mists and most stinking fogges, which increase
+so much the more, by how much higher the pole is raised . . . also from
+these reasons we coniecture that either there is no passage at all
+through these Northern coasts which is most likely or if there be, that
+yet it is unnavigable. . . .  Add here unto, that though we searched
+the coast diligently, even unto the 48 degree, yet found we not the
+land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but
+rather running on continually Northwest, as if it went directly to meet
+with Asia; and even in that height, when we had a franke winde to have
+carried us through, had there been a passage, yet we had a smoothe and
+calme sea, with ordinary flowing and renewing, which could not have
+beene had there been a frete; of which we rather infallibly concluded,
+then coniectured, that there was none.
+
+"The next day, after coming to anchor in the aforesaid harbour, the
+people of the countrey showed themselves, sending off a man with great
+expedition to us in a canow, who being yet but a little from the
+shoare, and a great way from our ship, spake to us continually as he
+came rowing in.  And at last at a reasonable distance, staying himself,
+he began more solemnly a long and tedious oration, after his manner,
+using in the deliverie thereof, many gestures and signes, mouing his
+hands, turning his head and body many wayes, and after his oration
+ended, with great show and reverence and submission returned backe to
+shoare again.  He shortly came againe the second time in like manner,
+{170} and so the third time, when he brought with him (as a present
+from the rest) a bunch of feathers, much like the feathers of a blacke
+crowe, very neatly and artificially gathered upon a string, and drawne
+together into a round bundle, being verie cleane and finely cut, and
+bearing in length an equall proportion one with another a special
+cognizance (as we afterwards observed) which they . . . weare on their
+heads.  With this also he brought a little basket made of rushes, and
+filled with an herbe which they called Tobah.  Both which being tyed to
+a short rodde, he cast into our boate.  Our generall intended to have
+recompenced him immediately with many good things he would have
+bestowed on him; but entering into the boate to deliver the same, he
+could not be drawne to receive them by any meanes, save one hat, which
+being cast into the water out of the ship, he took up (refusing utterly
+to meddle with any other thing) though it were upon a board put off
+unto him, and so presently made his returne.  After which time our
+boate could row no way, but wondering at us as at gods, they would
+follow the same with admiration. . . .
+
+"The third day following, viz., the 21, our ship having received a
+leake at sea, was brought to anchor neerer the shoare, that her goods
+being landed she might be repaired; but for that we were to prevent any
+danger that might chance against our safety, our Generall first of all
+landed his men, with all necessary provision, to build tents and make a
+fort for the defence of ourselves and our goods . . . which when the
+people of the country perceived us doing, as men set on fire to war in
+defence of their countrie, in great hast and companee, with such
+weapons as they had, they came down unto us, and yet with no hostile
+meaning or intent to hurt us: standing when they drew neerer, as men
+ravished in their mindes, with the sight of such things, as they never
+had scene or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with
+submission and feare to worship us as Gods, than to have warre with us
+as mortall men: which thing, as it did partly show itselfe at that
+instant, so did it more and more manifest itself afterwards, during the
+whole time of our abode amongst them.  At this time, being veilled by
+signs to lay from them their bowes and arrowes, they did as they were
+directed and so did all the rest, as they came more and more by
+companies unto him, growing in a little while to a great number, both
+of men and women.
+
+". . .  Our Generall, with all his company, used all meanes possible
+gently to intreate them, bestowing upon each of them liberally good and
+necessary things to cover their nakedness, withall signifying unto them
+we were no Gods but men, and had need of such things to cover our owne
+shame, teaching them to use them to the same ends, for which cause also
+we did eate and drinke in their presence, . . . they bestowed upon our
+Generall and diverse of our company, diverse things as feathers, cawles
+of networke, the quivers of their arrowes, made of faune skins, and the
+very skins of beasts that their women wore upon their bodies . . . they
+departed with joy to their houses, which houses are digged round within
+the earth, and have from the uppermost brimmes of the circle, clefts of
+wood set up, and joyned close together at the top, like our spires on
+the steeple of a church, which being covered with earth, . . . are very
+warme; the doore {171} in the most of them performs the office also of
+a chimney to let out the smoake; it's made in bignesse and fashion like
+to an ordinary scuttle in a ship, and standing slope-wise; the beds are
+the hard ground, onely with rushes strewed upon it and lying round
+about the house, have their fire in the middest, . . . with all
+expedition we set up our tents, and intrenched ourselves with walls of
+stone. . . .  Against the end of two daies, there was gathered together
+a great assembly of men, women and children, bringing with them as they
+had before done, feathers and bagges of Tobah for present, or rather
+for sacrifices upon this persuasion that we were Gods.
+
+"When they came to the top of the hill at the bottom whereof we had
+built our fort, they made a stand;" . . . "this bloodie sacrifice
+(against our wils) being thus performed, our generall, with his
+companie, in the presence of those strangers, fell to prayers; and by
+signes in lifting up our eyes and hands to heaven, signified unto them
+that that God whom we did serve and whom they ought to worship, was
+above: beseeching God, if it were his good pleasure, to open by some
+meanes their blinded eyes, that they might in due time be called to the
+knowledge of Him, the true and everliving God, and of Jesus Christ,
+whom he hath sent, the salvation of the Gentiles.  In the time of which
+prayers, singing of Psalmes, and reading of certaine Chapters in the
+Bible, they sate very attentively, and observing the end of every
+pause, with one voice still cried 'oh' greatly rejoicing in our
+exercises."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Our generall caused to be set up a monument of our being there, as
+also of her majesties and successors right and title to that kingdom,
+namely a plate of brasse, fast nailed to a great and firme poste;
+whereon is engraven her graces' name, and the day and year of our
+arrival there, and of the free giving up of the province and kingdom,
+both by the king and people, unto her majesties' hands: together with
+her highnesse picture and arms, in a piece of sixpence current English
+monie, shewing itselfe by a hole made of purpose through the plate;
+underneath was likewise engraven the name of our Generall. . . .
+
+"The Spaniards never had any dealings, or so much as set a foote in
+this country, the utmost of their discoveries reaching onely to many
+degrees Southward of this place."
+
+The Spanish version of Drake's burial is, that the body was weighted
+with shot at the heels and heaved over into the sea, without coffin or
+ceremony.
+
+
+
+
+{172}
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+1728-1779
+
+CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA
+
+The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find the New
+Albion of Drake's Discoveries--He misses both the Straits of Fuca and
+the Mouth of the Columbia, but anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of
+Future Traders--No Northeast Passage found through Alaska--The True
+Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia becomes
+Jealous of his Explorations
+
+
+It seems impossible that after all his arduous labors and death, to
+prove his convictions, Bering's conclusions should have been rejected
+by the world of learning.  Surely his coasting westward, southwestward,
+abreast the long arm of Alaska's peninsula for a thousand miles, should
+have proved that no open sea--no Northeast Passage--was here, between
+Asia and America.  But no! the world of learning said fog had obscured
+Bering's observations.  What he took for the mainland of America had
+been only a chain of islands.  Northward of those islands was open sea
+between Asia and Europe, which might afford direct passage between East
+and West without circumnavigating the globe.  In fact, said Dr.
+Campbell, {173} one of the most learned English writers of the day,
+"Nothing is plainer than that his (Bering's) discovery does not warrant
+any such supposition as that he touched the great continent making part
+of North America."
+
+The moonshine of the learned men in France and Russia was even wilder.
+They had definitely proved, _even if there were no Gamaland_--as
+Bering's voyage had shown--then there must be a southern continent
+somewhere, to keep the balance between the northern and southern
+hemispheres; else the world would turn upside down.  And there must
+also be an ocean between northern Europe and northern Asia, else the
+world would be top-heavy and turn upside down.  It was an age when the
+world accepted creeds for piety, and learned moonshine instead of
+scientific data; when, in a word, men refused to bow to fact!
+
+All sorts of wild rumors were current.  There was a vast continent in
+the south.  There was a vast sea in the north.  Somewhere was the New
+Albion, which Francis Drake had found north of New Spain.  Just north
+of the Spanish possessions in America was a wide inlet leading straight
+through from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which an old Greek
+pilot--named Juan de Fuca--said he had traversed for the viceroy of New
+Spain.
+
+Even stolid-going England was infected by the rage for imaginary oceans
+and continents.  The Hudson's Bay Fur Company was threatened with a
+withdrawal {174} of its charter because it had failed to find a
+Northwest Passage from Atlantic to Pacific.  Only four years after the
+death of Bering, an act of Parliament offered a reward of twenty
+thousand pounds to the officers and crew of any ships discovering a
+passage between Atlantic and Pacific north of 52 degrees.  There were
+even ingenious fellows with the letters of the Royal Society behind
+their names, who affected to think that the great Athabasca Lake, which
+Hearne had found, when he tramped inland from the Arctic and Coppermine
+River, was a strait leading to the Pacific.  Athabasca Lake might be
+the imaginary strait of the Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca.  To be sure, two
+Hudson's Bay Company ships' crews--those under Knight and Barlow--had
+been totally lost fifty years before Hearne's tramp inland in 1771,
+trying to find that same mythical strait of Juan de Fuca westward of
+Hudson Bay.
+
+But so furious did public opinion wax over a Northwest Passage at the
+very time poor Bering was dying in the North Pacific, that Captain
+Middleton was sent to Hudson Bay in 1741-1742 to find a way to the
+Pacific.  And when Middleton failed to find water where the Creator had
+placed land, Dobbs, the patron of the expedition and champion of a
+Northwest Passage at once roused the public to send out two more
+ships--the _Dobbs_ and _California_.  Failure again!  Theories never
+yet made Fact, never so much as added a hair's weight to Fact!  Ellis,
+who was on board, affected to think that Chesterfield Inlet--a great
+arm of the sea, {175} westward of Hudson Bay--might lead to the
+Pacific.  This supposition was promptly exploded by the Hudson's Bay
+Fur Company sending Captain Christopher and Moses Norton, the local
+governor of the company, up Chesterfield inlet for two hundred miles,
+where they found, not the Pacific, but a narrow river.  Then the hue
+and cry of the learned theorists was--the Northwest Passage lay
+northward of Hudson Bay.  Hearne was sent tramping inland to find--not
+sea, but land; and when he returned with the report of the great
+Athabasca Lake of Mackenzie River region, the lake was actually seized
+on as proof that there was a waterway to the Pacific.  Then the
+brilliant plan was conceived to send ships by both the Atlantic and the
+Pacific to find this mythical passage from Europe to Asia.
+Pickersgill, who had been on the Pacific, was to go out north of Hudson
+Bay and work westward.  To work eastward from the Pacific to the
+Atlantic was chosen a man who had already proved there was no great
+continental mass on the south, and that the world did not turn upside
+down, and who was destined to prove there was no great open ocean on
+the north, and still the world did not turn upside down.  He was a man
+whose whole life had been based and built upon Fact, not Theory.  He
+was a man who accepted Truth as God gave it to him, not as he had
+theorized it _ought_ to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to
+the position of the greatest navigator in the world--had climbed on top
+of facts mastered, not {176} of schoolgirl moonshine, or study-closet
+theories.  That man was Captain James Cook.
+
+Cook's life presents all the contrasts of true greatness world over.
+Like Peter the Great, of Russia, whose word had set in motion the
+exploration of the northwest coast of America, Cook's character
+consisted of elements that invariably lead to glory or ruin; often,
+both.  The word "impossible" was not in his vocabulary.  He simply did
+not recognize any limitations to what a man _might_ do, could do, would
+do, if he tried; and that means, that under stress of risk or
+temptation, or opposition, a man's caution goes to the winds.  With
+Cook, it was risk that caused ruin.  With the Czar of Russia, it was
+temptation.
+
+Born at Marton, a small parish of a north riding in the county of York,
+October 27, 1728, James Cook was the son of a day-laborer in an age
+when manual toil was paid at the rate of a few pennies a day.  There
+were nine of a family.  The home was a thatch-roofed mud cottage.  Two
+years after Cook's birth, the father was appointed bailiff, which
+slightly improved family finances; but James was thirteen years of age
+before it was possible to send him to school.  There, the progress of
+his learning was a gallop.  He had a wizard-genius for figures.  In
+three short years he had mastered all the Ayton school could teach him.
+At sixteen, his schooling was over.  The father's highest ambition
+seems to have been for the son to become a successful shopkeeper in one
+of the small towns.  The future {177} navigator was apprenticed to the
+village shop; but Cook's ambitions were not to be caged behind a
+counter.
+
+Eastward rolled the North Sea.  Down at Hull were heard seamen's yarns
+to make the blood of a boy jump.  It was 1746.  The world was ringing
+with tales of Bering on the Pacific, of a southern continent, which
+didn't exist, of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company's illimitable domain in
+the north, of La Verendrye's wonderful discoveries of an almost
+boundless region westward of New France toward the uncharted Western
+Sea.  In a year and a half, Cook had his fill of shopkeeping.  Whether
+he ran away, or had served his master so well that the latter willingly
+remitted the three years' articles of apprenticeship, Cook now followed
+his destiny to the sea.  According to the world's standards, the change
+seemed progress backward.  He was articled to a ship-owner of Whitby as
+a common seaman on a coaler sailing between Newcastle and London.  One
+can see such coalers any day--black as smut, grimed from prow to stern,
+with workmen almost black shovelling coal or hoisting tackling--pushing
+in and out among the statelier craft of any seaport.  It is this stage
+in a great man's career which is the test.  Is the man sure enough of
+himself to leave everything behind, and jump over the precipice into
+the unknown?  If ever he wishes to return to what he has left, he will
+have just the height of this jump to climb back to the old place.  The
+old place is a certainty.  The unknown may engulf in failure.  He {178}
+must chance that, and all for the sake of a faith in himself, which has
+not yet been justified; for the sake of a vague star leading into the
+misty unknown.  He knows that he could have been successful in the old
+place.  He does not know that he may not be a failure in the new place.
+Art, literature, science, commerce--in all--it is the men and women who
+have dared to risk being failures that have proved the mainspring of
+progress.  Cook was sure enough of himself to exchange shopkeeper's
+linen for the coal-heaver's blue jeans, to risk following the star of
+his destiny to the sea.
+
+Presently, the commonplace, grimy duties which he must fulfil are
+taking him to Dublin, to Liverpool, to Norway; and by the time he is
+twenty-two, he knows the Baltic trade well, and has heard all the pros
+and cons of the furious cackle which the schools have raised over that
+expedition of Bering's to the west coast of America.  By the time he is
+twenty-four he is a first mate on the coal boats.  Comes another vital
+change!  When he left the shop, he felt all that he had to do to follow
+his destiny was to go to sea.  Now the star has led him up to a blank
+wall.  The only promotion he can obtain on these merchantmen is to a
+captainship; and the captaincy on a small merchantman will mean pretty
+much a monotonous flying back and forward like a shuttle between the
+ports of Europe and England.
+
+Cook took a resolution that would have cost any {179} man but one with
+absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort.  At the age of
+twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy.  Now, in a democratic
+age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and
+invisible lines just the same.  Standing on the captain's deck of an
+American warship not long ago, watching the deck hands below putting
+things shipshape, I asked an officer--"Is there any chance for those
+men to rise?"
+
+"Yes, some," he answered tentatively, "but then, there is a difference
+between the men who have been trained for a position, and those who
+have worked up the line to it."  If that difference exists in a
+democratic country and age, what was it for Cook in a country and at a
+time when lines of caste were hard and fast drawn?  But he entered the
+navy on the _Eagle_ under Sir Hugh Palliser, who, almost at once,
+transferred him from the forecastle to the quarterdeck.  What was the
+explanation of such quick recognition?  Therein lies the difference
+between the man who tries and succeeds, and the man who tries and
+fails.  Cook had qualified himself for promotion.  He was so fitted for
+the higher position, that the higher position could not do without him.
+Whether rocking on the Baltic, or waiting for the stokers to heave out
+coal at Liverpool, every moment not occupied by seaman's duties, Cook
+had filled by improving himself, by increasing his usefulness, by
+sharpening his brain, so that his brain could better direct his hands,
+by {180} studying mathematics and astronomy and geography and science
+and navigation.  As some one has said--there are lots of people with
+hands and no brain; and there are lots of people with brains and no
+hands; but the kind who will command the highest reward for their
+services to the world are those who have the finest combination of
+brains _and_ hands.
+
+[Illustration: Captain James Cook.]
+
+Four years after Cook had joined the navy, he was master on the
+_Mercury_ with the fleet before Quebec, making a chart of the St.
+Lawrence for Wolfe to take the troops up to the Heights of Abraham,
+piloting the boats to the attack on Montmorency, and conducting the
+embarkation of the troops, who were to win the famous battle, that
+changed the face of America.
+
+Now the Royal Society wished to send some one to the South Seas, whose
+reliability was of such a recognized and steady-going sort, that his
+conclusions would be accepted by the public.  Just twenty years from
+the time that he had left the shop, Cook was chosen for this important
+mission.  What manner of man was he, who in that time had risen from
+life in a mud hut to the rank of a commander in the Royal Navy?  In
+manner, he was plain and simple and direct, no flourish, no unnecessary
+palaver of showy words, not a word he did not mean.  In form, he was
+six feet tall, in perfect proportion, with brown hair and eyes, alertly
+penetrating, with features sharp rather from habit or thought than from
+natural shape.
+
+On this mission he left England in 1768, anchored at {181} the Society
+Islands of the South Seas in the spring of 1769, explored New Zealand
+in the fall of the same year, rounded Australia in 1770 and returned to
+England in 1771, the very year Hearne was trying to tramp it overland
+in search of a Northwest Passage.  And he brought back no proof of that
+vast southern world which geographers had put on their maps.  Promptly
+he was sent out on a second voyage to find or demolish that mythical
+continent of the southern hemisphere; and he demolished the myth of a
+southern continent altogether, returning from circumnavigating the
+globe just at the time when the furor of a Northwest Passage northward
+of Hudson Bay, northward even of Bering's course on the Pacific, was at
+its height.
+
+
+The third voyage was to determine finally the bounds of western
+America, the possibilities of a passage between Europe and Asia by way
+of the Pacific.  Two ships--the _Resolution_, four hundred and sixty
+tons, one hundred and twelve men, which Cook had used before, and the
+_Discovery_, three hundred tons, eighty men--were purchased at Hull,
+the old port of Cook's boyhood dreams.  To secure the good will of the
+crews, two months' wages were paid in advance.  Captain Clerke
+commanded the _Discovery_; and the two crews numbered men of whom the
+world was to hear more in connection with the northwest coast of
+America--a young midshipman, Vancouver, whose doings were yet to
+checkmate Spain; a young American, corporal {182} of marines, Ledyard,
+who was to have his brush with Russia; and other ambitious young seamen
+destined to become famous traders on the west coast of America.
+
+The two ships left England in midsummer of 1776, crossed the equator in
+September when every man fresh to the episode was caught and ducked
+overrails in equatorial waters, rounded Good Hope, touched at the
+Society Islands of the first voyage, and by spring of 1778 had explored
+and anchored at the Sandwich Islands.  Once on the Pacific, Cook
+mustered his crews and took them into his confidence; he was going to
+try for that reward of twenty thousand pounds to the crew that
+discovered a Northeast Passage; and even if he missed the reward, he
+was going to have a shy at the most northern latitude ever attempted by
+navigator--89 degrees; would they do it?  The crew cheered.  Whether
+they reached 89 degrees or not, they decided to preserve their grog for
+the intense cold to be encountered in the north; so that the daily
+allowance was now cut to half.
+
+By March, the ships were off from the Sandwich Islands to the long
+swell of the Pacific, the slimy medusa lights covering the waters with
+a phosphorescent trail of fire all night, the rockweed and sea leek
+floating past by day telling their tale of some far land.  Cook's
+secret commission had been very explicit: "You are to proceed on as
+direct a course as you can to the coast of New Albion, endeavoring to
+fall in with it in latitude 45 degrees north . . . and are strictly
+enjoined {183} not to touch on any part of the Spanish dominions . . .
+unless driven by accident . . . and to be very careful not to give any
+umbrage to the subjects of his Catholic Majesty . . . and if in further
+progress northward . . . you find any subjects of a European
+prince . . . you are not to give any cause of offence . . . proceed
+northward to 65 degrees, carefully search for such inlets as appear
+pointing to Hudson Bay . . . use your utmost endeavors to pass
+through."  The commission shows that England was unaware Spain had
+pushed north of 45 degrees, and Russia north of 65 degrees; for Spain
+jealously kept her explorations secret, and Russia's were not accepted.
+The commission also offered a reward for any one going within 1 degree
+of the Pole.  It may be added--the offer is still open.
+
+For days after leaving the Sandwich Islands, not a bird was to be seen.
+That was a bad omen for land.  Land must be far, indeed; and Cook began
+to fear there might be as much ocean in that northern hemisphere as the
+geographers of Russia and France--who actually tabulated Bering's
+discoveries as an island--had placed on the maps.  But in the first
+week of March, a sea-gull came swimming over the crest of a wave.
+Where did she come from?  Then an albatross was seen wheeling above the
+sea.  Then, on March 6, two lonely land seals went plying past; and
+whales were noticed.  Surely they were nearing the region that Drake,
+the English freebooter, had seen and named New Albion two hundred years
+before.  {184} Suddenly, on the morning of March 7, the dim offing
+ahead showed thin, sharp, clear lines.  The lines rose higher as the
+ship approached.  They cut themselves against the sky in the form of
+mountains and hills with purple mist lying in the valleys.  It was the
+New Albion at latitude 44 degrees 33 minutes, which Drake had
+discovered.  The day was hazy and warm.  Cook's crews wondered why
+Drake had complained of such cold.  By night they found out.  A roaring
+hurricane burst from the northern darkness with squalls of hail and
+snow and sleet, that turned the shore to one long reach of whitened
+cliffs straight up and down out of the sea.  In commemoration, they
+called the first landfall, Cape Foulweather; and, in spite of the
+commission to sail north, drove under bare poles before the storm to 43
+degrees, naming the two capes passed Perpetua and Gregory.  Only by the
+third week of March had the storm abated enough for them to turn north
+again.[1]
+
+Now, whether the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, lied or dreamed, or
+only told a yarn of what some Indian had told him, it was along this
+coast that he had said the straits leading to the east side of America
+lay; and Cook's two ships hugged the coast as close as they dared for
+fear of roaring breakers and a landward wind.  On March 23 rocks were
+seen lying off a high point capped with trees, behind which might be a
+{185} strait; but a gale ashore and a lashing tide thundering over the
+rocks sent the ships scudding for the offing through fog and rain; and
+never a glimpse of a passage eastward could the crews obtain.  Cook
+called the delusive point Cape Flattery and added: "It is in this very
+latitude (48 degrees 15 minutes) that geographers have placed the
+pretended Straits of Juan de Fuca; but we saw nothing like it; nor is
+there the least possibility that any such thing ever existed."  But
+Cook was too far out to descry the narrow opening--but thirteen miles
+wide--of Juan de Fuca, where the steamers of three continents ply
+to-day; though the strait by no means led to Europe, as geographers
+thought.
+
+All night a hard gale drove them northward.  When the weather cleared,
+permitting them to approach the coast again, high mountains, covered
+with snow and forests, jagged through the clouds like tent peaks.
+Tremendous breakers roared over sunken rocks.  Point Breakers, Cook
+called them.  Then the wind suddenly fell; and the ships were becalmed
+directly opposite the narrow entrance of a two-horned cove sheltered by
+the mountains.  The small boats had all been mustered out to tow the
+two ships in, when a slight breeze sprang up.  The flotilla drifted
+inland just as three canoes, carved in bizarre shapes of birds' heads
+and eagle claws, came paddling across the inlet.  Three savages were in
+one, six in the other, ten in the third.  They came slowly over the
+water, singing some song of welcome, beating time with their paddles,
+{186} scattering downy white feathers on the air, at intervals standing
+up to harangue a welcome to the newcomers.  Soon thirty canoes were
+around the ships with some ten warriors in each.  Still they came,
+shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the harbor smooth
+as glass, the grand _tyee_, or great chief of the tribes, standing
+erect shouting a welcome, with long elf-locks streaming down his back.
+Women and children now appeared in the canoes.  That meant peace.  The
+women were chattering like magpies; the men gurgling and spluttering
+their surprise at the white visitors.  For safety's sake the guns of
+the two ships were pointed ready; but the natives did not know the fear
+of a gun.  It was the end of March when Cook first anchored off what he
+thought was the mainland of America.  It was not mainland, but an
+island, and the harbor was one to become famous as the rendezvous of
+Pacific traders--Nootka!
+
+Three armed boats commanded by Mr. King, and one under Cook, at once
+proceeded from the ships to explore and sound the inlet.  The entrance
+had been between two rocky points four miles apart past a chain of
+sunken rocks.  Except in a northwest corner of the inlet, since known
+as Snug Cove, the water was too deep for anchorage; so the two ships
+were moored to trees, the masts unrigged, the iron forge set to work on
+the shore; and the men began cutting timber for the new masts.  And
+still the tiny specks dancing over the waves carrying canoe loads of
+savages to the English ships, {187} continued to multiply till the
+harbor seemed alive with warriors--two thousand at least there must
+have been by the first week of April after Cook's arrival.  Some of the
+savages wore brightly painted wooden masks as part of their gala
+attire.  Others carried totems--pieces of wood carved in the likeness
+of bird or beast to typify manitou of family or clan.  By way of
+showing their prowess, some even offered the white men human skulls
+from which the flesh had not yet been taken.  By this Cook knew the
+people were cannibals.  Some were observed to be wearing spoons of
+European make as ornaments round their necks.  What we desire to
+believe we easily accept.  The white men did not ascribe the spoons to
+traders from New Spain on the south, or the Russian settlements to the
+north; but thought this place must be within trading distance of Hudson
+Bay, whence the Indians must have obtained the spoons.  And so they
+cherished the hope of a Northeast Passage from this slim sign.  In a
+few days fifteen hundred beaver and sea-otter had been obtained in
+trade, sixty-nine sea-otter--each of which was worth at that time one
+hundred dollars in modern money--for a handful of old nails.
+
+To these deep-sea wanderers of Cook's crews, the harbor was as a
+fairy-land.  Snow still covered the mountain tops; but a tangled forest
+of dank growth with roots awash in the ripple of the sea, stretched
+down the hillsides.  Red cedar, spruce, fir,--of enormous growth,
+broader in girth than a cart and {188} wagon in length,--cypress with
+twisted and gnarled knots red against the rank green; mosses swinging
+from branch to branch in snaky coils wherever the clouds settled and
+rested; islands studding the sea like emerald gems; grouse drumming
+their spring song through the dark underbrush; sea-mew and Mother
+Carey's chickens screaming and clacking overhead; the snowy summits red
+as wine in the sunset glow--all made up an April scene long cherished
+by these adventurers of the North.
+
+Early one morning in April the men cutting timber inland were startled
+to notice the underbrush alive with warriors armed.  The first fear was
+of an ambush.  Cook ordered the men to an isolated rock ready for
+defence; but the grand _tyee_ or chief explained by signs that his
+tribe was only keeping off another tribe that wanted to trade with the
+white men.  The worst trouble was from the inordinate thieving
+propensities of the natives.  Iron, nails, belaying pins, rudders,
+anchors, bits of sail, a spike that could be pulled from the rotten
+wood of the outer keel by the teeth of a thief paddling
+below--anything, everything was snatched by the light-fingered gentry.
+Nor can we condemn them for it.  Their moral standard was the Wolf Code
+of Existence--which the white man has elaborated in his evolution--to
+take whatever they had the dexterity and strength to take and to keep.
+When caught in theft, they did not betray as much sense of guilt as a
+dog stealing a bone.  Why should they?  Their {189} code was to take.
+The chief of the Nootkas presented Cook with a sea-otter cloak.  Cook
+reciprocated with a brass-hilted sword.
+
+By the end of April the ships had been overhauled, and Cook was ready
+to sail.  Porpoise were coursing the sea like greyhounds, and the
+stormy petrels in a clatter; but Cook was not to be delayed by storm.
+Barely had the two ships cleared the harbor, when such a squall broke
+loose, they could do nothing but scud for open sea, turn tails to the
+wind, and lie helpless as logs, heads south.  If it had not been for
+this storm, Cook would certainly have discovered that Nootka was on an
+island, not the coast of the mainland; but by the time the weather
+permitted an approach to land again, Friday, May 1, the ships were
+abreast that cluster of islands below the snowy cone of Mt. Edgecumbe,
+Sitka, where Chirikoff's Russians had first put foot on American soil.
+Cook was now at the northernmost limit of Spanish voyaging.
+
+By the 4th of May Cook had sighted and passed the Fairweather Range,
+swung round westward on the old course followed by Bering, and passed
+under the shadow of St. Elias towering through the clouds in a dome of
+snow.  On the 6th the ships were at Kyak, where Bering had anchored,
+and amid myriad ducks and gulls were approaching a broad inlet
+northward.  Now, just as Bering had missed exploring this part of the
+coast owing to fog, so Cook had failed to trace that long archipelago
+of islands from Sitka Sound {190} northward; but here, where the coast
+trends straight westward, was an opening that roused hopes of a
+Northeast Passage.  The _Resolution_ had sprung a leak; and in the
+second week of May, the inlet was entered in the hope of a shelter to
+repair the leak and a way northeast to the Atlantic.  Barely had the
+ships passed up the sound, when they were enshrouded in a fog that
+wiped out every outline; otherwise, the high coast of glacial
+palisades--two hundred feet in places and four miles broad--might have
+been seen landlocked by mountains; but Mr. Gore launched out in a small
+boat steering north through haze and tide-rip.  Twenty natives were
+seen clad in sea-otter skins, by which--the white men judged--no
+Russians could have come to this sound; for the Russians would not have
+permitted the Indians to keep such valuable sea-otter clothing.  The
+glass beads possessed by the natives were supposed to attest proximity
+to traders of Hudson Bay.  With an almost animal innocence of wrong,
+the Indians tried to steal the small boat of the _Discovery_,
+flourishing their spears till the white crew mustered.  At another
+time, when the _Discovery_ lay anchored, few lanterns happened to be on
+deck.  No sailors were visible.  It was early in the morning and
+everybody was asleep, the boat dark.  The natives swarmed up the ship's
+sides like ants invading a sugar canister.  Looking down the hatches
+without seeing any whites, they at once drew their knives and began to
+plunder.  The whites dashed up the hatchway and drove the {191}
+plunderers over the rails at sword point.  East and north the small
+boats skirted the mist-draped shores, returning at midnight with word
+the inlet was a closed shore.  There was no Northeast Passage.  They
+called the spider-shaped bay Prince William Sound; and at ten in the
+morning headed out for sea.
+
+Here a fresh disappointment awaited them.  The natives of Prince
+William Sound had resembled the Eskimos of Greenland so much that the
+explorers were prepared to find themselves at the westward end of the
+American continent ready to round north into the Atlantic.  A long
+ledge of land projected into the sea.  They called this Cape Elizabeth,
+passed it, noted the reef of sunken rocks lying directly athwart a
+terrific tidal bore, and behold! not the end of the continent--no, not
+by a thousand miles--but straight across westward, beneath a smoking
+volcano that tinged the fog ruby-red, a lofty, naked spur three miles
+out into the sea, with crest hidden among the clouds and rock-base
+awash in thundering breakers.  This was called Cape Douglas.  Between
+these two capes was a tidal flood of perhaps sixty miles' breadth.
+Where did it come from?  Up went hopes again for the Northeast Passage,
+and the twenty thousand pounds!  Spite of driftwood, and roily waters,
+and a flood that ran ten miles an hour, and a tidal bore that rose
+twenty feet, up the passage they tacked, east to west, west to east,
+plying up half the month of June in rain and sleet, with the heavy pall
+of black smoke {192} rolling from the volcano left far on the offing!
+At last the opening was seen to turn abruptly straight east.  Out
+rattled the small boats.  Up the muddy waters they ran for nine miles
+till salt water became fresh water, and the explorers found themselves
+on a river.  In irony, this point was called Turn-Again.  The whole bay
+is now known as Cook's Inlet.  Mr. King was sent ashore on the south
+side of Turn-Again to take possession.  Twenty natives in sea-otter
+skins stood by watching the ceremony of flag unfurled and the land of
+their fathers being declared the possession of England.  These natives
+were plainly acquainted with the use of iron; but "I will be bold to
+say," relates Cook, "they do not know the Russians, or they would not
+be wearing these valuable sea-otter skins."
+
+No Northeast Passage here!  So out they ply again for open sea through
+misty weather; and when it clears, they are in the green treeless
+region west of Cook's Inlet.  Past Kadiak, past Bering's Foggy Island,
+past the Shumagins where Bering's first sailor to die of scurvy had
+been buried, past volcanoes throwing up immense quantities of blood-red
+smoke, past pinnacled rocks, through mists so thick the roar of the
+breakers is their only guide, they glide, or drift, or move by inches
+feeling the way cautiously, fearful of wreck.
+
+Toward the end of June a great hollow green swell swings them through
+the straits past Oonalaska, northward at last!  Natives are seen in
+green trousers {193} and European shirts; natives who take off their
+hats and make a bow after the pompous fashion of the Russians.
+
+Twice natives bring word to Cook by letter and sign that the Russians
+of Oonalaska wish to see him.  But Captain Cook is not anxious to see
+the Russians just now.  He wants to forestall their explorations
+northward and take possession of the Polar realm for England.  In
+August they are in Bristol Bay, north of the Aleutians, directly
+opposite Asia.  Here Dr. Anderson, the surgeon, dies of consumption.
+Not so much fog now.  They can follow the mainland.  Far ahead there
+projects straight out in the sea a long spit of land backed by high
+hills, the westernmost point of North America--Cape Prince of Wales!
+Bering is vindicated!  Just fifty years from Bering's exploration of
+1728, the English navigator finds what Bering found: that America and
+Asia are _not_ united; that no Northeast Passage exists; that no great
+oceanic body lies north of New Spain; that Alaska--as the Russian maps
+had it after Bering's death--is not an island.
+
+Wind, rain, roily, shoaly seas breaking clear over the ship across
+decks drove Cook out from land to deeper water.  With an Englishman's
+thoroughness for doing things and to make deadly sure just how the two
+continents lay to each other, Cook now scuds across Bering Strait
+thirty-nine miles to the Chukchee land of Siberia in Asia.  How he
+praises the accuracy of poor {194} Bering's work along this coast:
+Bering, whose name had been a target for ridicule and contempt from the
+time of his death; whose death was declared a blunder; whose voyage was
+considered a failure; whose charts had been rejected and distorted by
+the learned men of the world.
+
+[Illustration: The Ice Islands.]
+
+From the Chukchee villages of Asia, Cook sailed back to the American
+coast, passing north of Bering Straits directly in mid-channel.  It is
+an odd thing, while very little ice-drift is met in Bering Sea, you
+have no sooner passed north of the straits than a white world surrounds
+you.  Fog, ice, ice, fog--endlessly, with palisades of ice twelve feet
+high, east and west, far as the eye can see!  The crew amuse themselves
+alternately gathering driftwood for fuel, and hunting {195} walrus over
+the ice.  It is in the North Pacific that the walrus attains its great
+size--nine feet in length, broader across its back than any animal
+known to the civilized world.  These piebald yellow monsters lay
+wallowing in herds of hundreds on the ice-fields.  At the edge lay
+always one on the watch; and no matter how dense the fog, these walrus
+herds on the ice, braying and roaring till the surf shook, acted as a
+fog-horn to Cook's ships, and kept them from being jammed in the
+ice-drift.  Soon two-thirds of the furs got at Nootka had spoiled of
+rain-rot.  The vessels were iced like ghost ships.  Tack back and
+forward as they might, no passage opened through the ice.  Suddenly
+Cook found himself in shoal water, on a lee shore, long and low and
+shelving, with the ice drifting on his ships.  He called the place Icy
+Cape.  It was their farthest point north; and the third week of August
+they were compelled to scud south to escape the ice.  Backing away
+toward Asia, he reached the North Cape there.  It was almost September.
+In accordance with the secret instructions, Cook turned south to winter
+at the Sandwich Islands, passing Serdze Kamen, where Bering had turned
+back in 1728, East Cape on the Straits of Bering just opposite the
+American Prince of Wales, and St. Lawrence islands where the ships
+anchored.
+
+Norton Sound was explored on the way back; and October saw Cook down at
+Oonalaska, where Ledyard was sent overland across the island to conduct
+the {196} Russian traders to the English ships.  Three Russians came to
+visit Cook.  One averred that he had been with Bering on the expedition
+of 1741, and the rough adventurers seemed almost to worship the Dane's
+memory.  Later came Ismyloff, chief factor of the Russian fur posts in
+Oonalaska, attended by a retinue of thirty native canoes, very suave as
+to manners, very polished and pompous when he was not too convivial,
+but very chary of any information to the English, whose charts he
+examined with keenest interest, giving them to understand that the
+Empress of Russia had first claim to all those parts of the country,
+rising, quaffing a glass and bowing profoundly as he mentioned the
+august name.  "Friends and fellow-countrymen glorious," the English
+were to the smooth-tongued Russian, as they drank each other's health.
+Learning that Cook was to visit Avacha Bay, Ismyloff proffered a letter
+of introduction to Major Behm, Russian commander of Kamchatka.  Cook
+thought the letter one of commendation.  It turned out otherwise.  Fur
+traders, world over, always resented the coming of the explorer.
+Ismyloff was neither better nor worse than his kind.[2]
+
+Heavy squalls pursued the ships all the way from Oonalaska, left on
+October 26, to the Sandwich Islands, reached in the new year 1779.  A
+thousand canoes of enthusiastic natives welcomed Cook back to the sunny
+islands of the Pacific.  Before the explorer {197} could anchor,
+natives were swimming round the ship like shoals of fish.  When Cook
+landed, the whole population prostrated itself at his feet as if he had
+been a god.  It was a welcome change from the desolate cold of the
+inhospitable north.
+
+Situated midway in the Pacific, the Sandwich Islands were like an oasis
+in a watery waste to Cook's mariners.  The ships had dropped anchor in
+the centre of a horn-shaped bay called Karakakooa, in Hawaii, about two
+miles from horn to horn.  On the sandy flats of the north horn was the
+native village of Kowrowa: amid the cocoanut grove of the other horn,
+the village of Kakooa, with a well and Morai, or sacred burying-ground,
+close by.  Between the two villages alongshore ran a high ledge of
+black coral rocks.  In all there were, perhaps, four hundred houses in
+the two villages, with a population of from two to three thousand
+warriors; but the bay was the rallying place for the entire group of
+islands; and the islands numbered in all several hundred thousand
+warriors.
+
+Picture, then, the scene to these wanderers of the northern seas: the
+long coral reef, wave-washed by bluest of seas; the little village and
+burying-ground and priests' houses nestling under the cocoanut grove at
+one end of the semicircular bay, the village where Terreeoboo, king of
+the island, dwelt on the long sand beach at the other end; and swimming
+through the water like shoals of fish, climbing over the ships' rigging
+like monkeys, crowding the decks of the _Discovery_ {198} so that the
+ship heeled over till young chief Pareea began tossing the intruders by
+the scuff of the neck back into the sea--hundreds, thousands, of
+half-naked, tawny-skinned savages welcoming the white men back to the
+islands discovered by them.  Chief among the visitors to the ship was
+Koah, a little, old, emaciated, shifty-eyed priest with a wry neck and
+a scaly, leprous skin, who at once led the small boats ashore, driving
+the throngs back with a magic wand and drawing a mystic circle with his
+wizard stick round a piece of ground near the Morai, or burying-place,
+where the white men could erect their tents beside the cocoanut groves.
+The magic line was called a _taboo_.  Past the tabooed line of the
+magic wand not a native would dare to go.  Here Captain King, assisted
+by the young midshipman, Vancouver, landed with a guard of eight or ten
+mariners to overhaul the ships' masts, while the rest of the two crews
+obtained provisions by trade.
+
+Cook was carried off to the very centre of the Morai--a circular
+enclosure of solid stone with images and priests' houses at one end,
+the skulls of slain captives at the other.  Here priests and people did
+the white explorer homage as to a god, sacrificing to him their most
+sacred animal--a strangled pig.
+
+All went well for the first few days.  A white gunner, who died, was
+buried within the sacred enclosure of the Morai.  The natives loaded
+the white men's boats with provisions.  In ten days the wan, gaunt
+{199} sailors were so sleek and fat that even the generous entertainers
+had to laugh at the transformation.  Old King Terreeoboo came clothed
+in a cloak of gaudy feathers with spears and daggers at his belt and a
+train of priestly retainers at his heels to pay a visit of state to
+Cook; and a guard of mariners was drawn up at arms under the cocoanut
+grove to receive the visitor with fitting honor.  When the king learned
+that Cook was to leave the bay early in February, a royal proclamation
+gathered presents for the ships; and Cook responded by a public display
+of fireworks.
+
+Now it is a sad fact that when a highly civilized people meet an
+uncivilized people, each race celebrates the occasion by appropriating
+all the evil qualities of the other.  Vices, not virtues, are the first
+to fraternize.  It was as unfair of Cook's crew to judge the islanders
+by the rabble swarming out to steal from the ships, as it would be for
+a newcomer to judge the people of New York by the pickpockets and
+under-world of the water front.  And it must not be forgotten that the
+very quality that had made Cook successful--the quality to dare--was a
+danger to him here.  The natives did not violate the sacred _taboo_,
+which the priest had drawn round the white men's quarters of the grove.
+It was the white men who violated it by going outside the limit; and
+the conduct of the white sailors for the sixteen days in port was
+neither better nor worse than the conduct of sailors to-day who go on a
+wild spree with the lowest elements of the harbor.  {200} The savages
+were quick to find out that the white gods were after all only men.
+The true story of what happened could hardly be written by Captain
+King, who finished Cook's journal; though one can read between the
+lines King's fear of his commander's rashness.  The facts of the case
+are given by the young American, John Ledyard, of Connecticut, who was
+corporal of marines and in the very thick of the fight.
+
+At the end of two weeks the white seamen were, perhaps, satiated of
+their own vices, or suffering from the sore head that results from
+prolonged spreeing.  At all events the thieving, which had been
+condoned at first, was now punished by soundly flogging the natives.
+The old king courteously hinted it was time for the white men to go.
+The mate, who was loading masts and rudder back on board the
+_Resolution_, asked the savages to give him a hand.  The islanders had
+lost respect for the white men of such flagrant vices.  They pretended
+to give a helping hand, but only jostled the mate about in the crowd.
+The Englishman lost his temper, struck out, and blustered.  The shore
+rang with the shrill laughter of the throngs.  In vain the chiefs of
+authority interposed.  The commands to help the white men were answered
+by showers of stones directly inside the _taboo_.  Ledyard was ordered
+out with a guard of sailors to protect the white men loading the
+_Resolution_.  The guard was pelted black and blue.  "There was nothing
+to do," relates Ledyard, "but move to new lands where our vices {201}
+were not known."  At last all was in readiness to sail--one thing alone
+lacking--wood; and the white men dare not go inland for the needed wood.
+
+So far the entire blame rested on the sailors.  Now Cook committed his
+cardinal error.  With that very dare and quickness to utilize every
+available means to an end--whether the end justified the means--Cook
+ordered his men ashore to seize the rail fence round the top of the
+stone burying-ground--the sacred Morai--as fuel for his ships.  Out
+rushed the priests from the enclosure in dire distress.  Was this their
+reward for protecting Cook with the wand of the sacred _taboo_?  Two
+hatchets were offered the leading priest as pay.  He spurned them as
+too loathsome to be touched.  Leading the way, Cook ordered his men to
+break the fence down, and proffered three hatchets, thrusting them into
+the folds of the priest's garment.  Pale and quivering with rage, the
+priest bade a slave remove the profaning iron.  Down tumbled the fence!
+Down the images on poles!  Down the skulls of the dead sacred to the
+savage as the sepulchre to the white man!  It may be said to the credit
+of the crew, that the men were thoroughly frightened at what they were
+ordered to do; but they were not too frightened to carry away the
+images as relics.  Cook alone was blind to risk.  As if to add the last
+straw to the Hawaiians' endurance, when the ships unmoored and sailed
+out from the bay, where but two weeks before they had been so royally
+welcomed, they carried {202} eloping wives and children from the lower
+classes of the two villages.
+
+It was one of the cases where retribution came so swift it was like a
+living Nemesis.  If the weather had continued fair, doubtless wives and
+children would have been dumped off at some near harbor, the incident
+considered a joke, and the Englishmen gone merrily on their way; but a
+violent gale arose.  Women and children were seized with a seasickness
+that was no joke.  The decks resounded with such wails that Cook had to
+lie to in the storm, put off the pinnace, and send the visitors ashore.
+What sort of a tale they carried back, we may guess.  Meanwhile the
+storm had snapped the foremast of the _Resolution_.  As if rushing on
+his ruin, Cook steered back for the bay and anchored midway between the
+two villages.  Again the tents were pitched beside the Morai under the
+cocoanut groves.  Again the wand was drawn round the tenting place; but
+the white men had taught the savages that the _taboo_ was no longer
+sacred.  Where thousands had welcomed the ships before, not a soul now
+appeared.  Not a canoe cut the waters.  Not a voice broke the silence
+of the bay.
+
+The sailors were sour; Cook, angry.  When the men rowed to the villages
+for fresh provisions, they were pelted with stones.  When at night-time
+the savages came to the ships with fresh food, they asked higher prices
+and would take only daggers and knives in pay.  Only by firing its
+great guns could the {203} _Discovery_ prevent forcible theft by the
+savages offering provisions; and in the scuffle of pursuit after one
+thief, Pareea--a chief most friendly to the whites--was knocked down by
+a white man's oar.  "I am afraid," remarked Cook, "these people will
+compel me to use violent measures."  As if to test the mettle of the
+tacit threat, Sunday, daybreak, February 14, revealed that the large
+rowboat of the _Discovery_ had been stolen.
+
+When Captain King, who had charge of the guard repairing the masts over
+under the cocoanut grove came on board Sunday morning, he found Cook
+loading his gun, with a line of soldiers drawn up to go ashore in order
+to allure the ruler of the islands on board, and hold him as hostage
+for the restitution of the lost boat.  Clerke, of the _Discovery_, was
+too far gone in consumption to take any part.  Cook led the way on the
+pinnace with Ledyard and six marines.  Captain King followed in the
+launch with as many more.  All the other small boats of the two ships
+were strung across the harbor from Kakooa, where the grove was, to
+Kowrowa, where the king dwelt, with orders to fire on any canoe trying
+to escape.
+
+Before the fearless leader, the savages prostrated themselves in the
+streets.  Cook strode like a conqueror straight to the door of the
+king's abode.  It was about nine in the morning.  Old Terreeoboo--peace
+lover and lazy--was just awake and only too willing to go aboard with
+Cook as the easiest way out {204} of the trouble about the stolen boat.
+But just here the high-handedness of Cook frustrated itself.  That line
+of small boats stretched across the harbor began firing at an escaping
+canoe.  A favorite chief was killed.  Word of the killing came as the
+old king was at the water's edge to follow Cook; and a wife caught him
+by the arm to drag him back.  Suddenly a throng of a thousand
+surrounded the white men.  Some one stabs at Phillips of the marines.
+Phillips's musket comes down butt-end on the head of the assailant.  A
+spear is thrust in Cook's very face.  He fires blank shot.  The
+harmlessness of the shot only emboldens the savages.  Women are seen
+hurrying off to the hills; men don their war mats.  There is a rush of
+the white men to get positions along the water edge free for striking
+room; of the savages to prevent the whites' escape.  A stone hits Cook.
+"What man did that?" thunders Cook; and he shoots the culprit dead.
+Then the men in the boats lose their heads, and are pouring volleys of
+musketry into the crowds.
+
+"It is hopeless," mutters Cook to Phillips; but amid a shower of stones
+above the whooping of the savages, he turns with his back to the crowd,
+and shouts for the two small boats to cease firing and pull in for the
+marines.  His caution came too late.
+
+His back is to his assailants.  An arm reached out--a hand with a
+dagger; and the dagger rips quick as a flash under Cook's
+shoulder-blade.  He fell without a groan, face in the water, and was
+hacked to pieces {205} before the eyes of his men.  Four marines had
+already fallen.  Phillips and Ledyard and the rest jumped into the sea
+and swam for their lives.  The small boats were twenty yards out.
+Scarcely was Phillips in the nearest, when a wounded sailor, swimming
+for refuge, fainted and sank to the bottom.  Though half stunned from a
+stone blow on his head and bleeding from a stab in the back, Phillips
+leaped to the rescue, dived to bottom, caught the exhausted sailor by
+the hair of the head and so snatched him into the boat.  The dead and
+the arms of the fugitives had been deserted in the wild scramble for
+life.
+
+[Illustration: The Death of Cook.]
+
+Meanwhile the masts of the _Resolution_, guarded by {206} only six
+marines, were exposed to the warriors of the other village at the
+cocoanut grove.  Protected by the guns of the two ships under the
+direction of Clerke, who now became commander, masts and men were got
+aboard by noon.  At four that afternoon, Captain King rowed toward
+shore for Cook's body.  He was met by the little leprous priest Koah,
+swimming halfway out.  Though tears of sorrow were in Koah's
+treacherous red-rimmed eyes as he begged that Clerke and King might
+come ashore to parley.  King judged it prudent to hold tightly on the
+priest's spear handle while the two embraced.
+
+Night after night for a week, the conch-shells blew their challenge of
+defiance to the white men.  Fires rallying to war danced on the
+hillsides.  Howls and shouts of derision echoed from the shore.  The
+stealthy paddle of treacherous spies could be heard through the dark
+under the keel of the white men's ships.  Cook's clothing, sword, hat,
+were waved in scorn under the sailors' faces.  The women had hurried to
+the hills.  The old king was hidden in a cave, where he could be
+reached only by a rope ladder; and emissary after emissary tried to
+lure the whites ashore.  One pitch-dark night, paddles were heard under
+the keels.  The sentinels fired; but by lantern light two terrified
+faces appeared above the rail of the _Resolution_.  Two frightened,
+trembling savages crawled over the deck, prostrated themselves at
+Clerke's feet, and slowly unrolled a small wrapping of cloth that
+revealed a small {207} piece of human flesh--the remains of Cook.  Dead
+silence fell on the horrified crew.  Then Clerke's stern answer was
+that unless the bones of Cook were brought to the ships, both native
+villages would be destroyed.  The two savages were former friends of
+Cook's and warned the whites not to be allured on land, nor to trust
+Koah, the leper priest, on the ships.
+
+Again the conch-shells blew their challenge all night through the
+darkness.  Again the war fires danced; but next morning the guns of the
+_Discovery_ were trained on Koah, when he tried to come on board.  That
+day sailors were landed for water and set fire to the village of the
+cocoanut groves to drive assailants back.  How quickly human nature may
+revert to the beast type!  When the white sailors returned from this
+skirmish, they carried back to the ships with them, the heads of two
+Hawaiians they had slain.  By Saturday, the 20th, masts were in place
+and the boats ready to sail.  Between ten and eleven o'clock in the
+morning, a long procession of people was seen filing slowly down the
+hills preceded by drummers and a white flag.  Word was signalled that
+Cook's bones were on shore to be delivered.  Clerke put out in a small
+boat to receive the dead commander's remains--from which all flesh had
+been burned.  On Sunday, the 21st, the entire bay was tabooed.  Not a
+native came out of the houses.  Silence lay over the waters.  The
+funeral service was read on board the _Resolution_, and the coffin
+committed to the deep.
+
+{208} A curious reception awaited the ships at Avacha Bay, Kamchatka,
+whence they now sailed.  Ismyloff's letter commending the explorers to
+the governor of Avacha Bay brought thirty Cossack soldiers floundering
+through the shore ice of Petropaulovsk under the protection of pointed
+cannon.  Ismyloff, with fur trader's jealousy of intrusion, had warned
+the Russian commander that the English ships were pirates like
+Benyowsky, the Polish exile, who had lately sacked the garrisons of
+Kamchatka, stolen the ships, and sailed to America.  However, when
+Cook's letters were carried overland to Bolcheresk, to Major Behm, the
+commander, all went well.  The little log-thatched fort with its
+windows of talc opened wide doors to the far-travelled English.  The
+Russian ladies of the fort donned their China silks.  The samovars were
+set singing.  English sailors gave presents of their grog to the
+Russians.  Russian Cossacks presented their tobacco to the English,
+adding three such cheers as only Cossacks can give and a farewell song.
+
+In 1779 Clerke made one more attempt to pass through the northern
+ice-fields from Pacific to Atlantic; but he accomplished nothing but to
+go over the ground explored the year before under Cook.  On the 5th of
+July at ten P.M. in the lingering sunlight of northern latitudes, just
+as the boats were halfway through the Straits of Bering, the fog
+lifted, and for the first time in history--as far as known--the
+westernmost part of America, Cape Prince of Wales, and the {209}
+eastern-most part of Asia, East Cape, were simultaneously seen by white
+men.
+
+Finding it impossible to advance eastward, Clerke decided there was no
+Northeast Passage by way of the Pacific to the Atlantic; and on the
+21st of July, to the cheers of his sailors, announced that the ships
+would turn back for England.[3]
+
+Poor Clerke died of consumption on the way, August 22, 1779, only
+thirty-eight years of age, and was buried at Petropaulovsk beside La
+Croyere de l'Isle, who perished on the Bering expedition.  The boats
+did not reach England till October of 1780.  They had not won the
+reward of twenty thousand pounds; but they had charted a strange coast
+for a distance of three thousand five hundred miles, and paved the way
+for the vast commerce that now plies between Occident and Orient.[4]
+
+
+
+[1] The question may occur, why in the account of Cook's and Bering's
+voyage, the latitude is not oftener given.  The answer is, the
+latitudes as given by Cook and Bering vary so much from the modern, it
+would only confuse the reader trying to follow a modern map.
+
+[2] This is the Ismyloff who was marooned by Benyowsky.
+
+[3] The authority for Cook's adventures is, of course, his own journal,
+_Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, London, 1784, supplemented by the
+letters and journals of men who were with him, like Ledyard, Vancouver,
+Portlock, and Dixon, and others.
+
+[4] In reiterating the impossibility of finding a passage from ocean to
+ocean, either northeast or northwest, no disparagement is cast on such
+feats as that of Nordenskjoeld along the north of Asia, in the _Vega_ in
+1882.
+
+By "passage" is meant a waterway practicable for ocean vessels, not for
+the ocean freak of a specially constructed Arctic vessel that dodges
+for a year or more among the ice-floes in an endeavor to pass from
+Atlantic to Pacific, or _vice versa_.
+
+
+
+
+{210}
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+1785-1792
+
+ROBERT GRAY, THE AMERICAN DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA
+
+Boston Merchants, inspired by Cook's Voyages, outfit two Vessels under
+Kendrick and Gray for Discovery and Trade on the Pacific--Adventures of
+the First Ship to carry the American Flag around the World--Gray
+attacked by Indians at Tillamook Bay--His Discovery of the Columbia
+River on the Second Voyage--Fort Defence and the First American Ship
+built on the Pacific
+
+
+It is an odd thing that wherever French or British fur traders went to
+a new territory, they found the Indians referred to American traders,
+not as "Americans," but "Bostons" or "_Bostonnais_."  The reason was
+plain.  Boston merchants won a reputation as first to act.  It was they
+who began a certain memorable "Boston Tea Party"; and before the rest
+of the world had recovered the shock of that event, these same
+merchants were planning to capture the trade of the Pacific Ocean, get
+possession of all the Pacific coast not already preempted by Spain,
+Russia, or England, and push American commerce across the Pacific to
+Asia.
+
+{211} What with slow printing-presses and slow travel, the account of
+Cook's voyages on the Pacific did not become generally known in the
+United States till 1785 or 1786.  Sitting round the library of Dr.
+Bulfinch's residence on Bowdoin Square in Boston one night in 1787,
+were half a dozen adventurous spirits for whom Cook's account of the
+fur trade on the Pacific had an irresistible fascination.  There was
+the doctor himself.  There was his son, Charles, of Harvard, just back
+from Europe and destined to become famous as an architect.  There was
+Joseph Barrell, a prosperous merchant.  There was John Derby, a
+shipmaster of Salem, a young man still, but who, nevertheless, had
+carried news of Lexington to England.  Captain Crowell Hatch of
+Cambridge, Samuel Brown, a trader of Boston, and John Marden Pintard of
+the New York firm of Lewis Pintard Company were also of the little
+coterie.
+
+[Illustration: Departure of the _Columbia_ and the _Lady Washington_.
+Drawn by George Davidson, a member of the Expedition.  Photographed by
+courtesy of the present owner, Mrs. Abigail Quincy Twombly.]
+
+If Captain Cook's crew had sold one-third of a water-rotted cargo of
+otter furs in China for ten thousand dollars, why, these Boston men
+asked themselves, could not ships fitted expressly for the fur trade
+capture a fortune in trade on that unoccupied strip of coast between
+Russian Alaska, on the north, and New Spain, on the south?
+
+"There is a rich harvest to be reaped by those who are on the ground
+first out there," remarked Joseph Barrell.
+
+Then the thing was to be on the ground first--that {212} was the
+unanimous decision of the shrewd-headed men gathered in Bulfinch's
+study.
+
+[Illustration: Charles Bulfinch.]
+
+The sequence was that Charles Bulfinch and the other five at once
+formed a partnership with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, divided
+into fourteen shares, for trade on the Pacific.  This was ten years
+before Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia, almost twenty years before
+Astor had thought of his Pacific Company.  The Columbia, a full-rigged
+two-decker, two hundred and twelve tons and eighty-three feet long,
+mounting {213} ten guns, which had been built fourteen years before on
+Hobart's Landing, North River, was immediately purchased.  But a
+smaller ship to cruise about inland waters and collect furs was also
+needed; and for this purpose the partners bought the _Lady Washington_,
+a little sloop of ninety tons.  Captain John Kendrick of the merchant
+marine was chosen to command the _Columbia_, Robert Gray, a native of
+Rhode Island, who had served in the revolutionary navy, a friend of
+Kendrick's, to be master of the _Lady Washington_.  Kendrick was of
+middle age, cautious almost to indecision; but Gray was younger with
+the daring characteristic of youth.
+
+In order to insure a good reception for the ships, letters were
+obtained from the federal government to foreign powers.  Massachusetts
+furnished passports; and the Spanish minister to the United States gave
+letters to the viceroy of New Spain.  Just how the information of
+Boston plans to intrude on the Pacific coast was received by New Spain
+may be judged by the confidential commands at once issued from Santa
+Barbara to the Spanish officer at San Francisco: "_Whenever there may
+arrive at the Port of San Francisco, a ship named the Columbia said to
+belong to General Wanghington (Washington) of the American States,
+under command of John Kendrick which sailed from Boston in September
+1787 bound on a voyage of Discovery and of Examination of the Russian
+Establishments on the Northern Coast of this Peninsula, you {214} will
+cause said vessel to be secured together with her officers and crew._"
+
+Orders were also given Kendrick and Gray to avoid offence to any
+foreign power, to treat the natives with kindness and Christianity, to
+obtain a cargo of furs on the American coast, to proceed with the same
+to China to be exchanged for a cargo of tea, and to return to Boston
+with the tea.  The holds of the vessels were then stowed with every
+trinket that could appeal to the savage heart, beads, brass buttons,
+ear-rings, calico, tin mirrors, blankets, hunting-knives, copper
+kettles, iron chisels, snuff, tobacco.  The crews were made up of the
+very best class of self-respecting sea-faring men.  Woodruff,
+Kendrick's first mate, had been with Cook.  Joseph Ingraham, the second
+mate, rose to become a captain.  Robert Haswell, the third mate, was
+the son of a British naval officer.  Richard Howe went as accountant;
+Dr. Roberts, as surgeon; Nutting, formerly a teacher, as astronomer;
+and Treat, as fur trader.  Davis Coolidge was the first mate under Gray
+on the _Lady Washington_.
+
+
+Some heroes blunder into glory.  These didn't.  They deliberately set
+out with the full glory of their venture in view.  Whatever the profit
+and loss account might show when they came back, they were well aware
+that they were attempting the very biggest and most venturesome thing
+the newly federated states had essayed in the way of exploration and
+trade.  To {215} commemorate the event, Joseph Barrell had medals
+struck in bronze and silver showing the two vessels on one side, the
+names of the outfitters on the other.  All Saturday afternoon sailors
+and officers came trundling down to the wharf, carpet bags and seamen's
+chests in tow, to be rowed out where the Columbia and Lady Washington
+lay at anchor.  Boston was a Sabbath-observing city in those days; but
+even Boston could not keep away from the two ships heaving to the tide,
+which for the first time in American history were to sail around an
+unknown world.  All Saturday night and Sunday morning the sailors
+scoured the decks and put berths shipshape; and all Sunday afternoon
+the visitors thronged the decks.  By night outfitters and relatives
+were still on board.  The medals of commemoration were handed round.
+Health and good luck and God speed were drunk unto the heel taps.
+Songs resounded over the festive board.  It was all "mirth and glee"
+writes one of the men on {216} board.  But by daybreak the ships had
+slipped cables.  The tide, that runs from round the underworld, raced
+bounding to meet them.  A last dip of land behind; and on Monday,
+October 1, 1787, the ships' prows were cleaving the waters of their
+fate.
+
+[Illustration: Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_
+cruise.]
+
+
+The course lay from Boston to Cape Verde Islands, from Verde Islands to
+the Falklands north of Cape Horn, round Cape Horn, up the west coast of
+South America, touching at Masafuera and Juan Fernandez, and thence,
+without pause, to the west coast of North America.  At Cape Verde, Gray
+hired a valet, a colored boy, Marcus Lopez, destined to play an
+important part later.  Crossing the equator, the sailors became
+hilarious, playing the usual pranks of ducking the men fresh to
+equatorial waters.  So long did the ships rest at the Verde Islands,
+taking in fresh provisions, that it was January before the Falkland
+Islands were reached.  Here Kendrick's caution became almost fear.  He
+was averse to rounding the stormy Horn in winter.  Roberts, the
+surgeon, and Woodruff, who had been with Cook, had become disgusted
+with Kendrick's indecision at Cape Verde, and left, presumably taking
+passage back on some foreign cruiser.  Haswell, then, went over as
+first mate to Gray.  Mountain seas and smashing gales assailed the
+ships from the time they headed for the Horn in April of 1788.  The
+_Columbia_ was tossed clear up on her beam ends, and sea after sea
+crashed over the little {217} _Lady Washington_, drenching everything
+below decks like soap-suds in a rickety tub.  Then came a hurricane of
+cold winds coating the ship in ice like glass, till the yard-arms
+looked like ghosts.  Between scurvy and cold, there was not a sailor
+fit to man the decks.  Somewhere down at 57 degrees south, westward of
+the Horn, the smashing seas and driving winds separated the two ships;
+but as they headed north, bright skies and warm winds welcomed them to
+the Pacific.  At Masafuera, off Chile, the ships would have landed for
+fresh water; but a tremendous backwash of surf forewarned reefs; and
+the _Lady Washington_ stretched her sails for the welcome warm winds,
+and tacked with all speed to the north.  A few weeks later, Kendrick
+was compelled to put in for Juan Fernandez to repair the _Columbia_ and
+rest his scurvy-stricken crew.  They were given all aid by the governor
+of the island, who was afterward reprimanded by the viceroy of Chile
+and degraded from office for helping these invaders of the South Seas.
+
+Meantime the little sloop, guided by the masterful and enthusiastic
+Gray, showed her heels to the sea.  Soon a world of deep-sea, tropical
+wonders was about the American adventurers.  The slime of medusa lights
+lined the long foam trail of the _Lady Washington_ each night.
+Dolphins raced the ship, herd upon herd, their silver-white bodies
+aglisten in the sun.  Schools of spermaceti-whales to the number of
+twenty at a time gambolled lazily around the prow.  Stormy petrels,
+{218} flying-fish, sea-lions, began to be seen as the boat passed north
+of the seas bordering New Spain.  Gentle winds and clear sunlight
+favored the ship all June.  The long, hard voyage began to be a summer
+holiday on warm, silver seas.  The _Lady Washington_ headed inland, or
+where land should be, where Francis Drake two centuries before had
+reported that he had found New Albion.  On August 2, somewhere near
+what is now Cape Mendocino, daylight revealed a rim of green forested
+hills above the silver sea.  It was New Albion, north of New Spain, the
+strip of coast they had come round the world to find.  Birds in myriads
+on myriads screamed the joy that the crew felt over their find; but a
+frothy ripple told of reefs; and the _Lady Washington_ coasted parallel
+with the shore-line northward.  On August 4, while the surf still broke
+with too great violence for a landing, a tiny speck was seen dancing
+over the waves like a bird.  As the distance lessened, the speck grew
+and resolved itself to a dugout, or long canoe, carved with bizarre
+design stem and stern, painted gayly on the keel, carrying ten Indians,
+who blew birds' down of friendship in midair, threw open their arms
+without weapons, and made every sign of friendship.  Captain Gray
+tossed them presents over the deck rail; but the whistle of a gale
+through the riggings warned to keep off the rock shore; and the sloop's
+prow cut waves for the offing.  All night camp-fires and columns of
+smoke could be seen on shore, showing that the coast was inhabited.
+Under {219} clouds of sail, the sloop beat north for ten days, passing
+many savages, some of whom held up sea-otter to trade, others running
+along the shore brandishing their spears and shouting their war-cry.
+Two or three at a time were admitted on board to trade; but they
+evinced such treacherous distrust, holding knives ready to strike in
+their right hand, that Gray was cautious.
+
+During the adverse wind they had passed one opening on the coast that
+resembled the entrance to a river.  Was this the fabled river of the
+West, that Indians said ran to the setting sun?  Away up in the
+Athabasca Country of Canadian wilds was another man, Alexander
+Mackenzie, setting to himself that same task of finding the great river
+of the West.  Besides, in 1775, Heceta, the Spanish navigator from
+Monterey, had drifted close to this coast with a crew so stricken with
+scurvy not a man could hoist anchor or reef sails.  Heceta thought he
+saw the entrance to a river; but was unable to come within twenty miles
+of the opening to verify his supposition.  And now Gray's crew were on
+the watch for that supposed river; but more mundane things than glory
+had become pressing needs.  Water was needed for drinking.  The ship
+was out of firewood.  The live stock must have hay; and in the crew of
+twelve, three-quarters were ill of the scurvy.  These men must be taken
+ashore.  Somewhere near what is now Cape Lookout, or Tillamook Bay, the
+rowboat was launched to sound, safe anchorage found, and the _Lady
+Washington_ towed in harbor.
+
+{220} The _Lady Washington_ had anchored about half a mile from shore,
+but the curiously carved canoes came dancing over the waves in myriads.
+Gray noticed the natives were all armed with spears and knives, but
+they evinced great friendliness, bringing the crew baskets of berries
+and boiled crabs and salmon, in exchange for brass buttons.  They had
+anchored at ten on the night of August 14, and by the afternoon of the
+15th the Indians were about the sloop in great numbers, trading otter
+skins for knives, axes, and other arms--which, in itself, ought to have
+put the crew on guard.  When the white men went ashore for wood and
+water, the Indians stood silently by, weapons in hand, but offered no
+hostility.  On the third day in harbor an old chief came on board
+followed by a great number of warriors, all armed.  Gray kept careful
+guard, and the old Indian departed in possession of the stimulating
+fact that only a dozen hands manned the _Lady Washington_.  Waiting for
+the tide the next afternoon, Haswell and Coolidge, the two mates, were
+digging clams on shore.  Lopez, the black man, and seven of the crew
+were gathering grass for the stock.  Only three men remained on the
+sloop with Captain Gray.  Only two muskets and three or four cutlasses
+had been brought ashore.  Haswell and Coolidge had their belt pistols
+and swords.  The two mates approached the native village.  The Indians
+began tossing spears, as Haswell thought, to amuse their visitors.
+That failing to inspire these white men, {221} rash as children, with
+fear, the Indians formed a ring, clubbed down their weapons in
+pantomime, and executed all the significant passes of the famous
+war-dance.  "It chilled my veins," says Haswell; and the two mates had
+gone back to their clam digging, when there was a loud, angry shout.
+Glancing just where the rowboat lay rocking abreast the hay cutters,
+Haswell saw an Indian snatch at the cutlass of Lopez, the black, who
+had carelessly stuck it in the sand.  With a wild halloo, the thief
+dashed for the woods, the black in pursuit, mad as a hornet.
+
+Haswell went straight to the chief and offered a reward for the return
+of the sword, or the black man.  The old chief taciturnly signalled for
+Haswell to do his own rescuing.
+
+Theft and flight had both been part of a design to scatter the white
+men.  "They see we are ill armed," remarked Haswell to the other.
+Bidding the boat row abreast with six of the hay cutters, the two mates
+and a third man ran along the beach in the direction Lopez had
+disappeared.  A sudden turn into a grove of trees showed Lopez
+squirming mid a group of Indians, holding the thief by the neck and
+shouting for "help!  help!"  No sooner had the three whites come on the
+scene, than the Indians plunged their knives in the boy's back.  He
+stumbled, rose, staggered forward, then fell pierced by a flight of
+barbed arrows.  Haswell had only time to see the hostiles fall on his
+body like a pack of wolves on prey, when more Indians {222} emerged
+from the rear, and the whites were between two war parties under a
+shower of spears.  A wild dash was made to head the fugitives off from
+shore.  Haswell and Coolidge turned, pistols in hand, while the rowboat
+drew in.  Another flight of arrows, when the mates let go a charge of
+pistol shot that dropped the foremost three Indians.  Shouting for the
+rowers to fire, Haswell, Coolidge, and the sailor plunged into the
+water.  To make matters worse, the sailor fainted from loss of blood,
+and the pursuers threw themselves into the water with a whoop.  Hauling
+the wounded man in the boat, the whites rowed for dear life.  The
+Indians then launched their canoes to pursue, but by this time Gray had
+the cannon of the _Lady Washington_ trained ashore, and three shots
+drove the hostiles scampering.  For two days tide and wind and a
+thundering surf imprisoned Gray in Murderers' Harbor, where he had
+hoped to find the River of the West, but met only danger.  All night
+the savages kept up their howling; but on the third day the wind
+veered.  All sails set, the sloop scudded for the offing, glad to keep
+some distance between herself and such a dangerous coast.
+
+
+The advantage of a small boat now became apparent.  In the same
+quarter, Cook was compelled to keep out from the coast, and so reported
+there were no Straits of Fuca.  By August 21 the sloop was again close
+enough to the rocky shore to sight the snowy, opal {223} ranges of the
+Olympus Mountains.  By August 26 they had passed the wave-lashed rocks
+of Cape Flattery, and the mate records; "I am of opinion that the
+Straits of Fuca exist; for in the very latitude they are said to lie,
+the coast takes a bend, probably the entrance."
+
+[Illustration: Building the first American Ship on the Pacific Coast.
+Photographed by courtesy of Mrs. Abigail Quincy Twombly, a descendant
+of Gray.]
+
+By September, after frequent stops to trade with the Indians, they were
+well abreast of Nootka, where Cook had been ten years before.  A
+terrible ground-swell of surf and back-wash raged over projecting
+reefs.  The Indians, here, knew English words enough to tell Gray that
+Nootka lay farther east, and that a Captain Meares was there with two
+vessels.  A strange sail appeared inside the harbor.  Gray thought it
+was the belated _Columbia_ under Kendrick; but a rowboat came out
+bearing Captain Meares himself, who breakfasted with the Americans on
+September 17, and had his long-boats tow the _Lady Washington_ inside
+Nootka, where Gray was surprised to see two English snows under
+Portuguese colors, with a cannon-mounted garrison on shore, and a
+schooner of thirty tons, the _Northwest-America_, all ready to be
+launched.  This was the first ship built on the northwest coast.  Gray
+himself later built the second.  Amid salvos of cannon from the _Lady
+Washington_, the new fur vessel was launched from her skids; and in her
+honor September 19 was observed as a holiday, Meares and Douglas, the
+two English captains, entertaining Gray and his officers.  Meares had
+come from China in {224} January, and during the summer had been up the
+Straits of Fuca, where another English captain, Barclay, had preceded
+him.  Then Meares had gone south past Flattery, seeking in vain for the
+River of the West.  Gales and breakers had driven him off the coast,
+and the very headland which hid the mouth of the Columbia, he had named
+Cape Disappointment, because he was so sure--in his own words--"that
+the river on the Spanish charts did not exist."  He had also been down
+the coast to that Tillamook, or Cape Meares, where Gray's valet had
+been murdered.  This was in July, a month before the assault on Gray;
+and if Haswell's report of Meares's cruelty be accepted--taking furs by
+force of arms--that may have explained the hostility to the Americans.
+Meares was short of provisions to go to China, and Gray supplied them.
+In return Meares set his workmen to help clean the keel of the _Lady
+Washington_ from barnacles; but the Englishman was a true fur trader to
+the core.  In after-dinner talks, on the day of the launch, he tried to
+frighten the Americans away from the coast.  Not fifty skins in a year
+were to be had, he said.  Only the palisades and cannon protected him
+from the Indians, of whom there were more than two thousand hostiles at
+Nootka, he reported.  They could have his fort for firewood after he
+left.  He had purchased the right to build it from the Indians.
+(Whether he acknowledged that he paid the Indians only two old pistols
+for this privilege, is not recorded.)  At all events, it {225} would
+not be worth while for the Americans to remain on the coast.  The
+Americans listened and smiled.  Meares offered to carry any mail to
+China, and on the 2d was towed out of port by Gray and the other
+English captain, Douglas; but what was Gray's astonishment to receive
+the packet of mail back from Douglas.  Meares had only pretended to
+carry it out in order that none of his crew might be bribed to take it,
+and then had sent it back by his partner, Douglas--true fur trader in
+checkmating the moves of rivals.  Later on, when Meares's men were in
+desperate straits in this same port, they wondered that the Americans
+stood apart from the quarrel, if not actually siding with Spain.
+
+On September 23 appeared a strange sail on the offing--the _Columbia_,
+under Kendrick, sails down and draggled, spars storm-torn, two men dead
+of scurvy, and the crew all ill.
+
+October 1 celebrated a grand anniversary of the departure from Boston
+the previous year.  At precisely midday the _Columbia_ boomed out
+thirteen guns.  The sloop set the echoes rocketing with another
+thirteen.  Douglas's ship roared out a salute of seven cannon shots,
+the fort on land six more, and the day was given up to hilarity, all
+hands dining on board the _Columbia_ with such wild fowl as the best
+game woods in the world afforded, and copious supply of Spanish wines.
+Toasts were drunk to the first United States ship on the Pacific coast
+of America.  On October 26 {226} Douglas's ship and the fur trader,
+_Northwest-America_, were towed out, bound for the Sandwich Islands,
+and the Americans were left alone on the northwest coast, the fort
+having been demolished, and the logs turned over to Kendrick for
+firewood.
+
+[Illustration: Feather Cloak worn by a son of an Hawaiian Chief, at the
+celebration in honor of Gray's return.  Photographed by courtesy of
+Mrs. Joy, the present owner.]
+
+The winter of 1788-1789 passed uneventfully except that the English
+were no sooner out of the harbor, than the Indians, who had kept
+askance of the Americans, came in flocks to trade.  Inasmuch as Cook's
+name is a household word, world over, for what he did on the Pacific
+coast, and Gray's name barely known outside the city of Boston and the
+state of {227} Oregon, it is well to follow Gray's movements on the
+_Lady Washington_.  March found him trading south of Nootka at
+Clayoquot, named Hancock, after the governor of Massachusetts.  April
+saw him fifty miles up the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had said did not
+exist.  Then he headed north again, touching at Nootka, where he found
+Douglas, the Englishman, had come back from the Sandwich Islands with
+the two ships.  Passing out of Nootka at four in the afternoon of May
+1, he met a stately ship, all sails set, twenty guns pointed, under
+Spanish colors, gliding into the harbor.  It was the flag-ship of Don
+Joseph Martinez, sent out to Bering Sea on a voyage of discovery, with
+a consort, and now entering Nootka to take possession in the name of
+Spain.  Martinez examined Gray's passports, learned that the Americans
+had no thought of laying claim to Nootka and, finding out about
+Douglas's ship inside the harbor, seemed to conclude that it would be
+wise to make friends of the Americans; and he presented Gray with
+wines, brandy, hams, and spices.
+
+"She will make a good prize," was his sententious remark to Gray about
+the English ship.
+
+Rounding northward, Gray met the companion ship of the Spanish
+commander.  It will be remembered Cook missed proving that the west
+coast was a chain of islands.  Since Cook's time, Barclay, an
+Englishman, and Meares had been in the Straits of Fuca.  Dixon had
+discovered Queen Charlotte Island; but {228} the cruising of the little
+sloop, _Lady Washington_, covered a greater area than Meares's,
+Barclay's and Dixon's ships together.  First it rounded the north end
+of Vancouver, proving this was island, not continent.  These northern
+waters Gray called Derby Sound, after the outfitter.  He then passed up
+between Queen Charlotte Island and the continent for two hundred miles,
+calling this island Washington.  It was northward of Portland Canal,
+somewhere near what is now Wrangel, that the brave little sloop was
+caught in a terrific gale that raged over her for two hours, damaging
+masts and timbers so that Gray was compelled to turn back from what he
+called Distress Cove, for repairs at Nootka.  At one point off Prince
+of Wales Island, the Indians willingly traded two hundred otter skins,
+worth eight thousand dollars, for an old iron chisel.
+
+In the second week of June the sloop was back at Nootka, where Gray was
+not a little surprised to find the Spanish had erected a fort on Hog
+Island, seized Douglas's vessel, and only released her on condition
+that the little fur trader _Northwest-America_ should become Spanish
+property on entering Nootka.
+
+Gray and Kendrick now exchanged ships, Gray, who had proved himself the
+swifter navigator, going on the _Columbia_, taking Haswell with him as
+mate.  In return for one hundred otter skins, Gray was to carry the
+captured crew of the _Northwest-America_ to China for the Spaniards.
+On July 30, 1789, he left Vancouver Island.  Stop was made at Hawaii
+for {229} provisions, and Atto, the son of a chief, boarded the
+_Columbia_ to visit America.  On December 6 the _Columbia_ delivered
+her cargo of furs to Shaw & Randall of Canton, receiving in exchange
+tea for Samuel Parkman, of Boston.  It was February, 1790, before the
+Columbia was ready to sail for Boston, and dropping down the river she
+passed the _Lady Washington_, under Kendrick, in a cove where the gale
+hid her from Gray.
+
+[Illustration: John Derby, from the portrait by Gilbert Stuart, by
+courtesy of the owner, Dr. George B. Shattuck.]
+
+On August 11, 1790, after rounding Good Hope and touching at St.
+Helena, Gray entered Boston.  It was the first time an American ship
+had gone round the world, almost fifty thousand miles, her log-book
+showed, and salvos of artillery thundered a welcome.  General Lincoln,
+the port collector, was first on board to shake Gray's hand.  The whole
+city of Boston was on the wharf to cheer him home, and the explorer
+walked up the streets side by side with Atto, the Hawaiian boy,
+gorgeous in helmet and cloak of yellow plumage.  Governor Hancock gave
+a public reception to Gray.  The _Columbia_ went to the shipyards to be
+overhauled, and the shareholders met.
+
+
+Owing to the glutting of the market at Canton, the sea-otter had not
+sold well.  Practically the venture of these glory seekers had not
+ended profitably.  The voyage had been at a loss.  Derby and Pintard
+sold out to Barrell and Brown.  But the lure of glory, or the wilds, or
+the venture of the unknown, was on the others.  They decided to send
+the _Columbia_ back at {230} once on a second voyage.  Perhaps, this
+time, she would find that great River of the West, which was to be to
+the Pacific coast what the Hudson was to the East.
+
+[Illustration: Map of Gray's two voyages, resulting in the discovery of
+the Columbia.]
+
+Coolidge and Ingraham now left the _Columbia_ for ventures of their own
+to the Pacific.  Haswell, whose diary, with Gray's log-book, gives all
+details of the voyage, went as first mate.  George Davidson, an artist,
+Samuel Yendell, a carpenter, Haskins, an accountant of Barrell's
+Company, Joshua Caswell of Maiden, Abraham Waters, and John Boit were
+the new men to enlist for the venturesome voyage.  The _Columbia_ left
+Boston for a second voyage September 28, 1790, and reached Clayoquot on
+the west coast of Vancouver Island on June 5, 1791.  True to his
+nature, Gray lost not a day, but was off for the sea-otter harvest of
+the north, up Portland Canal near what is now Alaska.  The dangers of
+the first voyage proved a holiday compared to this trip.  Formerly,
+Gray had treated the Indians with kindness.  Now, he found kindness was
+mistaken only for fear.  Joshua Caswell, Barnes, and Folger had been
+sent up Portland Canal to reconnoitre.  Whether ambushed or openly
+assaulted, they never returned.  Only Caswell's body was found, and
+buried on the beach.  Later, when the grave was revisited, the body had
+been stolen, in all likelihood for cannibal rites, as no more degraded
+savages exist than those of this archipelago.  Over on Queen Charlotte
+Island, Kendrick, who had returned from China on the _Lady Washington_,
+{232} was having his own time.  One day, when all had gone below decks
+to rest, a taunting laugh was heard from the hatchway.  Kendrick rushed
+above to find Indians scrambling over the decks of the _Lady
+Washington_ like a nest of disgruntled hornets.  A warrior flourished
+the key of the ammunition chest, which stood by the hatchway, in
+Kendrick's face with the words: "Key is mine!  So is the ship!"
+
+If Kendrick had hesitated for the fraction of a second, all would have
+been lost, as on Astor's ship a few years later; but before the savages
+had time for any concerted signal, he had seized the speaker by the
+scruff of the neck, and tossed him into the sea.  In a second every
+savage had scuttled over decks; but the scalp of Kendrick's son Solomon
+was found on the beach.  Henceforth neither Kendrick nor Gray allowed
+more than ten savages on board at a time, and Kendrick at once headed
+south to take the harvest of furs to China.  At Nootka things had gone
+from bad to worse between the English and the Spaniards.  Though
+Kendrick bought great tracts of land from the Indian chiefs at Nootka
+for the price of a copper kettle, he judged it prudent to keep away
+from a Spanish commander, whose mission it was to capture the ships of
+rival traders; so the American sloop moored in Clayoquot, south of
+Nootka, where Gray found Kendrick ready to sail for China by September.
+
+At Clayoquot was built the first American fort on the Pacific coast.
+Here Gray erected winter quarters.  {233} The _Columbia_ was unrigged
+and beached.  The dense forest rang with the sound of the choppers.
+The enormous spruce, cedar, and fir trees were hewn into logs for
+several cabins and a barracks, the bark slabs being used as a palisade.
+Inside the main house were quarters for ten men.  Loopholes punctured
+all sides of the house.  Two cannon were mounted outside the window
+embrasures, one inside the gate or door.  The post was named Fort
+Defence.  Sentinels kept guard night and day.  Military discipline was
+maintained, and divine service held each Sunday.  On October 3 timbers
+were laid for a new ship, to be called the _Adventure_, to collect furs
+for the _Columbia_.  All the winter of 1791-1792, Gray visited the
+Indians, sent medicines to their sick, allowed his men to go shooting
+with them, and even nursed one ill chief inside the barracks; but he
+was most careful not to allow women or more than a few warriors inside
+the fort.
+
+What was his horror, then, on February 18, when Atto, the Hawaiian boy,
+came to him with news that the Indians, gathered to the number of two
+thousand, and armed with at least two hundred muskets got in trade, had
+planned the entire extermination of the whites.  They had offered to
+make the Hawaiian boy a great chief among them if he would steal more
+ammunition for the Indians, wet all the priming of the white men's
+arms, and join the conspiracy to let the savages get possession of fort
+and ship.  In the history of American pathfinding, no explorer was ever
+in greater {234} danger.  Less than a score of whites against two
+thousand armed warriors!  Scarcely any ammunition had been brought in
+from the _Columbia_.  All the swivels of the dismantled ship were lying
+on the bank.  Gray instantly took advantage of high tide to get the
+ship on her sea legs, and out from the bank.  Swivels were  trundled
+with all speed back to the decks.  For that night a guard watched the
+fort; but the next night, when the assault was expected, all hands were
+on board, provisions had been stowed in the hold, and small arms were
+loaded.  The men were still to mid-waist in water, scraping barnacles
+from the keel, when a whoop sounded from the shore; but the change in
+the ship's position evidently upset the plans of the savages, for they
+withdrew.  On the morning of the 20th the woods were seen to be alive
+with ambushed men; and Haswell had the cannon loaded with canister
+fired into the woods.  At eleven that very morning, the chief, at the
+head of the plot, came to sell otter skins, and ask if some of the crew
+would not visit the village.  Gray jerked the skins from his arms, and
+the rascal was over decks in terror of his life.  That was the end of
+the plot.  On the 23d the _Adventure_ was launched, the second vessel
+built on the Pacific, the first American vessel built there at all; and
+by April 2 Haswell was ready to go north on her.  Gray on the
+_Columbia_ was going south to have another try at that great River of
+the West, which Spanish charts represented.
+
+{235} Without a doubt, if the river existed at all, it was down behind
+that Cape Disappointment where Meares had failed to go in, and Heceta
+been driven back.  Just what Gray did between April 2 and May 7 is a
+matter of guessing.  Anyway, Captain George Vancouver sent out from
+England to settle the dispute about Nootka, at six o'clock on the
+morning of April 29, just off the wave-lashed rocks of Cape Flattery,
+and within sight of Olympus's snowy sky-line, noticed a ship on the
+offing carrying American colors.  He sent Mr. Puget and Mr. Menzies to
+inquire.
+
+They brought back word that Gray "had been off the mouth of a river in
+46 degrees 10 minutes where the outset and reflux was so strong as to
+prevent entering for nine days," and that Gray had been fifty miles up
+the Straits of Fuca.
+
+Both facts were distasteful to Vancouver.  He had wished to be the
+first to explore the Straits of Fuca, and on only April 27, had passed
+an opening which he pronounced inaccessible and not a river, certainly
+not a river worthy of his attention.  Yet the exact words of Captain
+Bruno Heceta, the Spaniard, in 1775 were: "These currents . . . cause
+me to believe that the place is the mouth of some great river. . . .  I
+did not enter and anchor there because . . . if we let go the anchor,
+we had not enough men to get it up.  (Thirty-five were down with
+scurvy.) . . .  At the distance of three or four leagues, I lay too.  I
+experienced heavy currents, which made it impossible to enter the {236}
+bay, as I was far to leeward. . . .  These currents, however, convince
+me that a great quantity of water rushed from this bay on the ebb of
+the tide."
+
+So the Spaniard failed to enter, and now the great English navigator
+went on his way, convinced there was no River of the West; but Robert
+Gray headed back south determined to find what lay behind the
+tremendous crash of breakers and sand bar.  On the 7th of May, the
+rowboat towed the _Columbia_ into what is now known as Gray's Harbor,
+where he opened trade with the Indians, and was presently so boldly
+overrun by them, that he was compelled to fire into their canoes,
+killing seven.  Putting out from this harbor on the 10th, he steered
+south, keeping close ashore, and was rewarded at four o'clock on the
+morning of the 11th by hearing a tide-rip like thunder and seeing an
+ocean of waters crashing sheer over sand bar and reef with a cataract
+of foam in midair from the drive of colliding waves.  Milky waters
+tinged the sea as of inland streams.  Gray had found the river, but
+could he enter?  A gentle wind, straight as a die, was driving direct
+ashore.  Gray waited till the tide seemed to lift or deepen the waters
+of the reef, then at eight in the morning, all sails set like a bird on
+wing, drove straight for the narrow entrance between reefs and sand.
+Once across the bar, he saw the mouth of a magnificent river of fresh
+water.  He had found the River of the West.
+
+Gray describes the memorable event in these simple {237} words: "May
+11th . . . at four A.M. saw the entrance of our desired port bearing
+east-southeast, distance six leagues . . . at eight A.M. being a little
+to windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in
+east-southeast between the breakers. . . .  When we were over the bar,
+we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered.
+Many canoes came alongside.  At one P.M. came to (anchor). . . ."
+
+[Illustration: A View of the Columbia River.]
+
+By the 14th, Gray had ascended the river twenty or thirty miles from
+the sea, but was compelled to turn, as he had taken a shallow channel.
+Dropping down with the tide, he anchored on the 19th and went ashore,
+where he planted coins under a tree, took {238} possession in the name
+of the United States, and named the river "Columbia."  On the 20th, he
+crossed the bar and was out again on the Pacific.  The most of men
+would have rested, satisfied with half he had done.  Not so Gray.  He
+headed the _Columbia_ north again for the summer's trade in what is now
+known as southern Alaska.  Only damages to the _Columbia_ drove her
+down to Nootka in July, where Don Quadra, the new Spanish commander,
+and Captain Vancouver were in conference over those English ships
+seized by Martinez.  To Quadra, Gray sold the little _Adventure_,
+pioneer of American shipbuilding on the Pacific, for seventy-five otter
+skins.  From Spanish sources it is learned Gray's cargo had over three
+thousand otter skins, and fifteen thousand other peltries; so the
+second voyage may have made up for the loss of the first.
+
+[Illustration: At the Mouth of the Columbia River.]
+
+On October 3 the _Columbia_ left America for China; and on July 29,
+1793, came to the home harbor of Boston.  Sometime between 1806 and
+1809, Gray died in South Carolina, a poor man.  It is doubtful if his
+widow's petition to Congress ever materialized in a reward for any of
+his descendants.  Kendrick, eclipsed by his brilliant assistant, was
+accidentally killed in Hawaii by the wad of a gun fired by a British
+vessel to salute the _Lady Washington_.  From the date 1793 or 1795 the
+little sloop drops out of sea-faring annals.
+
+What is Gray's place among pathfinders and naval {239} heroes?  Where
+does his life's record leave him?  It was not spectacular work.  It was
+not work backed by a government, like Bering's or Cook's.  It was the
+work of an individual adventurer, like Radisson east of the Rockies.
+Gray was a man who did much and said little.  He was not accompanied by
+a host of scientists to herald his fame to the world.  Judged solely by
+results, what did he accomplish?  The same for the United States that
+Cook did for England.  He led the way for the American flag around the
+world.  Measuring purely by distance, his ship's log would compare well
+with Cook's or Vancouver's.  The same part of the Pacific coast which
+they {240} explored, he explored, except that he did not go to northern
+Alaska; and he compensated for that by discovering the great river,
+which they both said had no existence.  And yet, who that knows of Cook
+and Vancouver, knows as much of Gray?  Authentic histories are still
+written that speak of Gray's discovery doubtfully.  Gray did much, but
+said little; and the world is prone to take a man at his own valuation.
+Yet if the world places Cook and Vancouver in the niches of naval
+heroes, Gray must be placed between them.
+
+
+There is a curious human side to the story of these glory seekers, too.
+Bulfinch was so delighted over the discovery of the Columbia, that he
+had his daughter christened "Columbia," to which the young lady
+objected in later years, so that the name was dropped.  In
+commemoration of Don Quadra's kindness in repairing the ship
+_Columbia_, Gray named one of his children Quadra.  The curios brought
+back by Ingraham on the first voyage were donated to Harvard.
+Descendants of Gray still have the pictures drawn by Davidson and
+Haswell on the second voyage.  The sea chest carried round the world by
+Gray now rests in the keeping of an historical society in Portland; and
+the feather cloak worn up the street by the boy Atto, when he marched
+in the procession with Gray, is treasured in Boston.[1]
+
+
+
+
+[1] Much concerning Gray's voyages can be found in the accounts of
+contemporary navigators like Meares and Vancouver; but the essential
+facts of the voyages are obtainable from the records of Gray's
+log-book, and of diaries kept by his officers.  {241} Gray's log-book
+itself seems to have passed into the hands of the Bulfinch family.
+From a copy of the original, Thomas Bulfinch reprinted the exact entry
+of the discovery on May 11, 1792, in his _Oregon and Eldorado, a
+Romance of the Rivers_, Boston, 1866.  The log-book is now on file in
+the Department of State, Washington; but that part from which Bulfinch
+made his extract is missing; nor is it known where this section was
+lost as it was in 1816 that Mr. Charles Bulfinch made a copy of this
+section from the original.  Greenhow's _Oregon and California_, Boston,
+1844, issued under the auspices of Congress, gives the log-book in full
+from May 7th to May 21st.  Hubert Howe Bancroft in his _Northwest
+Coast_, Volume I, 1890, reproduces the diary in full of Haswell for
+both voyages.  It is from Haswell that the fullest account of the
+Indian plots are obtained; but at the time of the discovery of the
+Columbia, Haswell was on the little sloop _Adventure_, and what he
+reports is from hearsay.  His words in the entry of June 14 are; "They
+(the _Columbia_) had very disagreeable weather but . . . good success.
+. .  They discovered a harbor in latitude 46 degrees 53 minutes north.
+. . .  This is Gray's Harbor.  Here they were attacked by the natives,
+and the savages had a considerable slaughter made among them.  They
+next entered Columbia River, and went up it about thirty miles, and
+doubted not it was navigable upwards of a hundred miles. . . .  The
+ship (_Columbia_) during the cruise had collected upwards of seven
+hundred sea-otter skins and fifteen thousand skins of other species."
+The pictures made by Davidson, the artist, on the second voyage, owned
+by collectors in Boston, tell their own story.  From all these sources,
+and from the descendants of Gray, the Rev. Edward G. Porter collected
+data for his lecture before the Massachusetts Historical Society,
+afterward published in the _New England Magazine_ of June, 1892.  The
+_Massachusetts Historical Proceedings_ for 1892 have, by all odds, the
+most complete collection of data bearing on Gray.  The archives include
+the medal and three of Davidson's drawings, also papers relating to the
+_Columbia_ presented by Barrell.  The Salem Institute has also some
+data on the ships.  The _Massachusetts Proceedings_ for 1869-1870 also
+give, from the Archives of California, the letter of Governor Don Pedro
+Fages of Santa Barbara to Don Josef Arguello of San Francisco, warning
+the latter against the American navigators.  Greenhow obtained from the
+Hydrographical Office at Madrid the report of Captain Bruno Heceta's
+voyage in 1775, when he sighted the mouth of a river supposed to be the
+Columbia.
+
+
+
+
+{242}
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1778-1790
+
+JOHN LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK
+
+A New England Ne'er-do-well, turned from the Door of Rich Relatives,
+joins Cook's Expedition to America--Adventure among the Russians of
+Oonalaska--Useless Endeavor to interest New England Merchants in Fur
+Trade--A Soldier of Fortune in Paris, he meets Jefferson and Paul Jones
+and outlines Exploration of Western America--Succeeds in crossing
+Siberia alone on the Way to America, but is thwarted by Russian Fur
+Traders
+
+
+When his relatives banged the door in his face, turning him destitute
+in the streets of London, if John Ledyard could have foreseen that the
+act would indirectly lead to the Lewis and Clark exploration of the
+great region between the Mississippi and the Pacific, he would
+doubtless have regarded the unkindness as Dick Whittington did the cat,
+that led on to fortune.  He had been a dreamer from the time he was
+born in Groton, opposite New London, Connecticut--the kind of a dreamer
+whose moonshine lights the path of other men to success; but his
+wildest dreams never dared the bigness of an empire many times greater
+than the original states of the Union.
+
+{243} Instead he had landed at Plymouth, ragged, not a farthing in the
+bottom of his pockets, not a farthing's possession on earth but his
+hopes.  Those hopes were to reach rich relatives in London, who might
+give him a lift to the first rung of the world's climbers.  He was
+twenty-five years old.  He had burned his ships behind him.  That is,
+he had disappointed all his relatives in America so thoroughly that he
+could never again turn for help to the home hands.
+
+They had designed him for a profession, these New England friends.  If
+Nature had designed him for the same thing, it would have been all
+right; but she hadn't.  The son of a widowed mother, the love of the
+sea, of pathless places, of what is just out of sight over the dip of
+the horizon, was in his blood from his father's side.  Friends thought
+he should be well satisfied when he was sent to live with his
+grandfather at Hartford and apprenticed to the law; but John Ledyard
+hated the pettifogging of the law, hated roofed-over, walled-in life,
+wanted the kind of life where men do things, not just dicker, and
+philosophize, and compromise over the fag-ends of things other men have
+done.  At twenty-one years of age, without any of the prospects that
+lure the prudent soul, he threw over all idea of law.[1]
+
+Friends were aghast.  Manifestly, the boy had {244} brains.  He
+devoured information, absorbed facts like an encyclopaedia, and
+observed everything.  The Greek Testament and Ovid were his companions;
+yet he rebelled at the immured existence of the scholar.  At that time
+(1772), Dartmouth was the rendezvous of {245} missionaries to the
+Indians.  The college itself held lectures to the singing of the winds
+through the forests around it.  The blowing of a conch-shell called to
+lessons; and a sort of wildwood piety pervaded the atmosphere.  Urged
+by his mother, Ledyard made one more honest attempt to fit his life to
+a stereotyped form, and came to study at Dartmouth for the missionary's
+career.
+
+It was not a success.  When he thought to get a foretaste of the
+missionary vocation by making a dugout and floating down the whole
+length of Connecticut River, one hundred and forty miles, the scholarly
+professors were shocked.  And when he disappeared for four months to
+make a farther test by living among the Mohawks, the faculty was
+furious.  His friends gave him up as hopeless, a ne'er-do-well; and
+Ledyard gave over the farce of trying to live according to other men's
+patterns.
+
+[Illustration: Ledyard in his dugout, from a contemporaneous print.]
+
+
+What now determined him was what directs the most of lives--need for
+bread and butter.  He became a common sailor on the ship of a friend in
+New London, and at twenty-five landed in Plymouth, light of heart as he
+was light of purse.  The world was an oyster to be opened by his own
+free lance; and up he tramped from Plymouth to London in company with
+an Irishman penniless as himself, gay as a lark, to the world's great
+capital with the world's great prizes for those with the wits to win
+them.  A carriage with driver {246} and footman in livery wearing the
+armorial design of his own Ledyard ancestors rolled past in the street.
+He ran to the coachman, asked the address, and presented himself at the
+door of the ancestral Ledyards, hope beating high.  The relationship
+was to be the key to open all doors.  And the door of the ancestral
+Ledyards was shut in his face.  The father was out.  The son put no
+stock in the story of the ragged stranger.  He did not even know that
+Ledyards existed in America.  What was to hinder any common tramp
+trumping up such a story?  Where were the tattered fellow's proofs?
+Ledyard came away with just enough wholesome human rage to keep him
+from sinking to despair, or to what is more unmanning, self-pity.  He
+had failed before, through trying to frame his life to other men's
+plans.  He had failed now, through trying to win success through other
+men's efforts--a barnacle clinging to the hull of some craft freighted
+with fortune.  Perhaps, too, he fairly and squarely faced the fact that
+if he was to be one whit different from the beggar for whom he had been
+mistaken, he must build his own life solely and wholly on his own
+efforts.
+
+On he wandered, the roar of the great city's activities rolling past
+him in a tide.  His rage had time to cool.  Afternoon, twilight, dark;
+and still the tide rolled past him; _past him_ because like a stranded
+hull rotting for lack of use, he had put himself _outside_ the tide of
+human effort.  He must build up his own career.  That was the fact he
+had wrested out of his {247} rage; but unless his abilities were to rot
+in some stagnant pool, he must launch out on the great tide of human
+work.  Before he had taken that resolution, the roar of the city had
+been terrifying--a tide that might swamp.  Now, the thunder of the
+world's traffic was a shout of triumph.  He would launch out, let the
+tide carry him where it might.
+
+All London was resounding with the project of Cook's third voyage round
+the world--the voyage that was to settle forever how far America
+projected into the Pacific.  Recruits were being mustered for the
+voyage.  It came to Ledyard in an inspiration--the new field for his
+efforts, the call of the sea that paved a golden path around the world,
+the freedom for shoulder-swing to do all that a man was worth.  Quick
+as flash, he was off--going _with_ the tide now, not a derelict, not a
+stranded hull--off to shave, and wash, and respectable-ize, in order to
+apply as a recruit with Cook.
+
+In the dark, somewhere near the sailors' mean lodgings, a hand touched
+him.  He turned; it was the rich man's son, come profuse of apologies:
+his father had returned; father and son begged to proffer both
+financial aid and hospitality--Ledyard cut him short with a terse but
+forcible invitation to go his own way.  That the unknown colonial at
+once received a berth with Cook as corporal of marines, when half the
+young men of England with influence to back their applications were
+eager to join the voyage, speaks well for the sincerity of the new
+enthusiasm.
+
+{248} Cook left England in midsummer of 1776.  He sighted the Pacific
+coast, northward of what is now San Francisco, in the spring of 1778.
+Ledyard was the first American to see the land that lay beyond the
+Rockies.  It was not a narrow strip as men had thought, but a broad
+belt a thousand miles long by a thousand broad, an unclaimed world; for
+storms drove Cook offshore here; and the English discoverer did not
+land till abreast of British America.
+
+At Nootka thousands of Indians flocked round the two vessels to trade.
+For some trinkets of glass beads and iron, Ledyard obtained one
+thousand five hundred skins for Cook.  Among the Indians, too, he saw
+brass trinkets, that must have come all the way from New Spain on the
+south, or from the Hudson's Bay Fur Company on the east.  What were the
+merchants of New York and Philadelphia doing, that their ships were not
+here reaping a harvest of wealth in furs?  If this were the outermost
+bound of Louisiana, Louisiana might some day be a part of the colonies
+now struggling for their liberties; and Ledyard's imagination took one
+of those leaps that win a man the reputation of a fool among his
+contemporaries, a hero to future generations.  "If it was necessary
+that a European should discover the existence of the continent," he
+afterward wrote, "in the name of Amor Patriae let a native explore its
+resources and boundaries. . .  It is my wish to be the man."
+
+Cook's ships passed north to Oonalaska.  Only {249} twenty-five years
+before, the Indians of Oonalaska had massacred every white settlement
+on the island.  Cook wished to send a message to the Russian fur
+traders.  Not many men could be risked from the ship.  Fired with the
+ambition to know more of the coast which he had determined to explore,
+Ledyard volunteered to go for the Russians with two Indian guides.  The
+pace was set at an ambling run over rocks that had cut Ledyard's boots
+to tatters before nightfall.  He was quite unarmed; and just at dark
+the way seemed to end at a sandy shore, where the waves were already
+chopping over on the rising tide, and spiral columns of smoke betrayed
+the underground mud huts of those very Indian villages that had
+massacred the Russians a quarter of a century before.  The guides had
+dived somewhere underground and, while Ledyard stood nonplussed, came
+running back carrying a light skin boat which they launched.  It was
+made of oiled walrus hide stretched like a drum completely round
+whalebones, except for two manholes in the top for the rowers.
+Perpheela, the guide, signalled Ledyard to embark; and before the white
+man could solve the problem of how three men were to sit in two
+manholes, he was seized head and heels, and bundled clear through a
+manhole, lying full length imprisoned like Jonah in the whale.  Then
+the swish of dipping paddles, of the cold waves above and beneath, shut
+out by parchment thin as tissue paper, told Ledyard that he was being
+carried out to sea, spite of dark and storm, {250} in a craft light as
+an air-blown bladder, that bounced forward, through, under, over the
+waves, undrownable as a fish.
+
+There was nothing to do but lie still.  The slightest motion might have
+ruptured the thin skin keel.  On he was borne through the dark, the
+first American in history to travel by a submarine.  At the end of what
+seemed ages--it could not have been more than two hours--after a deal
+of bouncing to the rising storm with no sound but the whistling of wind
+and rush of mountain seas, the keel suddenly grated pebbles.  Starlight
+came through the vacated manholes; but before Ledyard could jump out,
+the boat was hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and carried on a run
+overland.  The creak of a door slammed open.  A bump as the boat dumped
+down to soft floor; and Ledyard was dazzled by a glare of light to find
+himself in the mess room of the Russian barracks on Captain Harbor, in
+the presence of two bearded Russian hunters gasping speechless with
+surprise to see a man emerging from the manhole like a newly hatched
+chicken from an egg.
+
+Fur rugs covered the floor, the walls, the benches, the berth beds
+lining the sides of the barnlike Russian barracks.  The windows were of
+oiled bladder skin; the lamps, whale-oil in stone basins with skin for
+wick.  Arms were stacked in the corner.  The two Russians had been
+sitting down to a supper of boiled salmon, when Ledyard made his
+unannounced {251} entrance.  By signs he explained that Captain Cook's
+ships were at a near harbor and that the English commander desired to
+confer with Ismyloff, chief factor of the Russians.  Rising, kissing
+their hands ceremoniously as they mentioned the august name and taking
+off their fur caps, the Russians made solemn answer that all these
+parts, with a circumambient wave, belonged to the Empress of Russia;
+that they were her subjects--with more kissing of the hands.  Russia
+did not want foreigners spying on her hunting-grounds.  Nevertheless,
+Ledyard was given a present of fresh Chinese silk underwear, treated to
+the hottest Russian brandy in the barracks, and put comfortably to bed
+on a couch of otter skins.  From his bed, he saw the Indians crowd in
+for evening services before a little Russian crucifix, the two traders
+leading prayers.  These were the tribes, whom the Russians had hunted
+with dogs fifty years before; and who in turn had slain all Russians on
+the Island.  A better understanding now prevailed.
+
+In the morning Ledyard looked over the fur establishment; galliots,
+cannon-mounted in the harbor for refuge in case of attack; the huge
+lemon-yellow, red-roofed store-room that might serve as barracks or
+fort for a hundred men; the brigades of eight, of nine, of eleven
+hundred Indian hunters sailing the surfs under the leadership of
+Ismyloff, the chief factor.  Oonalaska was the very centre of the
+sea-otter hunt.  Here, eighteen thousand otter a year were taken.  At
+once, {252} Ledyard realized how he could pay the cost of exploring
+that unclaimed world between New Spain and Alaska: by turning fur
+trader as Radisson, and La Salle, and the other explorers had done.
+
+Ismyloff himself, who had been out with his brigade when Ledyard came,
+went to visit the Englishman; but Ismyloff had little to say, little of
+Benyowsky, the Polish pirate, who had marooned him; less of Alaska; and
+the reason for taciturnity was plain.  The Russian fur traders were
+forming a monopoly.  They told no secrets to the world.  They wanted no
+intruders on their hunting-ground.  Could Ledyard have known that the
+surly, bearded Russian was to blast his new-born ambitions; could
+Ismyloff have guessed that the eager, young, beardless corporal of
+marines was indirectly to be the means of wresting the Pacific coast
+from Russia--each might have smiled at the tricks of destiny.
+
+
+Ledyard had two more years to serve in the British navy when he
+returned from Cook's voyage.  By another trick of destiny he was sent
+out on a battle ship to fight against his native country in the
+Revolutionary War.  It was a time when men wore patriotic coats of many
+colors.  His ship lay at anchor off Long Island.  He had not seen his
+mother for seven years, but knew that the war had reduced her to
+opening a lodging house for British officers.  Asking for a week's
+furlough, Ledyard went ashore, proceeded to his mother's {253} house,
+knocked at the door, and was taken as a lodger by her without being
+recognized, which was, perhaps, as well; for the house was full of
+British spies.  Ledyard waited till night.  Then he went to her private
+apartments and found her reading with the broad-rimmed, horn-framed
+spectacles of those days.  He took her hands.  "Look at me," he said.
+One glance was enough.  Then he shut the door; and the door remains
+shut to the world on what happened there.
+
+That was the end of British soldiering for Ledyard.  He never returned
+to the marines.  He betook himself to Hartford, where he wrote an
+account of Cook's voyage.  Then he set himself to move heaven and earth
+for a ship to explore that unknown coast from New Spain to Alaska.
+This was ten years before Robert Gray of Boston had discovered the
+Columbia; twenty years before the United States thought of buying
+Louisiana, twenty-five years before Lewis and Clark reached the
+Pacific.  Many influences worked against him.  Times were troublous.
+The country had not recovered sufficiently from the throes of the
+Revolution to think of expanding territory.  Individually and
+collectively, the nation was desperately poor.  As for private sailing
+masters, they smiled at Ledyard's enthusiasm.  An unclaimed world?
+What did they care?  Where was the money in a venture to the Pacific?
+When Ledyard told how Russia was reaping a yearly harvest of millions
+in furs, even his old friend, Captain Deshon, whose boat had {254}
+carried him to Plymouth, grew chary of such roseate prospects.  It was
+characteristic of Ledyard that the harder the difficulties proved, the
+harder grew his determination to overcome.  He was up against the
+impossible, and instead of desisting, gritted his teeth, determined to
+smash a breach through the wall of the impossible, or smash himself
+trying.  For six months he besieged leading men in New York and
+Philadelphia, outlining his plans, meeting arguments, giving proofs for
+all he said of Pacific wealth, holding conference after conference.
+Robert Morris entered enthusiastically into the scheme; but what with
+shipmasters' reluctance to embark on such a dangerous voyage and the
+general scarcity of funds, the patience of both Ledyard and Morris
+became exhausted.  Ledyard's savings had meanwhile dwindled down to
+$4.27.
+
+In Europe, Cook's voyage was beginning to create a stir.  The Russian
+government had projected an expedition to the Pacific under Joseph
+Billings, Cook's assistant astronomer.  These Russian plans aimed at no
+less than dominance on the Pacific.  Forts were to be built in
+California and Hawaii.  In England and India, private adventurers,
+Portlock, Dixon, Meares, Barclay, were fitting out ships for Pacific
+trade.  Some one advised Ledyard to attempt his venture in the country
+that had helped America in the Revolution, France; and to France he
+sailed with money loaned by Mr. Sands of New York, in 1784.
+
+{255} In Paris Ledyard met two of the most remarkable men in American
+history, Paul Jones, the naval hero, and Jefferson.  To them both he
+told the marvels of Pacific wealth, and both were far-sighted enough to
+share his dreams.  It was now that Jefferson began to formulate those
+plans that Lewis and Clark afterward carried out.  The season was too
+late for a voyage this year, but Paul Jones loaned Ledyard money and
+arranged to take out a ship of four hundred tons the following year.
+The two actually went over every detail together.  Jones was to carry
+the furs to China, Ledyard with assistants, surgeon, and twenty
+soldiers to remain at the fur post and explore.
+
+But Paul Jones was counting on the support of the American government;
+and when he found that the government considered Ledyard's promises
+visionary, he threw the venture over in a pique.
+
+
+Was Ledyard beaten?  Jefferson and he talked over the project day after
+day.  Ledyard was willing to tramp it across the two Siberias on foot,
+and to chance over the Pacific Ocean in a Russian fur-trading vessel,
+if Jefferson could obtain permission from the Russian Empress.
+Meanwhile, true soldier of fortune, without money, or influence, he
+lived on terms of intimacy with the fashion of Paris.
+
+"I have but five French crowns," he wrote a friend.  "The Fitzhughes
+(fellow-roomers) haven't money for tobacco.  Such a set of moneyless
+rascals never {256} appeared since the days of Falstaff."  Again--"Sir
+James Hall, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at
+our door.  I was in bed, but having flung on my robe de chambre, met
+him at the door. . . .  In walking across the chamber, he laughingly
+put his hand on a six livre piece and a louis d'or on my table, and
+with a blush asked me how I was in the money way.  Blushes beget
+blushes.  'If fifteen guineas,' said he, 'will be of any service to
+you, here they are.  You have my address in London.'"
+
+While waiting the passports from the Empress of Russia, he was invited
+by Sir James Hall to try his luck in England.  The very daring of the
+wild attempt to cross Siberia and America alone appealed to the
+English.  Half a dozen men, friends of Cook, took the venture up, and
+Ledyard found himself in the odd position of being offered a boat by
+the country whose navy he had deserted.  Perhaps because of that
+desertion all news of the project was kept very quiet.  A small ship
+had slipped down the Thames for equipments, when the government got
+wind of it.  Whether the great Hudson's Bay Company of England opposed
+the expedition as intrusion on its fur preserve, or the English
+government objected to an American conducting the exploration for the
+expansion of American territory, the ship was ordered back, and Ledyard
+was in no position to confront the English authorities.  Again he was
+checkmated, and fell back on Jefferson's plan to cross the two Siberias
+on foot, and chance it over {257} the Pacific.  His friends in London
+gathered enough money to pay his way to St. Petersburg.
+
+January of 1787 saw him in Sweden seeking passage across the Baltic.
+Usually the trip to St. Petersburg was made by dog sleighs across the
+ice.  This year the season had been so open, neither boats nor dog
+trains could be hired to make the trip.  Ledyard was now thirty-six
+years old, and the sum of his efforts totalled to a zero.  The first
+twenty-five years of his life he had wasted trying to fit his life to
+other men's patterns.  The last five years he had wasted waiting for
+other men to act, men in New York, in Philadelphia, in Paris, in
+London, to give him a ship.  He had done with waiting, with dependence
+on others.  When boats and dog trains failed him now, he muffled
+himself in wolfskins to his neck, flung a knapsack on his back, and set
+out in midwinter to tramp overland six hundred miles north to Tornea at
+the head of the Baltic, six hundred miles south from Tornea, through
+Finland to St. Petersburg.  Snow fell continually.  Storms raged in
+from the sea.  The little villages of northern Sweden and Finland were
+buried in snow to the chimney-tops.  Wherever he happened to be at
+nightfall, he knocked at the door of a fisherman's hut.  Wherever he
+was taken in, he slept, whether on the bare floor before the hearth, or
+among the dogs of the outhouses, or in the hay-lofts of the cattle
+sheds.  No more waiting for Ledyard!  Storm or shine, early and late,
+he {258} tramped two hundred miles a week for seven weeks from the time
+he left Stockholm.  When he marched into St. Petersburg on the 19th of
+March, men hardly knew whether to regard him as a madman or a wonder.
+Using the names of Jefferson and Lafayette, he jogged up the Russian
+authorities by another application for the passport.  The passport was
+long in coming.  How was Ledyard to know that Ismyloff, the Russian fur
+trader, whom he had met in Oonalaska, had written letters stirring up
+the Russian government to jealous resentment against all comers to the
+Pacific?  Ledyard was mad with impatience.  Days slipped into weeks,
+weeks into months, and no passport came.  He was out of clothes, out of
+money, out of food.  A draft on his English friends kept him from
+destitution.  Just a year before, Billings, the astronomer of Cook's
+vessel, had gone across Siberia on the way to America for the Russian
+government.  If Ledyard could only catch up to Billings's expedition,
+that might be a chance to cross the Pacific.  As if to exasperate his
+impatience still more, he met a Scotch physician, a Dr.  William Brown,
+now setting out for Siberia on imperial business, who offered to carry
+him along free for three thousand of the seven thousand miles to the
+Pacific.  Perhaps the proceeds of that English draft helped him with
+the slow Russian authorities, but at last, on June 1, he had his
+passport, and was off with Dr. Brown.  His entire earthly possessions
+at this time consisted of a few guineas, a suit of {259} clothes, and
+large debts.  What was the crack-brained enthusiast aiming at anyway?
+An empire half the present size of the United States.
+
+From St. Petersburg to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at
+breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to
+the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened.  By the autumn they were across
+the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg.  Here
+Brown remained, and Ledyard went on with the Cossack mail carriers.
+All along the endless trail of two continents, the trail of East and
+West, he passed the caravans of the Russian fur traders, and learned
+the astonishing news that more than two thousand Russians were on the
+west coast of America.  Down the Lena next, to Yakutsk, the great
+rendezvous of the fur traders, only one thousand miles more to the
+Pacific; and on the great plain of the fur traders near Yakutsk he at
+last overtook the Billings explorers on their way to America.  Only one
+guinea was left in his pocket, and the Cossack commandant reported that
+the season was too far advanced for him to cross the Pacific.  What did
+it matter?  He would cross the Pacific with Billings in spring.  He was
+nearer the realization of his hopes than ever before in his life; and
+surely his success in tramping twice the length of Sweden, and in
+crossing two continents when almost destitute augured well for his
+success in crossing from the Pacific to the Missouri.
+
+Not for a moment was his almost childlike confidence {260} disturbed by
+a suspicion of bad faith, of intentional delay in issuing the
+passports, of excuses to hold him back at Yakutsk till the jealous fur
+traders could send secret complaints to St. Petersburg.  Much less was
+he suspicious when Billings, his old friend of Cook's voyage, himself
+arrived, and invited him on a sled journey of exploration up the Lena
+while waiting.[2]
+
+On sledges he went up the Lena River with a party of explorers.  On the
+night of February 24 two or three of the officers and Ledyard were
+sitting in the mess room of Irkutsk playing cards.  They might laugh
+_at_ Ledyard.  They also laughed _with_ him.  Wherever he went, went
+gayety.  Gales of boisterous laughter were on the wind.  Hopes as
+tenuous as the wind were in the air.  One of the great Bering's sons
+was there, no doubt telling tales of discovery that set each man's
+veins jumping.  Suddenly a tremendous jingling of bells announced some
+midnight arrival post-haste at the barracks' door.  Before the card
+players had risen from their places, two Cossacks had burst into the
+room stamping snow from their feet.  Marching straight over to Ledyard,
+they seized him roughly by the arms and arrested him for a French spy,
+displaying the Empress's written orders, brought all the way from St.
+Petersburg.  To say that Ledyard was dumfounded is putting it mildly.
+Every man in the room knew that he was not a French spy.  Every man
+{261} in the room knew that the arrest was a farce, instigated by the
+jealous fur traders whom Ismyloff's lying letters had aroused.  For
+just a second Ledyard lost his head and called on Billings as a man of
+honor to confute the charge.  However Ledyard might lose his head,
+Billings was not willing to lose his.  He advised Ledyard not to
+provoke conflict with the Russian authorities, but to go back to St.
+Petersburg and disprove the charge.  Was it a case of one explorer
+being jealous of another, or had Billings played Ledyard into the fur
+traders' trap?  That will never be known.  Certain it is, Billings made
+mess enough of his own expedition to go down to posterity as a failure.
+Some of the officers ran to get Ledyard a present of clothes and money.
+As he jumped into the waiting sledge and looked back over his shoulder
+at the group of faces smiling in the lighted doorway, he burst into a
+laugh, but it was the laugh of an embittered man, whose life had
+crumbled to ruin at one blow.  The Cossacks whipped up the horses, and
+he was off on the long trail back, five thousand miles, every mile a
+sign post of blasted hopes.  Without a word of explanation or the
+semblance of a trial on the false charge, he was banished out of St.
+Petersburg on pain of death if he returned.
+
+Ragged, destitute, the best years of his life gone, he reached London,
+heartbroken.  "I give up," he told the English friends, who had backed
+him with money, and what was better than money--faith.  "I give up,"
+{262} he wrote Jefferson, who afterward had Lewis and Clark carry out
+Ledyard's plans.
+
+The men of the African Geographical Society in London tried to cheer
+him.  When could he set out to explore the source of the Nile for them?
+
+"To-morrow," answered Ledyard, with the heedlessness of one who has
+lost grip on life.  The salary advanced paid off the moss-grown debts
+of his disappointed past, but he never reached the scene of his new
+venture.  He died on the way at Cairo, in November, 1788, for all hope
+had already died in his heart.  The world that has entered into the
+heritage of his aims has forgotten Ledyard; for the public acclaims
+only the heroes of success, and he was a hero of defeat.  All that
+Lewis and Clark succeeded in doing for the West, backed by the prestige
+of government, Ledyard, the penniless soldier of fortune, had foreseen
+and planned with Jefferson in the attic apartments of Paris.[3]
+
+
+
+[1] The world owes all knowledge of Ledyard's intimate life to Jared
+Sparks, who compiled his life of Ledyard from journals and
+correspondence collected by Dr. Ledyard and Henry Seymour of Hartford.
+
+[2] In Sauer's account of the Billings Expedition, some excuse is given
+for the conduct of Billings on the ground that Ledyard had been
+insolent to the Russians.
+
+[3] Ledyard's _Journal of Cook's Last Voyage_, Hartford, 1783, and
+Sparks's _Life of Ledyard_, Cambridge, 1829.
+
+
+
+
+{263}
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+1779-1794
+
+GEORGE VANCOUVER, LAST OF PACIFIC COAST EXPLORERS
+
+Activities of Americans, Spanish, and Russians on the West Coast
+of America arouse England--Vancouver is sent out ostensibly to
+settle the Quarrel between Fur Traders and Spanish Governors at
+Nootka--Incidentally, he is to complete the Exploration of America's
+West Coast and take Possession for England of Unclaimed Territory--The
+Myth of a Northeast Passage dispelled forever
+
+
+With Gray's entrance of the Columbia, the great drama of discovery on
+the northwest coast of America was drawing to a close.
+
+After the death of Bering on the Commander Islands, and of Cook at
+Hawaii, while on voyages to prove there was no Northeast Passage, no
+open waterway between Pacific and Atlantic, it seems impossible that
+the myth of an open sea from Asia to Europe could still delude men; but
+it was in hunting for China that Columbus found America; and it was in
+hunting for a something that had no existence except in the foolish
+theories of the schoolmen that the whole northwest coast of America was
+exploited.
+
+{264} Bering had been called "coward" for not sailing through a solid
+continent.  Cook was accused of fur trading, "pottering in peltries,"
+to the neglect of discovery, because his crews sold their sea-otter at
+profit.  To be sure, the combined results of Bering's and Cook's
+voyages proved there was no waterway through Alaska to the Atlantic;
+but in addition to blackening the reputations of the two great
+navigators in order to throw discredit on their conclusions, the
+schoolmen bellicosely demanded--Might there not be a passage south of
+Alaska, between Russia's claim on the north and Spain's on the south?
+Both Bering and Cook had been driven out from this section of the coast
+by gales.  This left a thousand miles of American coast unexplored.
+Cook had said there were no Straits of Fuca, of which the old Greek
+pilot in the service of New Spain had told legends of fictitious
+voyages two centuries before; yet Barclay, an East India English
+trader, had been up those very straits.  So had Meares, another trader.
+So had Kendrick and Gray, the two Americans.  This was the very section
+which Bering and Cook had left untouched; and who could tell where
+these straits might lead?  They were like a second Mediterranean.
+Meares argued they might connect with Hudson Bay.
+
+Then Spain had forced matters to a climax by seizing Meares's vessels
+and fort at Nootka as contraband.  That had only one meaning: Spain was
+trying to lay hands on everything from New Spain to Russian {265}
+territory on the north.  If Spain claimed all north to the Straits of
+Fuca, and Russia claimed all south to the Straits of Fuca, where was
+England's claim of New Albion discovered by Sir Francis Drake, and of
+all that coast which Cook had sighted round Nootka?
+
+Captain George Vancouver, formerly midshipman with Cook, was summoned
+post-haste by the British Admiralty.  Ostensibly, his mission was to
+receive back at Nootka all the lands which the Spaniards had taken from
+Meares, the trader.  Really, he was to explore the coast from New Spain
+on the south, to Russian America on the north, and to hold that coast
+for England.  That Spain had already explored the islands of this coast
+was a mere detail.  There remained the continental shore still to be
+explored.  Besides, Spain had not followed up her explorations by
+possession.  She had kept her navigations secret.  In many cases her
+navigators had not even landed.
+
+[Illustration: Captain George Vancouver.]
+
+
+Vancouver was still in his prime, under forty.  Serving in the navy
+from boyhood, he had all a practical seaman's contempt for theories.
+This contempt was given point by the world's attitude toward Cook.
+Vancouver had been on the spot with Cook.  He knew there was no
+Northeast Passage.  Cook had proved that.  Yet the world refused
+credence.
+
+For the practical navigator there remained only one course, and that
+course became the one aim, the consuming ambition of Vancouver's
+life--to destroy the {266} last vestige of the myth of a Northeast
+Passage; to explore the northwest coast of America so thoroughly there
+would not remain a single unknown inlet that could be used as a
+possible prop for the schoolmen's theories, to penetrate every inlet
+from California to Alaska--mainland and island; to demonstrate that not
+one possible opening led to the Atlantic.  This was to be the object of
+Vancouver's life, and he carried it out with a thoroughness that left
+nothing for subsequent explorers to do; but he died before the record
+of his voyages had been given to the world.
+
+The two ships, _Discovery_ and _Chatham_, with a supply ship, the
+_Daedalus_, to follow later, were fitted out for long and thorough
+work.  Vancouver's vessel, the _Discovery_, carried twenty guns with a
+crew of a hundred men.  The tender, _Chatham_, under Broughton, had ten
+guns and forty-five men.  With Vancouver went Menzies, and Puget, and
+Baker, and Johnstone--names that were to become place marks on the
+Pacific.  The _Discovery_ and _Chatham_ left England in the spring of
+1791.  A year later found them cutting the waves from Hawaii for
+America, the New Albion of Drake's discovery, forgotten by England
+until Spain's activity stimulated memory of the pirate voyage.
+
+A swashing swell met the ships as they neared America.  Phosphorescent
+lights blue as sulphur flame slimed the sea in a trail of rippling
+fire; and a land bird, washed out by the waves, told of New Albion's
+shore.  {267} For the first two weeks of April, the _Discovery_ and
+_Chatham_ had driven under cloud of sail and sunny skies; but on the
+16th, just when the white fret of reefs ahead forewarned land, heavy
+weather settled over the ships.  To the fore, bare, majestic, compact
+as a wall, the coast of New Albion towered out of the surf near
+Mendocino.  Cheers went up from the lookout for the landfall of Francis
+Drake's discovery.  Then torrents of rain washed out surf and shore.
+The hurricane gales, that had driven all other navigators out to sea
+from this coast, now lashed Vancouver.  Such smashing seas swept over
+decks, that masts, sails, railings, were wrenched away.
+
+Was it ill-luck or destiny, that caught Vancouver in this gale?  If he
+had not been driven offshore here, he might have been just two weeks
+before Gray on the _Columbia_, and made good England's claim of all
+territory between New Spain and Alaska.  When the weather cleared on
+April 27, the ocean was turgid, plainly tinged river-color by inland
+waters; but ground swell of storm and tide rolled across the shelving
+sandbars.  Not a notch nor an opening breached through the flaw of the
+horizon from the ocean to the source of the shallow green.  Vancouver
+was too far offshore to see that there really was a break in the surf
+wash.  He thought--and thought rightly--this was the place where the
+trader, Meares, had hoped to find the great River of the West, only to
+be disappointed and to name the point Cape Disappointment.  Vancouver
+was {268} not to be fooled by any such fanciful theories.  "Not
+considering this opening worthy of more attention," he writes, "I
+continued to the northwest."  He had missed the greatest honor that yet
+remained for any discoverer on the Pacific.  Within two weeks Gray, the
+American, heading back to these baffling tides with a dogged
+persistence that won its own glory, was to succeed in passing the
+breakers and discovering the Columbia.  As the calm permitted approach
+to the shore again, forests appeared through the haze--that soft,
+velvet, caressing haze of the dreamy, lazily swelling Pacific--forests
+of fir and spruce and pine and cypress, in all the riot of dank spring
+growth, a dense tangle of windfall and underbrush and great vines
+below, festooned with the light green stringy mosses of cloud line
+overhead and almost impervious to sunlight.  Myriad wild fowl covered
+the sea.  The coast became beetling precipice, that rolled inland
+forest-clad to mountains jagging ragged peaks through the clouds.  This
+was the Olympus Range, first noticed by Meares, and to-day seen for
+miles out at sea like a ridge of opalescent domes suspended in
+mid-heaven.
+
+
+Vancouver was gliding into the Straits of Fuca when the slender colors
+of a far ship floated above the blue horizon outward bound.  Another
+wave-roll, and the flag was seen to be above full-blown sails and a
+square-hulled, trim little trader of America.  At six in the morning of
+April 29, the American saluted with a {269} cannon-shot.  Vancouver
+answered with a charge from his decks, rightly guessing this was Robert
+Gray on the _Columbia_.
+
+[Illustration: The _Columbia_ in a Squall.]
+
+Puget and Menzies were sent to inquire about Gray's cruise.  They
+brought back word that Gray had been fifty miles up the Straits of
+Fuca; and--most astounding to Vancouver's ambitions--that the American
+had been off the mouth of a river south of the straits at 46 degrees 10
+minutes, where the tide prevented entrance for nine days.  "The river
+Mr. Gray mentioned," says Vancouver, "should be south of Cape
+Disappointment.  This we passed on the forenoon of the 27th; and if any
+inlet or river be found, it must be a {270} very intricate one,
+inaccessible . . . owing to reefs and broken water. . . .  I was
+thoroughly convinced, as were most persons on board, that we could not
+possibly have passed any cape . . . from Mendocino to Classet
+(Flattery)."
+
+Keen to prove that no Northeast Passage existed by way of the Straits
+of Fuca, Vancouver headed inland, close to the south shore, where
+craggy heights offered some guidance through the labyrinth of islands
+and fog.  Eight miles inside the straits he anchored for the night.
+The next morning the sun rose over one of the fairest scenes of the
+Pacific coast--an arm of the sea placid as a lake, gemmed by countless
+craggy islands.  On the land side were the forested valleys rolling in
+to the purple folds of the mountains; and beyond, eastward, dazzling as
+a huge shield of fire in the sunrise, a white mass whiter than the
+whitest clouds, swimming aerially in mid-heaven.  Lieutenant Baker was
+the first to catch a glimpse of the vision for which every western
+traveller now watches, the famous peak seen by land or sea for hundreds
+of miles, the playground of the jagged green lightnings on the hot
+summer nights; and the peak was named after him.--Mount Baker.
+
+For the first time in history white men's boats plied the waters of the
+great inland sea now variously known as Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound,
+Hood Canal.  There must be no myth of a Northeast Passage left lurking
+in any of the many inlets of this spider-shaped sea.  {271} Vancouver,
+Menzies, Puget, and Johnstone set out in the small boats to penetrate
+every trace of water passage.  Instead of leading northeast, the
+tangled maze of forest-hidden channels meandered southward.  Savages
+swarmed over the water, paddling round and round the white men, for all
+the world like birds of prey circling for a chance to swoop at the
+first unguarded moment.  Tying trinkets to pieces of wood, Puget let
+the gifts float back as peace-offerings to woo good will.  The effect
+was what softness always is to an Indian spoiling for a fight, an
+incentive to boldness.  When Puget landed for noon meal, a score of
+redskins lined up ashore and began stringing their bows for action.
+Puget drew a line along the sand with his cutlass and signalled the
+warriors to keep back.  They scrambled out of his reach with a great
+clatter.  It only needed some fellow bolder than the rest to push
+across the line, and massacre would begin.  Puget did not wait.  By way
+of putting the fear of the Lord and respect for the white man in the
+heart of the Indian, he trained the swivel of the small boat landward,
+and fired in midair.  The result was instant.  Weapons were dropped.
+On Monday, midday, June 4, Vancouver and Broughton landed at Point
+Possession.  Officers drew up in line.  The English flag was unfurled,
+a royal salute fired, and possession taken of all the coast of New
+Albion from latitude 39 to the Straits of Fuca, which Vancouver named
+Gulf of Georgia.  Just a month before, Gray, the American, had preceded
+this act of {272} possession by a similar ceremony for the United
+States on the banks of the Columbia.
+
+
+The sum total of Vancouver's work so far had been the exploration of
+Puget Sound, which is to the West what the Gulf of St. Lawrence is to
+the East.  For Puget Sound and its allied waters he had done exactly
+what Carrier accomplished for the Atlantic side of America.  His next
+step was to learn if the Straits of Fuca leading northward penetrated
+America and came out on the Atlantic side.  That is what the old Greek
+pilot in the service of New Spain, Juan de Fuca, had said some few
+years after Drake and Cavendish had been out on the coast of California.
+
+Though Vancouver explored the Pacific coast more thoroughly than all
+the other navigators who had preceded him,--so thoroughly, indeed, that
+nothing was left to be done by the explorers who came after him, and
+modern surveys have been unable to improve upon his charts,--it seemed
+his ill-luck to miss by just a hair's breadth the prizes he coveted.
+He had missed the discovery of the Columbia.  He was now to miss the
+second largest river of the Northwest, the Fraser.  He had hoped to be
+the first to round the Straits of Fuca, disproving the assumption that
+they led to the Atlantic; and he came on the spot only to learn that
+the two English traders, Meares and Barclay, the two Americans,
+Kendrick and Gray, and two Spaniards, Don Galiano and Don Valdes, had
+already proved {273} practically that this part of the coast was a
+large island, and the Straits of Fuca an arm of the Pacific Ocean.
+
+Fifty Indians, in the long dugouts, of grotesquely carved prows and
+gaudy paint common among Pacific tribes, escorted Vancouver's boats
+northward the second week in June through the labyrinthine passageways
+of cypress-grown islets to Burrard Inlet.  To Peter Puget was assigned
+the work of coasting the mainland side and tracing every inlet to its
+head waters.  Johnstone went ahead in a small boat to reconnoitre the
+way out of the Pacific.  On both sides the shores now rose in beetling
+precipice and steep mountains, down which foamed cataracts setting the
+echo of myriad bells tinkling through the wilds.  The sea was tinged
+with milky sediment; but fog hung thick as a blanket; and Vancouver
+passed on north without seeing Fraser River.  A little farther on,
+toward the end of June, he was astonished to meet a Spanish brig and
+schooner exploring the straits.  Don Galiano and Don Valdes told him of
+the Fraser, which he had missed, and how the Straits of Fuca led out to
+the North Pacific.  They had also been off Puget Sound, but had not
+gone inland, and brought Vancouver word that Don Quadra, the Spanish
+emissary, sent to restore to England the fort from which Meares, the
+trader, had been ousted, had arrived at Nootka on the other side of the
+island, and was waiting.  The explorers all proceeded up the straits
+together; but the little Spanish crafts were unable {274} to keep
+abreast of the big English vessels, so with a friendly cheer from both
+sides, the English went on alone.
+
+Strange Indian villages lined the beetling heights of the straits.  The
+houses, square built and of log slabs, row on row, like the streets of
+the white man, were situated high on isolated rocks, inaccessible to
+approach except by narrow planking forming a causeway from rock walls
+across the sea to the branches of a tree.  In other places rope ladders
+formed the only path to the aerial dwellings, or the zigzag trail up
+the steep face of a rock down which defenders could hurl stones.
+Howe's Sound, Jervis Canal, Bute Inlet, were passed; {275} and in July
+Johnstone came back with news he had found a narrow channel out to the
+Pacific.
+
+[Illustration: The Discovery on the Rocks.]
+
+The straits narrowed to less than half a mile with such a terrific tide
+wash that on Sunday, July 29, the ships failed to answer to the helm
+and waves seventeen feet high dashed over decks.  Progress was made by
+hauling the boats alongshore with ropes braced round trees.  By the
+first of August a dense fog swept in from the sea.  The _Discovery_
+crashed on a sunken rock, heeling over till her sails were within three
+inches of water.  Ballast was thrown overboard, and the next tide-rush
+lifted her.  By August 19 Vancouver had proved--if any doubt
+remained--that no Northeast Passage was to be found by way of the
+Straits of Fuca.[1]  Then, veering out to sea at midnight through
+squalls {276} of rain, he steered to Nootka for the conference with
+Spain.
+
+Vancouver came to Nootka on the 28th of August.  Nootka was the grand
+rallying place of fur traders on the Pacific.  It was a triangular
+sound extending into the shores of Vancouver Island.  On an island at
+the mouth of the sound the Spaniards had built their fort.  This part
+of the bay was known as Friendly Cove.  To the north was Snug Cove,
+where Cook had anchored; to the south the roadstead of the fur traders.
+Mountains rose from the water-line; and on a terrace of hills above the
+Spanish fort was the native village of Maquinna, the Indian chief.
+
+{277} Here, then, came Vancouver, met at the harbor mouth by a Spanish
+officer with pilot to conduct the _Discovery_ to the Spanish fort of
+Nootka.  The _Chatham_, the _Daedalus_, Vancouver's store ship, two or
+three English fur-trading ships, Spanish frigates bristling with
+cannon, were already at anchor; and the bright Spanish pennant, red and
+yellow, waved to the wind above the cannon-mounted, palisaded log fort
+of Nootka.
+
+[Illustration: Indian Settlement at Nootka.]
+
+Donning regimentals, Lieutenant Puget marched solemnly up to the fort
+to inform Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra, representative of Spain, that
+Captain George Vancouver, representative of England, had arrived at
+Nootka to await the pleasure of New Spain's commander.  It was New
+Spain's pleasure to receive England's salute; and Vancouver's guns
+roared out a volley of thirteen shots to the amaze of two thousand or
+more savages watching from the shores.  Formally accompanied by his
+officers, Vancouver then paid his respects to New Spain.  Don Quadra
+returned the compliment by breakfasting next morning on board the
+_Discovery_, while his frigates in turn saluted England by a volley of
+thirteen guns.  In all this solemn parade of formality, Maquinna, lord
+of the wild domain, began to wonder what part he was to play, and
+ventured to board the _Discovery_, clad in a garb of nature, to join
+the breakfast of the leaders; when he was summarily cuffed overboard by
+the guard, who failed to recognize the Indian's quality.  Don Quadra
+then gave a grand dinner to the English, to which the irate Maquinna
+{278} was invited.  Five courses the dinner had, with royal salutes
+setting the echoes rolling in the hills.  Seventeen guns were fired to
+the success of Vancouver's explorations.  Toasts were drunk, foaming
+toasts to glory, and the navigators of the Pacific, and Maquinna, grand
+chief of the Nootkas, who responded by rising in his place, glass in
+hand, to express regret that Spain should withdraw from the North
+Pacific.  It was then the brilliant thought flashed on Don Quadra to
+win the friendship of the Indians for all the white traders on the
+Pacific coast through a ceremonious visit by Vancouver and himself to
+Maquinna's home village, twenty miles up the sound.
+
+Cutter and yawl left Friendly Cove at eight in the morning of September
+4, coming to Maquinna's home village at two in the afternoon.  Don
+Quadra supplied the dinner, served in style by his own Spanish lackeys;
+and the gallant Spaniard led Maquinna's only daughter to the seat at
+the head of the spread, where the young squaw did the honors with all
+the hauteur of the Indian race.  Maquinna then entertained his visitors
+with a sham battle of painted warriors, followed by a mask dance.  Not
+to be outdone, the whites struck up fife and drum, and gave a wild
+display of Spanish fandangoes and Scotch reels.  In honor of the day's
+outing, it was decided to name the large island which Vancouver had
+almost circumnavigated, Quadra and Vancouver.
+
+When Maquinna returned this visit, there were fireworks, and more
+toasts, and more salutes.  All this {279} was very pleasant; but it was
+not business.  Then Vancouver requested Don Quadra to ratify the
+international agreement between England and Spain; but there proved to
+be a wide difference of opinion as to what that agreement meant.
+Vancouver held that it entailed the surrender of Spain's sovereignty
+from San Francisco northward.  Don Quadra maintained that it only
+surrendered Spanish rights north of Juan de Fuca, leaving the northwest
+coast free to all nations for trade.  With Vancouver it was all or
+nothing.  Don Quadra then suggested that letters be sent to Spain and
+England for more specific instructions.  For this purpose Lieutenant
+Broughton was to be despatched overland across Mexico to Europe.  It
+was at this stage that Robert Gray came down from the north on the
+damaged _Columbia_, to receive assistance from Quadra.  Within three
+weeks Gray had sailed for Boston, Don Quadra for New Spain, and
+Vancouver to the south, to examine that Columbia River of Gray's before
+proceeding to winter on the Sandwich Islands.
+
+
+The three English ships hauled out of Nootka in the middle of October,
+steering for that new river of Gray's, of which Vancouver had expressed
+such doubt.  The foaming reefs of Cape Disappointment were sighted and
+the north entrance seen just as Gray had described it.  The _Chatham_
+rode safely inside the heavy cross swell, though her small boat smashed
+to chips among the breakers; but on Sunday, October {280} 21, such
+mountainous seas were running that Vancouver dared not risk his big
+ship, the _Discovery_, across the bar.  Broughton was intrusted to
+examine the _Columbia_ before setting out to England for fresh orders.
+
+The _Chatham_ had anchored just inside Cape Disappointment on the
+north, then passed south to Cape Adams, using Gray's chart as guide.
+Seven miles up the north coast, a deep bay was named after Gray.  Nine
+or ten Indian dugouts with one hundred and fifty warriors now escorted
+Broughton's rowboat upstream.  The lofty peak ahead covered with snow
+was named Mt. Hood.  For seven days Broughton followed the river till
+his provision ran out, and the old Indian chief with him explained by
+the signs of pointing in the direction of the sunrise and letting water
+trickle through his fingers that water-falls ahead would stop passage.
+Somehow, Broughton seemed to think because Gray, a private trader, had
+not been clad in the gold-braid regimentals of authority, his act of
+discovery was void; for Broughton landed, and with the old chief
+assisting at the ceremony by drinking healths, took possession of all
+the region for England, "having" as the record of the trip explains,
+"every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation
+or state had ever entered this river before; in this opinion he was
+confirmed by Mr. Gray's sketch, in which it does not appear that Mr.
+Gray either saw or was ever within five leagues of the entrance."
+
+{281} Any comment on this proceeding is superfluous.  It was evidently
+in the hope that the achievement of Gray--an unassuming fur trader,
+backed by nothing but his own dauntless courage--would be forgotten,
+which it certainly was for fifty years by nearly all Americans.  Three
+days later, on November 3, Broughton was back down-stream at the
+_Chatham_, noting the deserted Indian village of Chinook as he passed
+to the harbor mouth.  On November 6, in heavy rain, the ship stood out
+for sea, passing the _Jenny_ of Bristol, imprisoned inside the cape by
+surf.  Broughton landed to reconnoitre the passage out.  The wind
+calmed next day, and a breach was descried through the surf.  The
+little trading ship led the way, Broughton following, hard put to keep
+the _Chatham_ headed for the sea, breakers rolling over her from stem
+to stern, snapping the tow-rope of the launch and washing a sailor
+overboard; and we cannot but have a higher respect for Gray's feat,
+knowing the difficulties that Broughton weathered.
+
+Meanwhile Vancouver on the _Discovery_ had coasted on down from the
+mouth of the Columbia to Drake's Bay, just outside the Golden Gate of
+San Francisco, where the bold English pirate had anchored in 1579.  By
+nightfall of November 14 he was inside the spacious harbor of San
+Francisco.  Two men on horseback rode out from the Spanish settlement,
+a mile back from the water front, firing muskets as a salute to
+Vancouver.  The next morning, a Spanish friar and {282} ensign came
+aboard the _Discovery_ for breakfast, pointing out to Vancouver the
+best anchorage for both wood and water.  While the sailors went
+shooting quail on the hills, or amused themselves watching the Indians
+floating over the harbor on rafts made of dry rushes and grass, the
+good Spanish padre conducted Vancouver ashore to the presidio, or house
+of the commandant, back from the landing on a little knoll surrounded
+by hills.  The fort was a square area of adobe walls fourteen feet high
+and five deep, the outer beams filled in between with a plaster of
+solid mortar, houses and walls whitewashed from lime made of
+sea-shells.  A small brass cannon gathered rust above one dilapidated
+carriage, and another old gun was mounted by being lashed to a rotten
+log.  A single gate led into the fort, which was inhabited by the
+commandant, the guard of thirty-five soldiers, and their families.  The
+windows of the houses were very small and without glass, the
+commandant's house being a rude structure thirty by fourteen feet,
+whitewashed inside and out, the floor sand and rushes, the furnishings
+of the roughest handicraft.  The mission proper was three miles from
+the fort, with a guard of five soldiers and a corporal.  Such was the
+beginning of the largest city on the Pacific coast to-day.
+
+Broughton was now sent overland to England for instructions about the
+transfer of Nootka.  Puget became commander of the _Chatham_.  The
+store ship _Daedalus_ was sent to the South Seas, and touching only
+{283} at Monterey, Vancouver sailed to winter in the Sandwich Islands.
+Here two duties awaited the explorer, which he carried out in a way
+that left a streak both of glory and of shame across his escutcheon.
+The Sandwich Islands had become the halfway house of the Pacific for
+the fur traders.  How fur traders--riff-raff adventurers from earth's
+ends beyond the reach of law--may have acted among these simple people
+may be guessed from the conduct of Cook's crews; and Cook was a strict
+disciplinarian.  Those who sow to the wind, need not be surprised if
+they reap the whirlwind.  White men, welcomed by these Indians as gods,
+repaid the native hospitality by impressing natives as crews to a
+northern climate where the transition from semitropics meant almost
+certain death.  For a fur trader to slip into Hawaii, entice women
+aboard, then scud off to America where the victims might rot unburied
+for all the traders cared--was considered a joke.  How the joke caused
+Captain Cook's death the world knows; and the joke was becoming a
+little frequent, a little bold, a little too grim for the white
+traders' sense of security.  The Sandwich Islanders had actually formed
+the plot of capturing every vessel that came into their harbors and
+holding the crews for extortionate ransom.  How many white men were
+victims of this plot--to die by the assassin's knife or waiting for the
+ransom that never came--is not a part of this record.  It was becoming
+a common thing to find white men living in a state of quasi-slavery
+among the {284} islanders, each white held as hostage for the security
+of the others not escaping.  Within three years three ships had been
+attacked, one Spanish, one American, one English--the store ship
+_Daedalus_ on the way out to Nootka with supplies for Vancouver.  Two
+officers, Hergest and Gooch of the _Daedalus_, had been seized,
+stripped naked, forced at the point of spears up a hill to the native
+village, and cut to pieces.  Vancouver determined to put a stop to such
+attacks.  Arriving at the islands, he trained his cannon ashore,
+demanded that the murderers of the _Daedalus's_ officers be
+surrendered, tried the culprits with all the solemnity and speed of
+English court-martial, sentenced them to death, had them tied up to the
+mast poles and executed.  That is the blot against Vancouver; for the
+islanders had put up a trick.  The real murderers had been leading
+chiefs.  Not wishing to surrender these, the islanders had given
+Vancouver poor slaves quite guiltless of the crime.
+
+In contrast to this wrong-headed demonstration of justice was
+Vancouver's other act.  At Nootka he had found among the traders two
+young Hawaiian girls not more than fifteen and nineteen years of age,
+whom some blackguard trader had forcibly carried off.  The most of
+great voyagers would not have soiled their gloves interfering with such
+a case.  Cook had winked at such crimes.  Drake, two hundred years
+before, had laughed.  The Russians outdid either Drake or Cook.  They
+dumped the victims overboard where the {285} sea told no tales.
+Vancouver might have been strict enough disciplinarian to execute the
+wrong men by way of a lesson; but he was consistent in his strictness.
+Round these two friendless savages he wrapped all the chivalry and the
+might of the English flag.  He received them on board the _Discovery_,
+treated them as he might have treated his own sisters, prevented the
+possibility of insult from the common sailors by having them at his own
+table on the ship, taught them the customs of Europeans toward women
+and the reasons for those customs, so that the young girls presently
+had the respect and friendship of every sailor on board the
+_Discovery_.  In New Spain he had obtained clothing and delicacies for
+them that white women have; and in the Sandwich Islands took
+precautions against their death at the hands of Hawaiians for having
+been on the ship with strange men, by securing from the Sandwich Island
+chief the promise of his protection for them and the gifts of a home
+inside the royal enclosure.
+
+
+April of 1793 saw Vancouver back again on the west coast of America.
+In results this year's exploring was largely negative; but the object
+of Vancouver's life was a negative one--to prove there was no passage
+between Pacific and Atlantic.  He had missed the Columbia the previous
+year by standing off the coast north of Mendocino.  So this year, he
+again plied up the same shore to Nootka.  No fresh instructions had
+{286} come from England or Spain to Nootka; and Vancouver took up the
+trail of the sea where he had stopped the year before, carrying forward
+survey of island and mainland from Vancouver Island northward to the
+modern Sitka or Norfolk Sound.  Gray, the American, had been attacked
+by Indians here the year before; and Vancouver did not escape the
+hostility of these notoriously treacherous tribes.  Up Behm Canal the
+ships were visited by warriors wearing death-masks, who refused
+everything in exchange for their sea-otter except firearms.  The canal
+here narrowed to a dark canyon overhung by beetling cliffs.  Four large
+war canoes manned by several hundred savages daubed with war paint
+succeeded in surrounding the small launch, and while half the warriors
+held the boat to prevent it escaping, the rest had rifled it of
+everything they could take, from belaying-pins and sail rope to
+firearms, before Vancouver lost patience and gave orders to fire.  At
+the shot the Indians were over decks and into the sea like water-rats,
+while forces ambushed on land began rolling rocks and stones down the
+precipices.  One gains some idea of Vancouver's thoroughness by his
+work up Portland Canal, which was to become famous a hundred years
+later as the scene of boundary disputes.  Here, so determined was he to
+prove none of the passages led to the Atlantic that his small boat
+actually cruised seven hundred miles without going more than sixty
+miles from ocean front.  By October of 1793 Vancouver had demolished
+the myth of {287} a possible passage between New Spain and Russian
+America; for he had examined every inlet from San Francisco to what is
+now Sitka.  While the results were negative to himself, far different
+were they to Russia.  It was Vancouver's voyage northward that stirred
+the Russians up to move southward.  In a word, if Vancouver had not
+gone up as far as Norfolk Sound or Sitka, the Russian fur traders would
+have drowsed on with Kadiak as headquarters, and Canada to-day might
+have included the entire gold-fields of Alaska.
+
+
+Again Vancouver wintered in the Sandwich Islands.  In the year 1794 he
+changed the direction of his exploring.  Instead of beginning at New
+Spain and working north, he began at Russian America and worked south.
+Kadiak and Cook's Inlet were regarded as the eastern bounds of Russian
+settlement at this time, though the hunting brigades of the Russians
+scoured far and wide; so Vancouver began his survey eastward at Cook's
+Inlet.  Terrific floods of ice banged the ships' bows as they plied up
+Cook's Inlet; and the pistol-shot reports of the vast icebergs breaking
+from the walls of the solid glacier coast forewarned danger; but
+Vancouver was not to be deterred.  Again the dogged ill-luck of always
+coming in second for the prize he coveted marked each stage of his
+trip.  Russian forts were seen on Cook's Inlet, Russian settlements on
+Prince William Sound, Russian flotillas of nine hundred {288} Aleutian
+hunters steering by instinct like the gulls spreading over the sea as
+far east as Bering Bay, or where the coast of Alaska dips southward.
+Everywhere he heard the language of Russia, everywhere saw that Russia
+regarded his explorations with jealousy as intrusion; everywhere
+observed that Russian and savage had come to an understanding and now
+lived as friends, if not brothers.  Twice Baranof, the little Czar of
+the North, sent word for Vancouver to await a conference; but Vancouver
+was not keen to meet the little Russian potentate.  One row at a time
+was enough; and the quarrel with Spain was still unsettled.  The waters
+of to-day plied by the craft of gold seekers, Bering Bay, Lynn Canal,
+named after his birthplace, were now so thoroughly surveyed by
+Vancouver that his charts may still be used.
+
+[Illustration: Reindeer Herd in Siberia.]
+
+Only once did the maze of waterways seem to promise a northeast
+passage.  It was up Lynn Canal, where so many gold seekers have rushed
+to have their hopes dashed, like Vancouver.  Two officers had gone up
+the channel in a small boat to see if any opening led to the Atlantic.
+Boisterous weather and tremendous tide had lashed the sea to foam.  The
+long daylight was so delusive that the men did not realize it was
+nearly midnight.  At ten o'clock they had rowed ashore, to rest from
+their fight with wave and wind, when armed Indians suddenly rushed down
+to the water's edge in battle array, spears couched.  The exhausted
+rowers bent to the oars all night.  At one place in their {289} retreat
+to open sea, the fog lifted to reveal the passage between precipices
+only a few feet wide with warriors' canoes on every side.  A crash of
+musketry drove the assailants off.  Two or three men kept guard with
+pointed muskets, while the oarsmen pulled through a rolling cross swell
+back to the protection of the big ships outside.
+
+On August 19, as the ships drove south to Norfolk or Sitka Sound, the
+men suddenly recognized headlands where they had cruised the summer
+before.  For a second they scarcely realized.  Then they knew that
+their explorations from Alaska southward had come to the meeting place
+of their voyage from New Spain northward.  Just a little more than
+fifty years from Bering's discoveries, the exploration of the northwest
+coast of America had been completed.  Some one emitted an incoherent
+shout that the work was finished!  The cheer was caught up by every man
+on board.  Some one else recalled that it had been April when they set
+out on the fool-quest of the Northeast Passage; and a true April's fool
+the quest had proved!  Then flags were run up; the wine casks brought
+out, the marines drawn up in line, and three such volleys of joy fired
+as those sailors alone could feel.  For four years they had followed
+the foolish quest of the learned world's error.  That night Vancouver
+gave a gala dinner to his crews.  They deserved it.  Their four years'
+cruise marked the close of the most heroic epoch on the Pacific coast.
+Vancouver had accomplished his life-work--there {290} was no northeast
+passage through the west coast of America.[2]
+
+
+
+[1] The legend of Juan de Fuca became current about 1592, as issued in
+_Samuel Purchas' Pilgrims_ in 1625, Vol. III: "A note made by Michael
+Lok, the elder, touching the strait of sea commonly called _Fretum
+Anian_ in the South Sea through the North-West Passage of Meta
+Incognita."  Lok met in Venice, in April, 1596, an old man called Juan
+de Fuca, a Greek mariner and pilot, of the crew of the galleon _Santa
+Anna_ taken by Cavendish near southern California in 1587.  The pilot
+narrated after his return to Mexico, he was sent by the viceroy with
+three vessels to discover the Strait of Anian.  This expedition
+failing, he was again sent in 1592, with a small caravel in which "he
+followed the course west and northwest to latitude 47 north, there
+finding a broad inlet between 47 and 48, he entered, sailing therein
+more than twenty days . . . and found very much broader sea than was at
+the said entrance . . . a great island with a high pinnacle. . . .
+Being come into the North Sea . . . he returned to Acapulco." According
+to the story the old pilot tried to find his way to England in the hope
+of the Queen recouping him for goods taken by Cavendish, and furnishing
+him with a ship to essay the Northeast Passage again.  The old man died
+before Raleigh and other Englishmen could forward money for him to come
+to England.  Whether the story is purely a sailor's yarn, or the pilot
+really entered the straits named after him, and losing his bearings
+when he came out in the Pacific imagined he was on the Atlantic, is a
+dispute among savants.
+
+[2] The data of Vancouver's voyage come chiefly, of course, from the
+volume by himself, issued after his death, _Voyage of Discovery to the
+Pacific Ocean_, London, 1798.  Supplementary data may be found in the
+records of predecessors and contemporaries like Meares's _Voyages_,
+London, 1790, Portlock's _Voyage_, London, 1789; Dixon's _Voyage_,
+London, 1789, and others, from whom nearly all modern writers, like
+Greenhow, Hubert Howe Bancroft, draw their information.  The reports of
+Dr. Davidson in his Coast and Survey work, and his _Alaska Boundary_,
+identify many of Vancouver's landfalls, and illustrate the tremendous
+difficulties overcome in local topography.  It is hardly necessary to
+refer to Begg and Mayne, and other purely local sketches of British
+Columbian coast lines; as Begg's _History_ simply draws from the old
+voyages.  Of modern works, Dr. Davidson's Survey works, and the
+official reports of the Canadian Geological Survey (Dawson), are the
+only ones that add any facts to what Vancouver has recorded.
+
+
+
+
+{291}
+
+PART III
+
+EXPLORATION GIVES PLACE TO FUR TRADE--THE
+  EXPLOITATION OF THE PACIFIC COAST UNDER
+  THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY, AND
+  THE RENOWNED LEADER BARANOF
+
+
+
+{293}
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+1579-1867
+
+THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY
+
+The Pursuit of the Sable leads Cossacks across Siberia, of the
+Sea-Otter, across the Pacific as far South as California--Caravans of
+Four Thousand Horses on the Long Trail Seven Thousand Miles across
+Europe and Asia--Banditti of the Sea--The Union of All Traders in One
+Monopoly--Siege and Slaughter of Sitka--How Monroe Doctrine grew out of
+Russian Fur Trade--Aims of Russia to dominate North Pacific
+
+
+"_Sea Voyagers of the Northern Ocean_" they styled themselves, the
+Cossack banditti--robber knights, pirates, plunderers--who pursued the
+little sable across Europe and Asia eastward, just as the French
+_coureurs des bois_ followed the beaver across America westward.  And
+these two great tides of adventurers--the French voyager, threading the
+labyrinthine waterways of American wilds westward; the Russian voyager
+exchanging his reindeer sled and desert caravans for crazy rafts of
+green timbers to cruise across the Pacific eastward--were directed both
+to the same region, animated by the same impulse, the capture of the
+Pacific coast of America.
+
+{294}
+
+[Illustration: Raised Reindeer Sledges.]
+
+The tide of adventure set eastward across Siberia at the very time
+(1579) Francis Drake, the English freebooter, was sacking the ports of
+New Spain on his way to California.  Yermac, robber knight and leader
+of a thousand Cossack banditti, had long levied tribute of loot on the
+caravans bound from Russia to Persia.  Then came the avenging army of
+the Czar.  Yermac fled to Siberia, wrested the country from the
+Tartars, and obtained forgiveness from the Czar by laying a new realm
+at his feet.  But these Cossack plunderers did not stop with Siberia.
+Northward were the ivory tusks of the frozen tundras.  Eastward were
+precious furs of the snow-padded forests and mountains toward
+Kamchatka.  For both ivory and furs the smugglers of the Chinese
+borderlands would pay a price.  On pretence of collecting one-tenth
+tribute for the Czar, forward pressed the Cossacks; now on
+horseback,--wild {295} brutes got in trade from Tartars,--now behind
+reindeer teams through snowy forests where the spreading hoofs carried
+over drifts; now on rude-planked rafts hewn from green firs on the
+banks of Siberian rivers; on and on pushed the plunderers till the
+Arctic rolled before them on the north, and the Pacific on the east.[1]
+Nor did the seas of these strange shores bar the Cossacks.  Long before
+Peter the Great had sent Vitus Bering to America in 1741, Russian
+voyagers had launched out east and north with a daredevil recklessness
+that would have done honor to prehistoric man.  That part of their
+adventures is a record that exceeds the wildest darings of fiction.
+Their boats were called _kotches_.  They were some sixty feet long,
+flat bottomed, planked with green timber.  Not a nail was used.  Where
+were nails to come from six thousand miles across the frozen tundras?
+Indeed, iron was so scarce that at a later day when ships with nails
+ventured on {296} these seas natives were detected diving below to pull
+the nails from the timbers with their teeth.  Instead of nails, the
+Cossack used reindeer thongs to bind the planking together.  Instead of
+tar, moss and clay and the tallow of sea animals calked the seams.
+Needless to say, there was neither canvas nor rope.  Reindeer thongs
+supplied the cordage, reindeer hides the sails.  On such rickety craft,
+"with the help of God and a little powder," the Russian voyagers
+hoisted sail and put to sea.  On just such vessels did Deshneff and
+Staduchin attempt to round Asia from the Arctic into Bering Sea
+(1647-1650).
+
+To be sure, the first bang of the ice-floes against the prow of these
+rickety boats knocked them into kindling-wood.  Two-thirds of the
+Cossack voyagers were lost every year; and often all news that came of
+the crew was a mast pole washed in by the tide with a dead man lashed
+to the crosstrees.  Small store of fresh water could be carried.  Pine
+needles were the only antidote for scurvy; and many a time the boat
+came tumbling back to the home port, not a man well enough to stand
+before the mast.
+
+
+Always it is what lies just beyond that lures.  It is the unknown that
+beckons like the arms of the old sea sirens.  Groping through the mists
+that hang like a shroud over these northern seas, hoar frosts clinging
+to masts and decks till the boat might have been some ghost ship in a
+fog world, the Cossack plunderers {297} sometimes caught glimpses far
+ahead--twenty, thirty, forty miles eastward--of a black line along the
+sea.  Was it land or fog, ice or deep water?  And when the wind blew
+from the east, strange land birds alighted on the yard-arms.  Dead
+whales with the harpoons of strange hunters washed past the ship; and
+driftwood of a kind that did not grow in Asia tossed up on the tide
+wrack.  It was the word brought back by these free-lances of the sea
+that induced Peter the Great to send Vitus Bering on a voyage of
+discovery to the west coast of America; and when the castaways of
+Bering's wreck returned with a new fur that was neither beaver nor
+otter, but larger than either and of a finer sheen than sable, selling
+the pelts to Chinese merchants for what would be from one hundred and
+fifty to two hundred dollars each in modern money, the effect was the
+same as the discovery of a gold mine.  The new fur was the sea-otter,
+as peculiar to the Pacific as the seal and destined to lead the
+Cossacks on a century's wild hunt from Alaska to California.  Cossacks,
+Siberian merchants, exiled criminals, banded together in as wild a
+stampede to the west coast of America as ever a gold mine caused among
+civilized men of a later day.
+
+The little _kotches_ that used to cruise out from Siberian rivers no
+longer served.  Siberian merchants advanced the capital for the
+building of large sloops.  Cargo of trinkets for trade with American
+Indians was supplied in the same way.  What would be fifty thousand
+dollars in modern money, it took to build and {298} equip one of these
+sloops; but a cargo of sea-otter was to be had for the taking--barring
+storms that yearly engulfed two-thirds of the hunters, and hostile
+Indians that twice wiped Russian settlements from the coast of
+America--and if these pelts sold for one hundred and fifty dollars
+each, the returns were ample to compensate risk and outlay.
+Provisions, cordage, iron, ammunition, firearms, all had to be brought
+from St. Petersburg, seven thousand miles to the Pacific coast.  From
+St. Petersburg to Moscow, Kasan, the Tartar desert and Siberia, pack
+horses were used.  It was a common thing for caravans of four or even
+five thousand pack horses employed by the Russian fur traders of
+America to file into Irkutsk of a night.  At the head waters of the
+Lena, rafts and flatboats, similar to the old Mackinaw boats of
+American fur traders on the Missouri, were built and the cargo floated
+down to Yakutsk, the great rendezvous of Siberian fur traders.  Here
+exiles acting as packers and Cossacks as overseers usually went on a
+wild ten days' spree.  From Yakutsk pack horses, dog trains, and
+reindeer teams were employed for the remaining thousand miles to the
+Pacific; and this was the hardest part of the journey.  Mountains
+higher than the Rockies had to be traversed.  Mountain torrents
+tempestuous with the spring thaw had to be forded--ice cold and to the
+armpits of the drivers; and in winter time, the packs of timber wolves
+following on the heels of the cavalcade could only be driven off by the
+hounds kept to course down grouse and hare {299} for the evening meal.
+If an exile forced to act as transport packer fell behind, that was the
+last of him.  The Russian fur traders of America never paused in their
+plans for a life more or less.  Ordinarily it took three years for
+goods sent from St. Petersburg to reach the Pacific; and this was only
+a beginning of the hardships.  The Pacific had to be crossed, and a
+coast lined with reefs like a ploughed field traversed for two thousand
+miles among Indians notorious for their treachery.
+
+
+The vessels were usually crammed with traps and firearms and trinkets
+to the water-line.  The crews of forty, or seventy, or one hundred were
+relegated to vermin-infested hammocks above decks, with short rations
+of rye bread and salt fish, and such scant supply of fresh water that
+scurvy invariably ravaged the ship whenever foul weather lengthened the
+passage.  Having equipped the vessel, the Siberian merchants passed
+over the management to the Cossacks, whose pretence of conquering new
+realms and collecting tribute for the Czar was only another excuse for
+the same plunder in gathering sea-otter as their predecessors had
+practised in hunting the sable.  Landsmen among Siberian exiles were
+enlisted as crew of their own free will at first, but afterward, when
+the horrors of wreck and scurvy and massacre became known, both exiles
+and Indians were impressed by force as fur hunters for the Cossacks.
+If the voyage were successful, half the {300} proceeds went to the
+outfitter, the remaining half to Cossacks and crew.
+
+The boats usually sailed in the fall, and wintered on Bering Island.
+Here stores of salted meat, sea-lion and sea-cow, were laid up, and the
+following spring the ship steered for the Aleutians, or the main coast
+of Alaska, or the archipelago round the modern Sitka.  Sloops were
+anchored offshore fully armed for refuge in case of attack.  Huts were
+then constructed of driftwood on land.  Toward the east and south,
+where the Indians were treacherous and made doubly so by the rum and
+firearms of rival traders, palisades were thrown up round the fort, a
+sort of balcony erected inside with brass cannon mounted where a sentry
+paraded day and night, ringing a bell every hour in proof that he was
+not asleep.  Westward toward the Aleutians, where driftwood was scarce,
+the Russians built their forts in one of two places: either a sandy
+spit where the sea protected them on three sides, as at Captain Harbor,
+Oonalaska, and St. Paul, Kadiak, or on a high, rocky eminence only
+approachable by a zigzag path at the top of which stood cannon and
+sentry, as at Cook's Inlet.  Chapel and barracks for the hunters might
+be outside the palisade; but the main house was inside, a single story
+with thatch roof, a door at one end, a rough table at the other.
+Sleeping berths with fur bedding were on the side walls, and every
+other available piece of wall space bristled with daggers and firearms
+ready {301} for use.  If the house was a double-decker, as Baranof
+Castle at Sitka, powder was stored in the cellar.  Counting-rooms, mess
+room, and fur stores occupied the first floor.  Sleeping quarters were
+upstairs, and, above all, a powerful light hung in the cupola, to guide
+ships into port at night.
+
+But these arrangements concerned only the Cossack officers of the early
+era, or the governors like Baranof, of a later day.  The rank and file
+of the crews were off on the hunting-grounds with the Indians; and the
+hunting-grounds of the sea-otter were the storm-beaten kelp beds of the
+rockiest coast in the world.  Going out in parties of five or six, the
+_promyshleniki_, as the hunters were called, promised implicit
+obedience to their foreman.  Store of venison would be taken in a
+preliminary hunt.  Indian women and children would be left at the
+Russian fort as hostages of good conduct, and at the head of as many as
+four, five hundred, a thousand Aleut Indian hunters who had been
+bludgeoned, impressed, bribed by the promise of firearms to hunt for
+the Cossacks, six Russians would set out to coast a tempestuous sea for
+a thousand miles in frail boats made of parchment stretched on
+whalebone.  Sometimes a counter-tide would sweep a whole flotilla out
+to sea, when never a man of the hunting crew would be heard of more.
+Sometimes, when the hunters were daring a gale, riding in on the back
+of a storm to catch the sea-otter driven ashore to the kelp beds for a
+rest, the back-wash of a billow, or a sudden {302} hurricane of wind
+raising mountain seas, would crash down on the brigade.  When the spray
+cleared, the few panic-stricken survivors were washing ashore too
+exhausted to be conscious that half their comrades had gone under.
+Absurd as it seems that these plunderers of the deep always held
+prayers before going off on a hunt--is it any wonder they prayed?  It
+was in such brigades that the Russian hunters cruised the west coast of
+America from Bering Sea to the Gulf of California, and the whole
+northwest coast of America is punctuated with saints' names from the
+Russian calendar; for, like Drake's freebooters, they had need to pray.
+
+
+Fur companies world over have run the same course.  No sooner has game
+become scarce on the hunting-grounds, than rivals begin the merry game
+of slitting one another's throats, or instigating savages to do the
+butchering for them.  That was the record of the Hudson's Bay Company
+and Nor'westers in Canada, and the Rocky Mountain men and American
+Company on the Missouri.  Four years after Bering's crew had brought
+back word of the sea-otter in 1742, there were seventy-seven different
+private Russian concerns hunting sea-otter off the islands of Alaska.
+Fifty years later, after Cook, the English navigator, had spread
+authentic news of the wealth in furs to be had on the west coast of
+America, there were sixty different fur companies on the Pacific coast
+carrying {303} almost as many different flags.  John Jacob Astor's
+ships had come round the Horn from New York and, sailing right into the
+Russian hunting-grounds, were endeavoring to make arrangements to
+furnish supplies to the Russians in exchange for cargoes of the
+fur-seals, whose rookeries had been discovered about the time sea-otter
+began to be scarce.  Kendrick, Gray, Ingraham, Coolidge, a dozen Boston
+men were threading the shadowy, forested waterways between New Spain
+and Alaska.[2]  Ships from Spain, from France, from London, from
+Canton, from Bengal, from Austria, were on the west coast of America.
+The effect was twofold: sea-otter were becoming scarce from being
+slaughtered indiscriminately, male and female, young and old; the fur
+trade was becoming bedevilled from rival traders using rum among the
+savages.  The life of a fur trader on the Pacific coast was not worth a
+pin's purchase fifty yards away from the cannon mouths pointed through
+the netting fastened round the deck rails to keep savages off ships.
+Just as Lord Selkirk indirectly brought about the consolidation of the
+Hudson's Bay fur traders with Nor'westers, and John Jacob Astor
+attempted the same ends between the St. Louis and New York companies,
+so a master mind arose among the Russians, grasping the situation, and
+ready to cope with its difficulties.
+
+[Illustration: John Jacob Astor.]
+
+This was Gregory Ivanovich Shelikoff, a fur trader {304} of Siberia,
+accompanied to America and seconded by his wife, Natalie, who succeeded
+in carrying out many of his plans after his death.  Shelikoff owned
+shares in two of the principal Russian companies.  When he came to
+America accompanied by his wife, Baranof, another trader, and two
+hundred men in 1784, the Russian headquarters were still at Oonalaska
+in the Aleutians.  Only desultory expeditions had gone eastward.
+Foreign ships had already come among the Russian hunting-grounds of the
+north.  These Shelikoff at once checkmated by moving Russian
+headquarters east to Three Saints, Kadiak.  Savages warned him from the
+island, threatening death to the Aleut Indian hunters he had brought.
+Shelikoff's answer was a load of presents to the hostile messenger.
+That failing, he took advantage of an eclipse of the sun as a sign to
+the superstitious Indians that the coming of the Russians was noted and
+blessed of Heaven.  The unconvinced Kadiak savages responded by
+ambushing the first Russians to leave camp, and showering arrows on the
+Russian boats.  Shelikoff gathered up his men, sallied forth, whipped
+the Indians off their feet, took four hundred prisoners, treated them
+well, and so won the friendship of the islanders.  From the new
+quarters hunters were despatched eastward under Baranof and others as
+far as what is now Sitka.  These yearly came back with cargoes of
+sea-otter worth two hundred thousand dollars.  Shelikoff at once saw
+that if the Russian traders were to hold their own against {305} the
+foreign adventurers of all nations flocking to the Pacific,
+headquarters must be moved still farther eastward, and the prestige of
+the Russian government invoked to exclude foreigners.  There were, in
+fact, no limits to the far-sighted ambitions of the man.  Ships were to
+be despatched to California setting up signs of Russian possession.
+Forts in Hawaii could be used as a mid-Pacific arsenal and halfway
+house for the Russian fleet that was to dominate the North Pacific.  A
+second Siberia on the west coast of America, with limits eastward as
+vague as the Hudson's Bay Company's claims westward, was to be added to
+the domains of the Czar.  Whether the idea of declaring the North
+Pacific a _closed sea_ as Spain had declared the South Pacific a
+_closed sea_ till Francis Drake opened it, originated in the brain of
+Shelikoff, or his successors, is immaterial.  It was the aggrandizement
+of the Russian American Fur Company as planned by Shelikoff from 1784
+to 1796, that led to the Russian government trying to exclude foreign
+traders from the North Pacific twenty-five years later, and which in
+turn led to the declaration of the famous Monroe Doctrine by the United
+States in 1823--that the New World was no longer to be the happy
+hunting-ground of Old World nations bent on conquest and colonization.
+
+Like many who dream greatly, Shelikoff did not live to see his plans
+carried out.  He died in Irkutsk in 1795; but in St. Petersburg, when
+pressing upon {306} the government the necessity of uniting all the
+independent traders in one all-powerful company to be given exclusive
+monopoly on the west coast of America, he had met and allied himself
+with a young courtier, Nikolai Rezanoff.[3]  When Shelikoff died,
+Rezanoff it was who obtained from the Czar in 1799 a charter for the
+Russian American Fur Company, giving it exclusive monopoly for hunting,
+trading, and exploring north of 55 degrees in the Pacific.  Other
+companies were compelled either to withdraw or join.  Royalty took
+shares in the venture.  Shareholders of St. Petersburg were to direct
+affairs, and Baranof, the governor, resident in America, to have power
+of life and death, despotic as a czar.  By 1800 the capital of Russian
+America had been moved down to the modern Sitka, called Archangel
+Michael in the trust of the Lord's anointed protecting these plunderers
+of the sea.  Shelikoff's dreams were coming true.  Russia was
+checkmating the advances of England and the United States and New
+Spain.  Schemes were in the air with Baranof for the impressment of
+Siberian exiles as peasant farmers among the icebergs of Prince William
+Sound, for the remission of one-tenth tribute in furs from the Aleuts
+on condition of free service as hunters with the company, and for the
+employment of Astor's ships as purveyors of provisions to Sitka, when
+there fell a bolt {307} from the blue that well-nigh wiped Russian
+possession from the face of America.
+
+
+It was a sleepy summer afternoon toward the end of June in 1802.
+Baranof had left a guard of twenty or thirty Russians at Sitka and,
+confident that all was well, had gone north to Kadiak.  Aleut Indians,
+impressed as hunters, were about the fort, for the fiery Kolosh or
+Sitkans of this region would not bow the neck to Russian tyranny.  Safe
+in the mountain fastnesses behind the fort, they refused to act as
+slaves.  How they regarded this invasion of their hunting-ground by
+alien Indians--Indians acting as slaves--may be guessed.[4]  Whether
+rival traders, deserters from an American ship, living with the Sitkan
+Indians, instigated the conspiracy cannot be known.  I have before me
+letters written by a fur trader of a rival company at that time,
+declaring if a certain trader did not cease his methods, that "pills
+would be bought at Montreal with as good poison as pills from London;"
+and the sentiment of the writer gives a true idea of the code that
+prevailed among American fur traders.
+
+The fort at that time occupied a narrow strip between a dense forest
+and the rocky water front a few miles north of the present site.
+Whether the renegade American sailors living in the forests with the
+Kolosh betrayed all the inner plans of the fort, or the squaws daily
+passing in and out with berries kept their {308} countrymen informed of
+Russian movements, the blow was struck when the whites were off guard.
+It was a holiday.  Half the Russians were outside the palisades
+unarmed, fishing.  The remaining fifteen men seem to have been upstairs
+about midday in the rooms of the commander, Medvednikoff.  Suddenly the
+sleepy sentry parading the balcony noticed Michael, chief of the
+Kolosh, standing on the shore shouting at sixty canoes to land quickly.
+Simultaneously the patter of moccasined feet came from the dense forest
+to the rear--a thousand Kolosh warriors, every Indian armed and wearing
+the death-mask of battle.  Before the astounded sentry could sound an
+alarm, such a hideous uproar of shouts arose as might have come from
+bedlam let loose.  The Indian always imitates the cries of the wild
+beast when he fights--imitates or sets free the wild beast in his own
+nature.  For a moment the Russians were too dumfounded to collect their
+senses.  Then women and children dashed for refuge upstairs in the main
+building, huddling over the trapdoor in a frenzy of fright.  Russians
+outside the palisades ran for the woods, some to fall lanced through
+the back as they raced, others to reach shelter of the dense forest,
+where they lay for eight days under hiding of bark and moss before
+rescue came.  Medvednikoff, the commander, and a dozen others, seem to
+have hurled themselves downstairs at the first alarm, but already the
+outer doors had been rammed.  The panels of the inner door were slashed
+out.  A flare of {309} musketry met the Russians full in the face.  The
+defenders dropped to a man, fearless in death as in life, though one
+wounded fellow seems to have dragged himself to the balcony where he
+succeeded in firing off the cannon before he was thrown over the
+palisades, to be received on the hostiles' upturned spears.  Meanwhile
+wads of burning birch bark and moss had been tossed into the fort on
+the powder magazines.  A high wind fanned the flames.  A terrific
+explosion shook the fort.  The trap-door where the women huddled
+upstairs gave way.  Half the refugees fell through, where they were
+either butchered or perished in the flames.  The others plunged from
+the burning building through the windows.  A few escaped to the woods.
+The rest--Aleut women, wives of the Russians--were taken captive by the
+Kolosh.  Ships, houses, fortress, all were in flames.  By nightfall
+nothing remained of Sitka but the brass and iron of the melted cannon.
+The hostiles had saved loot of some two thousand sea-otter skins.
+
+All that night, and for eight days and nights, the refugees of the
+forest lay hidden under bark and moss.  Under cover of darkness, one, a
+herdsman, ventured down to the charred ruins of Sitka.  The mangled,
+headless bodies of the Russians lay in the ashes.  At noon of the
+eighth day the mountains suddenly rocked to the echo of two
+cannon-shots from the bay.  A ship had come.  Three times one Russian
+ventured to the shore, and three times was chased back to the woods;
+{310} but he had seen enough.  The ship was an English trader under
+Captain Barber, who finally heard the shouts of the pursued man, put
+off a small boat and rescued him.  Three others were saved from the
+woods in the same way, but had been only a few days on the ship, when
+Michael, the Kolosh chief, emboldened by success, rowed out with a
+young warrior and asked the English captain to give up the Russians.
+Barber affected not to understand, lured both Indians on board, seized
+them, put them in irons, and tied them across a cannon mouth, when he
+demanded the restoration of all captives and loot; but the Sitkan chief
+probably had his own account of who suggested the massacre.  Also it
+was to the English captain's interests to remain on good terms with the
+Indians.  Anyway, the twenty captives were not restored till two other
+ships had entered port, and sent some Kolosh canoes to bottom with
+grape-shot.  The savages were then set free, and hastening up to
+Kadiak, Barber levelled his cannon at the Russian fort and demanded
+thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars' salvage for the rescue of
+the captives and loot.  Baranof haggled the Englishman tired, and
+compromised for one-fifth the demand.
+
+Two years passed, and the fur company was powerless to strike an
+avenging blow.  Wherever the Russians led Aleuts into the Kolosh
+hunting-grounds, there had been ambush and massacre; but Baranof {311}
+bided his time.  The Aleut Indian hunters, who had become
+panic-stricken, gradually regained sufficient courage again to follow
+the Russians eastward.  By the spring of 1804 Baranof's men had
+gathered up eight hundred Aleut Indians, one hundred and twenty Russian
+hunters, four small schooners, and two sloops.  The Indians in their
+light boats of sea-lion skin on whalebone, the Russians in their
+sail-boats, Baranof set out in April from St. Paul, Kadiak, with his
+thousand followers to wreak vengeance on the tribes of Sitka.
+Sea-otter were hunted on the way, so that it was well on in September
+before the brigades entered Sitka waters.  Meanwhile aid from an
+unexpected quarter had come to the fur company.  Lieutenant Krusenstern
+had prevailed on the Russian government to send supplies to the Russian
+American Company by two vessels around the world instead of caravans
+across Siberia.  With Krusenstern went Rezanoff, who had helped the fur
+traders to obtain their charter, and was now commissioned to open an
+embassy to Japan.  The second vessel under Captain Lisiansky proceeded
+at once to Baranof's aid at Sitka.
+
+Baranof was hunting when Lisiansky's man-of-war entered the gloomy
+wilds of Sitka Sound.  The fur company's two sloops lay at anchor with
+lanterns swinging bow and stern to guide the hunters home.  The eight
+hundred hostiles had fortified themselves behind the site of the modern
+Sitka.  Palisades the depth of two spruce logs ran across the front of
+the {312} rough barricade, loopholed for musketry, and protected by a
+sort of cheval-de-frise of brushwood and spines.  At the rear of the
+enemy's fort ran sally ports leading to the ambush of the woods, and
+inside were huts enough to house a small town.  By the 28th of
+September Baranof's Aleut Indian hunters had come in and camped
+alongshore under protection of cannon sent close inland on a small
+boat.  It was a weird scene that the Russian officers witnessed, the
+enemy's fort, unlighted and silent as death, the Aleut hunters
+alongshore dancing themselves into a frenzy of bravado, the spruce
+torches of the coast against the impenetrable forest like fireflies in
+a thicket; an occasional fugitive canoe from the enemy attempting to
+steal through the darkness out of the harbor, only to be blown to bits
+by a cannon-shot.  The ships began to line up and land field-pieces for
+action, when a Sitkan came out with overtures of peace.  Baranof gave
+him the present of a gay coat, told him the fort must be surrendered,
+and chiefs sent to the Russians as hostages of good conduct.  Thirty
+warriors came the next day, but the whites insisted on chiefs as
+hostages, and the braves retired.  On October the first a white flag
+was run up on the ship of war.  No signal answered from the barricade.
+The Russian ships let blaze all the cannon simultaneously, only to find
+that the double logs of the barricade could not be penetrated.  No
+return fire came from the Sitkans.  Two small boats were then landed to
+destroy the enemy's {313} stores.  Still not a sign from the barricade.
+Raging with impatience, Baranof went ashore supported by one hundred
+and fifty men, and with a wild halloo led the way to rush the fort.
+The hostile Sitkans husbanded their strength with a coolness equal to
+the famous thin red line of British fame.  Not a signal, not a sound,
+not the faintest betrayal of their strength or weakness till in the
+dusk Baranof was within gunshot of the logs, when his men were met with
+a solid wall of fire.  The Aleuts stopped, turned, stampeded.  Out
+sallied the Sitkans pursuing Russians and Aleuts to the water's edge,
+where the body of one dead Russian was brandished on spear ends.  In
+the sortie fourteen of the Russian forces were killed, twenty-six
+wounded, among whom was Baranof, shot through the shoulder.  The guns
+of the war ship were all that saved the retreat from a panic.
+
+Lisiansky then undertook the campaign, letting drive such a brisk fire
+the next day that the Sitkans came suing for peace by the afternoon.
+Three days the cunning savages stayed the Russian attack on pretence of
+arranging hostages.  Hailing the fort on the morning of the 6th and
+securing no answer, Lisiansky again played his cannon on the barricade.
+That night a curious sound, that was neither chant nor war-cry, came
+from the thick woods.  At daylight carrion crows were seen circling
+above the barricade.  Three hundred Russians landed.  Approaching
+cautiously for fear of ambuscade, they clambered over the {314}
+palisades and looked.  The fort was deserted.  Naught of the Sitkans
+remained but thirty dead warriors and all their children, murdered
+during the night to prevent their cries betraying the retreat.
+
+
+New Archangel, as it was called, was built on the site of the present
+Sitka.  Sixteen short and forty-two long cannon mounted the walls.  As
+many as seven hundred officers and men were sometimes on garrison duty.
+Twelve officers frequently dined at the governor's table; and here, in
+spite of bishops and priests and deacons who later came on the ground,
+the revellers of the Russian fur hunters held high carnival.
+Thirty-six forts and twelve vessels the Russian American fur hunters
+owned twenty years after the loss of Sitka.  New Archangel became more
+important to the Pacific than San Francisco.  Nor was it a mistake to
+move the capital so far south.  Within a few years Russian traders and
+their Indians were north as far as the Yukon, south hunting sea-otter
+as far as Santa Barbara.  To enumerate but a few of the American
+vessels that yearly hunted sea-otter for the Russians southward of
+Oregon and California, taking in pay skins of the seal islands, would
+fill a coasting list.  Rezanoff, who had failed to open the embassy to
+Japan and so came across to America, spent two months in Monterey and
+San Francisco trying to arrange with the Spaniards to supply the
+Russians with provisions.  He was received coldly by the Spanish
+governor till {315} a love affair sprang up with the daughter of the
+don, so ardent that the Russian must depart post-haste across Siberia
+for the Czar's sanction to the marriage.  Worn out by the midwinter
+journey, he died on his way across Siberia.
+
+[Illustration: Sitka from the Sea.]
+
+Later, in 1812, when the Russian coasters were refused watering
+privileges at San Francisco, the Russian American Company bought land
+near Bodega, and settled their famous Ross, or California colony, with
+cannon, barracks, arsenal, church, workshops, and sometimes a
+population of eight hundred Kadiak Indians.  Here provisions were
+gathered for Sitka, and hunters despatched for sea-otter of the south.
+The massacres on the Yukon and the clashes with the Hudson's Bay
+traders are a story by themselves.  The other doings of these "Sea
+Voyagers" became matters of international history when they tried to
+exclude American and British traders from the Pacific.  The fur hunters
+in the main were only carrying out the far-reaching plans of Shelikoff,
+who originated the charter for the company; but even Shelikoff could
+hardly foresee that the country which the Russian government was
+willing to sell to the United States in 1867 for seven million dollars,
+would produce more than twice that during a single year in gold.
+To-day all that remains to Russia of these sea voyagers' plundering are
+two small islands, Copper and Bering in Bering Sea.
+
+
+
+[1] Coxe and Mueller are the two great authorities on the early Russian
+fur trade.  Data on later days can be found in abundance in
+Krusenstern's _Voyage_, London, 1813; Kohl's _History_, London, 1862;
+Langsdorff's _Travels_, London, 1813; Stejneger's _Contributions to
+Smithsonian_, 1884, and _Report on Commander Islands_; Elliott's _Our
+Arctic Province_; Dall's _Alaska_; Veniaminof's _Letters on Aleutians_;
+Cleveland's _Voyages_, 1842, Nordenskjoeld's _Voyage of the Vega_;
+Macfie's _Vancouver Island_; Ivan Petroff's _Report on Alaska_, 1880;
+Lisiansky's _Voyage Round the World_; Sauer's _Geographical Account of
+Expedition to Northern Parts_; Kotzebue's _Voyages of Discovery_, 1819,
+and _New Voyage_, 1831; Chappe d'Auteroche's _Siberia_ and
+Kracheninnikof's _Kamchatka_, 1764; Simpson's _Voyage Round World_,
+1847; Burney's _Voyages_; Gmelin's _Siberia_, Paris, 1767; Greenhow's
+_Oregon_; Pallas's _Northern Settlements_; Broughton's _Voyage_, 1804;
+Berg's _Aleutian Islands_; Bancroft's _Alaska_; _Massa. Hist. Coll._,
+1793-1795; _U. S. Congressional Reports_ from 1867; Martin's _Hudson's
+Bay Territories_, London, 1849.
+
+[2] Over one hundred American ships had been on the Pacific coast of
+America before 1812.
+
+[3] Rezanoff married the fur trader's daughter.  The bride did not live
+long, nor does the union seem to have been a love affair; as Rezanoff's
+infatuation with the daughter of a Spanish don later seemed to indicate
+a heart-free lover.
+
+[4] See Chapter XII.
+
+
+
+
+{316}
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+1747-1818
+
+BARANOF, THE LITTLE CZAR OF THE PACIFIC
+
+Baranof lays the Foundations of Russian Empire on the Pacific Coast of
+America--Shipwrecked on his Way to Alaska, he yet holds his Men in Hand
+and turns the Ill-hap to Advantage--How he bluffs the Rival Fur
+Companies in Line--First Russian Ship built in America--Adventures
+leading the Sea-otter Hunters--Ambushed by the Indians--The Founding of
+Sitka--Baranof, cast off in his Old Age, dies of Broken Heart
+
+
+No wilder lord of the wild northland ever existed than that old madcap
+Viking of the Pacific, Alexander Baranof, governor of the Russian fur
+traders.  For thirty years he ruled over the west coast of America from
+Alaska to southern California despotic as a czar.  And he played the
+game single-handed, no retinue but convicts from Siberia, no subjects
+but hostile Indians.
+
+Whether leading the hunting brigades of a thousand men over the sea in
+skin canoes light as cork, or rallying his followers ambushed by
+hostiles repelling invasion of their hunting-ground, or drowning
+hardships with seas of fiery Russian brandy in midnight carousals,
+Baranof was supreme autocrat.  Drunk or {317} sober, he was master of
+whatever came, mutineers or foreign traders planning to oust Russians
+from the coast of America.  Baranof stood for all that was best and all
+that was worst in that heroic period of Pacific coast history when
+adventurers from all corners of the earth roamed the otter-hunting
+grounds in quest of fortune.  Each man was a law unto himself.  There
+was fear of neither man nor devil.  The whole era might have been a
+page from the hero epic of prehistoric days when earth was young, and
+men ranged the seas unhampered by conscience or custom, magnificent
+beasts of prey, glorying in freedom and bloodshed and the warring
+elements.
+
+[Illustration: Alexander Baranof.]
+
+Yet in person Baranof was far from a hero.  He was wizened, sallow,
+small, a margin of red hair round a head bald as a bowl, grotesque
+under a black wig tied on with a handkerchief.  And he had gone up in
+life much the way a monkey climbs, by shifts and scrambles and
+prehensile hoists with frequent falls.  It was an ill turn of fortune
+that sent him to America in the first place.  He had been managing a
+glass factory at Irkutsk, Siberia, where the endless caravans of fur
+traders passed.  Born at Kargopol, East Russia, in 1747, he had drifted
+to Moscow, set up in a shop for himself at twenty-four, failed in
+business, and emigrated to Siberia at thirty-five.  Tales of profit in
+the fur trade were current at Irkutsk.  Tired of stagnating in what was
+an absolutely safe but unutterably monotonous life, Baranof left the
+factory and invested all his {318} savings in the fur trade to the
+Indians of northern Siberia and Kamchatka.  For some years all went
+well.  Baranof invested deeper, borrowing for his ventures.  Then the
+Chukchee Indians swooped down on his caravans, stampeded the pack
+horses, scuttled the goods, and Baranof was a bankrupt.  The rival fur
+companies on the west coast of America were now engaged in the merry
+game of cutting each other's throats--literally and without restraint.
+A strong hand was needed--a hand that could weld the warring elements
+into one, and push Russian trade far down from Alaska to New Spain,
+driving off the field those foreigners whose relentless
+methods--liquor, bludgeon, musket--were demoralizing the Indian
+sea-otter hunters.
+
+Destitute and bankrupt, Baranof was offered one-sixth of the profits to
+become governor of the chief Russian company.  On August 10, 1790,
+about the same time that John Jacob Astor also embarked in the fur
+trade that was to bring him in contact with the Russians, Baranof
+sailed to America.
+
+
+Fifty-two men the ragamuffin crew numbered, exiles, convicts, branded
+criminals, raggedly clad and ill-fed, sleeping wherever they could on
+the littered and vermin-infested decks; for what did the lives of a
+convict crew matter?  Below decks was crammed to the waterline with
+goods for trade.  All thought for furs, small care for men; and a few
+days out from port, the water-casks were found to be leaking so badly
+that allowance {319} of drinking water was reduced; and before the
+equinoctial gales, scurvy had already disabled the crew.  Baranof did
+not turn back, nor allow the strong hand of authority to relax over his
+men as poor Bering had.  He ordered all press of sail, and with the
+winds whistling through the rigging and the little ship straining to
+the smashing seas, did his best to outspeed disease, sighting the long
+line of surf-washed Aleutian Islands in September, coasting from
+headland to headland, keeping well offshore for fear of reefs till the
+end of the month, when compelled to turn in to the mid-bay of Oonalaska
+for water.  There was no ignoring the danger of the landing.  A shore
+like the walls of a giant rampart with reefs in the teeth of a saw,
+lashed to a fury by beach combers, offered poor escape from death by
+scurvy.  Nevertheless, Baranof effected anchorage at Koshigin Bay, sent
+the small boats ashore for water, watched his chance of a seaward
+breeze, and ran out to sea again in one desperate effort to reach
+Kadiak, the headquarters of the fur traders, before winter.  Outside
+the shelter of the harbor, wind and seas met the ship.  She was driven
+helpless as a chip in a whirlpool straight for the granite rocks of the
+shore, where she smashed to pieces like the broken staves of a dry
+water-barrel.  Led by the indomitable Baranof, who seemed to meet the
+challenge of the very elements, the half-drowned crew crawled ashore
+only to be ordered to save the cargo now rolling up in the wave wash.
+
+{320} When darkness settled over the sea on the last night of
+September, Baranof was in the same predicament as Bering--a castaway
+for the winter on a barren island.  Instead of sinking under the
+redoubled blows of an adverse fate, the little Russian rebounded like a
+rubber ball.  A messenger and some Indians were at once despatched in a
+skin boat to coast from island to island in an effort to get help from
+Kadiak.  Meanwhile Baranof did not sit lamenting with folded hands; and
+well that he did not; for his messengers never reached Kadiak.
+
+Holes were at once scooped out of the sand, and the caves roofed over
+with the remnants of the wreck.  These underground huts on an island
+destitute of wood were warmer than surface cabins, and better withstood
+the terrible north winds that swept down from the Arctic with such
+force that for two months at a time the men could go outside only by
+crawling under shelter of the boulders.  Ammunition was distributed to
+the fifty castaways; salmon bought from the Indians, whom Baranof's
+fair treatment won from the first; once a week, rye meal was given out
+for soup; and for the rest, the men had to depend on the eggs of
+sea-birds, that flocked over the precipitous shores in myriads, or on
+the sea-lions roaring till the surf shook on the rocky islets along the
+shore.
+
+If there is one characteristic more than another that proves a man
+master of destiny, it is ability not only to meet misfortune but to
+turn it to advantage when it {321} comes.  While waiting for the rescue
+that never came, Baranof studied the language of the Aleuts, sent his
+men among them to learn to hunt, rode out to sea in their frail skin
+boats lashed abreast to keep from swamping during storm, slept at night
+on the beach with no covering but the overturned canoes, and, sharing
+every hardship, set traps with his own hands.  When the weather was too
+boisterous for hunting, he set his people boiling salt from sea-water
+to dry supplies of fish for the summer, or replenishing their ragged
+clothes by making coats of birds' skin.  The last week before Easter,
+provisions were so low the whole crew were compelled to indulge in a
+Lenten fast; but on Easter Monday, behold a putrid whale thrown ashore
+by the storm!  The fast was followed by a feast.  The winds subsided,
+and hunters brought in sea-lions.
+
+It was quite apparent now no help was coming from Kadiak.  Baranof had
+three large boats made of skin and wreckage.  One he left with the men,
+who were to guard the remnants of the cargo.  A second he despatched
+with twenty-six men.  In the third he himself embarked, now in a raging
+fever from the exposure of the winter.  A year all but a month from the
+time he had left Asia, Baranof reached Three Saints, Kadiak, on June
+27, 1791.
+
+
+Things were black enough when Baranof landed at Kadiak.  The settlement
+of Three Saints had been depending on the supplies of his wrecked ship;
+and {322} when he arrived, himself in need, discontent flared to open
+mutiny.  Five different rival companies had demoralized the Indians by
+supplying them with liquor, and egging them on to raid other traders.
+Southward, toward Nootka, were hosts of foreign ships--Gray and
+Kendrick and Ingraham from Boston, Vancouver from England, Meares from
+East India, Quadra from New Spain, private ventures outfitted by Astor
+from New York.  If Russia were to preserve her hunting-grounds, no time
+should be lost.
+
+Baranof met the difficulties like a commander of guerilla warfare.
+Brigades were sent eastward to the fishing-ground of Cook's Inlet for
+supplies.  Incipient mutiny was quelled by sending more hunters off
+with Ismyloff to explore new sea-otter fields in Prince William Sound.
+As for the foreign fur traders, he conceived the brilliant plan of
+buying food from them in exchange for Russian furs and of supplying
+them with brigades of Aleut Island hunters to scour the Pacific for
+sea-otter from Nootka and the Columbia to southern California.  This
+would not only add to stores of Russian furs, but push Russian dominion
+southward, and keep other nations off the field.
+
+That it was not all plain sailing on a summer day may be inferred from
+one incident.  He had led out a brigade of several hundred canoes,
+Indians and Russians, to Nuchek Island, off Prince William Sound.
+Though he had tried to win the friendship of the coast Indians by
+gifts, it was necessary to steal from point {323} to point at night,
+and to hide at many places as he coasted the mainland.  Throwing up
+some sort of rough barricade at Nuchek Island, he sent the most of his
+men off to fish and remained with only sixteen Aleuts and Russians.  It
+was perfectly natural that the Alaskan Indians should resent the Aleuts
+intruding on the hunting-grounds of the main coast, one thousand miles
+from the Aleutian Islands.  Besides, the mainland Indians had now
+learned unscrupulous brutality from foreign traders.  Baranof knew his
+danger and never relaxed vigilance.  Of the sixteen men, five always
+stood sentry at night.
+
+The night of June 20 was pitch dark.  Terrific seas were running, and a
+tempest raged through the woods of the mainland.  For safety,
+Ismyloff's ship had scudded to the offing.  Baranof had undressed,
+thrown himself down in his cabin, and was in the deep sleep of outdoor
+exhaustion, when above the howling of the gale, not five steps away, so
+close it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe in the darkness,
+arose the shrill war-cry of hostiles.  Leaping to his feet, Baranof
+rushed out undressed.  His shirt was torn to shreds by a shower of
+flint and copper-head arrows.  In the dark, the Russians could only
+fire blindly.  The panic-stricken Aleuts dashed for their canoes to
+escape to Ismyloff's ship.  Ismyloff sent armed Russians through the
+surf wash and storm to Baranof's aid.  Baranof kept his small cannon
+pounding hot shot where the shouts sounded till daylight.  Of the
+sixteen men, two {324} Russians and nine Aleuts were dead.  Of the men
+who came to his aid, fifteen were wounded.  The corpses of twelve
+hostiles lay on the beach; and as gray dawn came over the tempestuous
+sea, six large war canoes vanished into the morning mist, a long trail
+of blood over the waves showing that the hostiles were carrying off
+their wounded.  Well might Baranof write, "I will vanquish a cruel
+fate; or fall under its repeated blows."  The most of men would have
+thought they had sufficient excuse to justify backing out of their
+difficulties.  Baranof locked grapples with the worst that destiny
+could do; and never once let go.  Sometimes the absolute futility of so
+much striving, so much hardship, so much peril, all for the sake of the
+crust of bread that represents mere existence, sent him down to black
+depths of rayless despondency, when he asked himself, was life worth
+while?  But he never let go his grip, his sense of resistance, his
+impulse to fight the worst, the unshunnable obligation of being alive
+and going on with the game, succeed or fail.  Such fits of despair
+might end in wild carousals, when he drank every Russian under the
+table, outshouted the loudest singer, and perhaps wound up by throwing
+the roomful of revellers out of doors.  But he rose from the depths of
+debauch and despair, and went on with the game.  That was the main
+point.
+
+
+The terrible position to which loss of supplies had reduced the traders
+of Kadiak when his own vessel {325} was wrecked at Oonalaska on the way
+out, demonstrated to Baranof the need of more ships; so when orders
+came from his company in 1793 to construct a sailing boat on the
+timberless island of Kadiak without iron, without axes, without saw,
+without tar, without canvas, he was eager to attempt the impossible.
+Shields, an Englishman, in the employment of Russia, was to act as
+shipbuilder; and Baranof sent the men assigned for the work up to
+Sunday Harbor on the west side of Prince William Sound, where heavy
+forests would supply timber and the tide-rush help to launch the vessel
+from the skids.  There were no saws in the settlement.  Planks had to
+be hewn out of logs.  Iron, there was none.  The rusty remnants of old
+wrecks were gathered together for bolts and joints and axes.  Spruce
+gum mixed with blubber oil took the place of oakum and tar below the
+water-line.  Moss and clay were used as calking above water.  For sail
+cloth, there was nothing but shreds and rags and tatters of canvas
+patched together so that each mast-arm looked like Joseph's coat of
+many colors.  Seventy-nine feet from stem to stern, the crazy craft
+measured, of twenty-three feet beam, thirteen draught, one hundred
+tons, two decks, and three masts.  All the winter of 1792-1793, just a
+year after Robert Gray, the American, had built his sloop down at Fort
+Defence off Vancouver Island, the Russian shipbuilding went on.  Then
+in April, lest the poverty of the Russians should become known to
+foreign traders, Baranof sent Shields, the English {326} shipbuilder,
+off out of the way, on an otter-hunting venture.  It was August of the
+next summer before the clumsy craft slipped from the skids into the
+rising tide.  She was so badly ballasted that she bobbled like cork;
+and her sails so frail they flew to tatters in the gentlest wind; but
+Russia had accomplished her first ship in America.  Bells were set
+ringing when the _Phoenix_ was towed into the harbor of Kadiak; and
+when she reached Okhotsk laden with furs to the water-line in April of
+1794, enthusiasm knew no bounds.  Salvos of artillery thundered over
+her sails, and mass was chanted, and a polish of paint given to her
+piebald, rickety sides that transformed her into what the fur company
+proudly regarded as a frigate.  Before the year was out, Baranof had
+his men at work on two more vessels.  There was to be no more crippling
+of trade for lack of ships.
+
+But a more serious matter than shipbuilding demanded Baranof's
+attention.  Rival fur companies were on the ground.  Did one party of
+traders establish a fort on Cook's Inlet?  Forthwith came another to a
+point higher up the inlet, where Indians could be intercepted.  There
+followed warlike raids, the pillaging of each other's forts, the
+capture of each other's Indian hunters, the utter demoralization of the
+Indians by each fort forbidding the savages to trade at the other, the
+flogging and bludgeoning and butchering of those who disobeyed the
+order--and finally, the forcible abduction of whole villages of women
+and children to compel the alliance of the hunters.  All Baranof's work
+to {327} pacify the hostiles of the mainland was being undone; and what
+complicated matters hopelessly for him was the fact that the
+shareholders of his own company were also shareholders in the rival
+ventures.  Baranof wrote to Siberia for instructions, urging the
+amalgamation of all the companies in one; but instructions were so long
+in coming that the fur trade was being utterly bedevilled and the
+passions of the savages inflamed to a point of danger for every white
+man on the North Pacific.  Affairs were at this pass when Konovalof,
+the dashing leader of the plunderers, planned to capture Baranof
+himself, and seize the shipyard at Sunday Harbor, on Prince William
+Sound.  Baranof had one hundred and fifty fighting Russians in his
+brigades.  Should he wait for the delayed instructions from Siberia?
+While he hesitated, some of the shipbuilders were ambushed in the
+woods, robbed, beaten, and left half dead.  Baranof could not afford to
+wait.  He had no more legal justification for his act than the
+plunderers had for theirs; but it was a case where a man must step
+outside law, or be exterminated.  Rallying his men round him and taking
+no one into his confidence, the doughty little Russian sent a formal
+messenger to Konovalof, the bandit, at his redoubt on Cook's Inlet,
+pompously summoning him in the name of the governor of Siberia to
+appear and answer for his misdeeds.  To the brigand, the summons was a
+bolt out of the blue.  How was he to know not a word had come from the
+governor of Siberia, and the summons {328} was sheer bluff?  He was so
+terrorized at the long hand of power reaching across the Pacific to
+clutch him back to perhaps branding or penal service in Siberia, that
+he did not even ask to see Baranof's documents.  Coming post-haste, he
+offered explanations, excuses, frightened pleadings.  Baranof would
+have none of him.  He clapped the culprit and associates in irons, put
+them on Ismyloff's vessel, and despatched them for trial to Siberia.
+That he also seized the furs of his rivals for safe keeping, was a mere
+detail.  The prisoners were, of course, discharged; for Baranof's
+conduct could no more bear scrutiny than their own; but it was one way
+to get rid of rivals; and the fur companies at war in the Canadian
+northwest practised the same method twenty years later.
+
+The effect of the bandit outrages on the hostile Indians of the
+mainland was quickly evident.  Baranof realized that if he was to hold
+the Pacific coast for his company, he must push his hunting brigades
+east and south toward New Spain.  A convict colony, that was to be the
+nucleus of a second St. Petersburg, was planned to be built under the
+very shadow of Mount St. Elias.  Shields, the Englishman employed by
+Russia, after bringing back two thousand sea-otter from Bering Bay in
+1793, had pushed on down south-eastward to Norfolk Sound or the modern
+Sitka, where he loaded a second cargo of two thousand sea-otter.  A
+dozen foreign traders had already coasted Alaskan shores, and southward
+of Norfolk Sound was a flotilla {329} of American fur traders, yearly
+encroaching closer and closer on the Russian field.  All fear of
+rivalry among the Russians had been removed by the union of the
+different companies in 1799.  Baranof pulled his forces together for
+the master stroke that was to establish Russian dominion on the
+Pacific.  This was the removal of the capital of Russian America
+farther south.
+
+On the second week of April, 1799, with two vessels, twenty-two
+Russians, and three hundred and fifty canoes of Aleut fur hunters,
+Baranof sailed from Prince William Sound for the southeast.  Pause was
+made early in May opposite Kyak--Bering's old landfall--to hunt
+sea-otter.  The sloops hung on the offing, the hunting brigades, led by
+Baranof in one of the big skin canoes, paddling for the surf wash and
+kelp fields of the boisterous, rocky coast, which sea-otter frequent in
+rough weather.  Dangers of the hunt never deterred Baranof.  The wilder
+the turmoil of spray and billows, the more sea-otter would be driven to
+refuge on the kelp fields.  Cross tides like a whirlpool ran on this
+coast when whipped by the winds.  Not a sound from the sea-otter
+hunters!  Silently, like sea-birds glorying in the tempest, the canoes
+bounded from crest to crest of the rolling seas, always taking care not
+to be caught broadsides by the smashing combers, or swamped between
+waves in the churning seas.  How it happened is not known, but somehow
+between wind and tide-rip, thirty of the canoes {330} that rode over a
+billow and swept down to the trough never came up.  A flaw of wind had
+caught the mountain billows; the sixty hunters went under.  From where
+he was, Baranof saw the disaster, saw the terror of the other two
+hundred men, saw the rising storm, and at a glance measured that it was
+farther back to the sloops than on towards the dangerous shore.  The
+sea-otter hunt was forgotten in the impending catastrophe to the entire
+brigade.  Signal and shout confused in the thunder of the surf ordered
+the men to paddle for their lives inshore.  Night was coming on.  The
+distance was longer than Baranof had thought, and it was dark before
+the brigades landed, and the men flung themselves down, totally
+exhausted, to sleep on the drenched sands.
+
+Barely were the hunters asleep when the shout of Kolosh Indians from
+the forests behind told of ambush.  The mainland hostiles resenting
+this invasion of their hunting-fields, had watched the storm drive the
+canoes to land.  On one side was the tempest, on the other the forest
+thronged with warriors.  The Aleuts lost their heads and dashed for
+hiding in the woods, only to find certain death.  Baranof and the
+Russians with him fired off their muskets till all powder was used.
+Then they shouted in the Aleut dialect for the hunters to embark.  The
+sea was the lesser danger.  By morning the brigades had joined the
+sloops on the offing.  Thirteen more canoes had been lost in the ambush.
+
+{331} Such was the inauspicious introduction for Baranof to the
+founding of the new Russian fort at Sitka or Norfolk Sound.  It was the
+end of May before the brigades glided into the sheltered, shadowy
+harbor, where Chirikoff's men had been lost fifty years before.  A
+furious storm of snow and sleet raged over the harbor.  When the storm
+cleared, impenetrable forests were seen to the water-line, and great
+trunks of trees swirled out to sea.  On the ocean side to the west,
+Mount Edgecumbe towered up a dome of snow.  Eastward were the bare
+heights of Verstovoi; and countless tiny islets gilded by the sun
+dotted the harbor.  Baranof would have selected the site of the present
+Sitka, high, rocky and secure from attack, but the old Sitkan chief
+refused to sell it, bartering for glass beads and trinkets a site some
+miles north of the present town.
+
+Half the men were set to hunting and fishing, half to chopping logs for
+the new fort built in the usual fashion, with high palisades, a main
+barracks a hundred feet long in the centre, three stories high, with
+trap-doors connecting each story, cabins and hutches all round the
+inside of the palisades.  Lanterns hung at the masthead of the sloops
+to recall the brigades each night; for Captain Cleveland, a Boston
+trader anchored in the harbor, forewarned Baranof of the Indians'
+treacherous character, more dangerous now when demoralized by the
+rivalry of white traders, and in possession of the civilized man's
+weapons.  Free distribution of liquor by unscrupulous sea-captains did
+not mend {332} matters.  Cleveland reported that the savages had so
+often threatened to attack his ship that he no longer permitted them on
+board; concealing the small number of his crew by screens of hides
+round the decks, trading only at a wicket with cannon primed and
+muskets bristling through the hides above the taffrail.  He warned
+Baranof's hunters not to be led off inland bear hunting, for the bear
+hunt might be a Sitkan Indian in decoy to trap the hunters into an
+ambush.  Such a decoy had almost trapped Cleveland's crew, when other
+Indians were noticed in ambush.  The new fort was christened Archangel.
+
+All went well as long as Baranof was on the ground.  Sea-otter were
+obtained for worthless trinkets.  Sentries paraded the gateway; so
+Baranof sailed back to Kadiak.  The Kolosh or Sitkan tribes had only
+bided their time.  That sleepy summer day of June, 1802, when the
+slouchy Siberian convicts were off guard and Baranof two thousand miles
+away, the Indians fell on the fort and at one fell swoop wiped it
+out.[1]  Up at Kadiak honors were showering on the little governor.
+Two decorations of nobility he had been given by 1804; but his grief
+over the loss of Sitka was inconsolable.  "I will either die or restore
+the fort!" he vowed, and with the help of a Russian man-of-war sent
+round the world, he sailed that summer into Sitka Sound.  The Indians
+scuttled their barricade erected on the site of the present Sitka.
+Here {333} the fort was rebuilt and renamed New Archangel--a fort
+worthy in its palmy days of Baranof's most daring ambitions.  Sixty
+Russian officers and eight hundred white families lived within the
+walls, with a retinue of two or three thousand Indian otter hunters
+cabined along the beach.  There was a shipyard.  There was a foundry
+for the manufacture of the great brass bells sold for chapels in New
+Spain.  There were archbishops, priests, deacons, schools.  At the hot
+springs twenty miles away, hospitals and baths were built.  A library
+and gallery of famous paintings were added to the fort, though Baranof
+complained it would have been wiser to have physicians for his men.
+For the rest of Baranof's rule, Sitka became the great rendezvous of
+vessels trading on the Pacific.  Here Baranof held sway like a
+potentate, serving regal feasts to all visitors with the pomp of a
+little court, and the barbarity of a wassailing mediaeval lord.
+
+But all this was not so much fireworks for display.  Baranof had his
+motive.  To the sea-captains who feasted with him and drank themselves
+torpid under his table, he proposed a plan--he would supply the Aleut
+hunters for them to hunt on shares as far south as southern California.
+Always, too, he was an eager buyer of their goods, giving them in
+exchange seal-skins from the Seal Islands.  Boston vessels were the
+first to enter partnership with Baranof.  Later came Astor's captains
+from New York, taking sealskins in trade for goods supplied to the
+Russians.
+
+{334} How did Baranof, surrounded by hostile Indians, with no servants
+but Siberian convicts, hold his own single-handed in American wilds?
+Simply by the power of his fitness, by vigilance that never relaxed, by
+despotism that was by turns savage and gentle, but always paternal, by
+the fact that his brain and his brawn were always more than a match for
+the brain and brawn of all the men under him.  To be sure, the liberal
+measure of seventy-nine lashes was laid on the back of any subordinate
+showing signs of mutiny, but that did not prevent many such attempts.
+
+The most serious was in 1809.  From the time that Benyowsky, the Polish
+adventurer, had sacked the garrison of Kamchatka, Siberian convicts
+serving in America dreamed of similar exploits.  Peasants and officers,
+a score in number, all convicts from Siberia, had plotted to rise in
+New Archangel or Sitka, assassinate the governor, seize ships and
+provisions, and sailing to some of the South Sea Islands, set up an
+independent government.  The signal was to be given when Naplavkof, an
+officer who was master plotter, happened to be on duty.  On such good
+terms was the despot, Baranof, with his men, that the plot was betrayed
+to him from half a dozen sources.  It did not trouble Baranof.  He sent
+the betrayers a keg of brandy, bade one of them give a signal by
+breaking out in drunken song, and at the sound himself burst into the
+roomful of conspirators, sword in hand, {335} followed by half a
+hundred armed soldiers.  The plotters were handcuffed and sent back to
+Siberia.
+
+There was something inexcusably cruel in the termination of Baranof's
+services with the fur company.  He was now over seventy years of age.
+He was tortured by rheumatism from the long years of exposure in a damp
+climate.  Because he was not of noble birth, though he had received
+title of nobility, he was subject to insults at the hands of any petty
+martinet who came out as officer on the Russian vessels.  Against these
+Baranof usually held his own at Sitka, but they carried back to St.
+Petersburg slanderous charges against his honesty.  Twice he had asked
+to be allowed to resign.  Twice successors had been sent from Russia;
+but one died on the way, and the other was shipwrecked.  It was easy
+for malignant tongues to rouse suspicion that Baranof's desire to
+resign sprang from interested motives, perhaps from a wish to conceal
+his own peculations.  Though Baranof had annually handled millions of
+dollars' worth of furs for the Russian Company, at a distance from
+oversight that might have defied detection in wrong-doing, it was
+afterwards proved that he had not misused or misappropriated one dime's
+worth of property; but who was to believe his honesty in the face of
+false charges?
+
+In the fall of 1817 Lieutenant Hagemeister arrived at Sitka to audit
+the books of the company.  Concealing from Baranof the fact that he was
+to be deposed, {336} Hagemeister spent a year investigating the
+records.  Not a discrepancy was discovered.  Baranof, with the
+opportunity to have made millions, was a poor man.  Without
+explanation, Hagemeister then announced the fact--Baranof was to be
+retired.  Between voluntarily retiring and being retired was all the
+difference between honor and insult.  The news was a blow that crushed
+Baranof almost to senility.  He was found doddering and constantly in
+tears.  Again and again he bade good-by to his old comrades, comrades
+of revel with noble blood in their veins, comrades of the hunt,
+pure-blooded Indians, who loved him as a brother, comrades of his
+idleness, Indian children with whom he had frolicked--but he could not
+bear to tear himself from the land that was the child of his lifelong
+efforts.  The blow had fallen when he was least able to bear it.  His
+nerve was gone.  Of all the Russian wreckages in this cruel new land,
+surely this wreck was the most pitiable--the maker deposed by the thing
+he had made, cast out by his child, driven to seek some hidden place
+where he might die out of sight.  An old sea-captain offered him
+passage round the world to Russia, where his knowledge might still be
+of service.  Service?  That was the word!  The old war-horse pricked up
+his ears!  Baranof sailed in the fall of 1818.  By spring the ship
+homeward-bound stopped at Batavia.  There was some delay.  Delay was
+not good for Baranof.  He was ill, deadly ill, of that most deadly of
+all ailments, heartbreak, {337} consciousness that he was of no more
+use, what the Indians call "the long sickness of too much thinking."
+When the vessel put out to sea again, Baranof, too, put to sea, but it
+was to the boundless sea of eternity.  He died on April 16, 1819, and
+was laid to rest in the arms of the great ocean that had cradled his
+hopes from the time he left Siberia.
+
+To pass judgment on Baranof's life would be a piece of futility.  His
+life, like the lives of all those Pacific coast adventurers, stands or
+falls by what it was, not what it meant to be; by what it did, not what
+it left undone; and what Baranof left was an empire half the size of
+Russia.  That his country afterward lost that empire was no fault of
+his.  Like all those Vikings of the North Pacific, he was essentially a
+man _who did things_, not a theorizer on how things ought to be done,
+not a slug battening on the things other men have done.
+
+They were not anaemic, these old "sea voyagers" of the Pacific, daring
+death or devil, with the red blood of courage in their veins, and the
+red blood of a lawless manhood, too.  They were not men of milk and
+water type, with little good and less bad.  Neither their virtues nor
+their vices were lukewarm; but _they did things_, these men; added to
+the sum total of human effort, human knowledge, human progress.  Sordid
+their motives may have been, sordid as the blacksmith's when he smashes
+his sledge on the anvil; but from the anvil of their hardships, from
+the clash of the {338} primordial warfare between the Spirit of the
+Elements and the Spirit of Man, struck out some sparks of the Divine.
+There was the courage as dauntless in the teeth of the gale as in the
+face of death.  There was the yearning to know More, to seek it, to
+follow it over earth's ends, though the quest led to the abyss of a
+watery grave.  What did they want, these fool fellows, following the
+rushlight of their own desires?  That is just it.  They didn't know
+what they sought, but they knew there was something just beyond to be
+sought, something new to be known; and because Man is Man, they set out
+on the quest of the unknown, chancing life and death for the sake of a
+little gain to human progress.  It is the spirit of the heroic ages,
+and to that era belongs the history of the Vikings on the North Pacific.
+
+
+
+[1] See Chapter XI.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+Adakh Island, Chirikoff at, 51.
+
+Admiralty Inlet, explored, 270-271.
+
+_Adventure_, first American ship built on Pacific, 233, 234, 238, 325.
+
+Alaska, Bering's expedition on coast of, 26 ff.; Chirikoff's arrival at,
+50-51; Benyowsky's visit to, 125; Cook explores coast of, 189-194; Gray's
+trip to, 238; Vancouver's survey of southern coast of, 286-290; Baranof's
+career in, 318-337.  _See_ Sitka.
+
+Aleutian Islands, Bering's voyage of discovery among, 26-41; sea-otter's
+habitat on, 42, 53, 56, 63, 66-67, 69-70, 82-83; fur hunters of the,
+67-78, 81-84, 321-323, 328-330.
+
+Aleut Indians, as otter-hunters, 69-78; harsh treatment of, by Russians,
+79, 8l-88; Russian hunters massacred by, 91-95, 100-104; punishment of,
+105; in Sitka massacre, 307-310, 332; accompany Baranof on voyage of
+vengeance, 311-314; with Baranof in Prince William Sound, 322 ff.
+
+Alexander Archipelago, Chirikoff in the, 46-52.
+
+Alexis, Aleut Indian boy hostage, 98, 99, 102.
+
+Anderson, Dr., with Cook, 193.
+
+Anian, Straits of, 9, 279 n.
+
+Anton, Juan de, captain of _Glory of the South Seas_, 158 n.
+
+Apraxin, Count, 8 n.
+
+Archangel Michael, modern Sitka once named, 306; founding of, by Baranof,
+306, 331-332; massacre at, 307-310, 332.
+
+Arguello, Don Joseph, 241.
+
+Aricara, Drake at, 155.
+
+Astor, John Jacob, 65, 212, 303, 318, 322, 333.
+
+Athabasca Lake, attempt to identify, with Northwest Passage, 174, 175.
+
+Atka, otter grounds at, 69.
+
+Atto, Hawaiian boy, 229, 233, 240.
+
+Attoo, village in, destroyed by Russian fur hunters, 83.
+
+Auteroche, Chappe d', cited, 295.
+
+Avacha Bay, Bering at, 17, 19, 23; survivors of Bering expedition return
+to, 59-60; vessels of Cook's expedition at, 208.
+
+
+
+B
+
+Baker, lieutenant in Vancouver's expedition, 266, 270.
+
+Baker, Mount, 270.
+
+Balboa, 134, 144.
+
+Baltimore, Benyowsky visits, 127.
+
+Bancroft, Hubert Howe, cited, 241, 290, 295.
+
+Baranof, Alexander, governor of Russian American Fur Company, 67, 167 n.,
+288, 301, 304, 306, 310; character of, 316-317; personal appearance of,
+317; early career of, 317-318; sails to America (1790), 318; wrecked on
+Oonalaska, 319-320; builds boat and reaches Kadiak, 321; defeats hostile
+Indians at Nuchek Island, 323-324; establishes fort at Sitka, 331; loses
+fort by Sitka massacre, but rebuilds and founds New Archangel (modern
+Sitka), 332-333; in old age deposed from governorship, 335-336; death of,
+337.
+
+Baranof Castle, Sitka, 301.
+
+Barber, Captain, at Sitka, 310.
+
+Barclay, English sea-captain, 224, 227, 254, 264, 272.
+
+Barnes, sailor with Gray, 230.
+
+Barrell, Joseph, 211, 215, 229, 241.
+
+Bassof, otter hunter, 82-83.
+
+Begg, cited, 290 n.
+
+Behm, Major, 196, 208.
+
+Behm Canal, 286.
+
+Benyowsky, Mauritius, Polish exile to Kamchatka, 108-110; career of, at
+Bolcheresk, 113-122; escapes to sea on pirate cruise, 122; meets Ochotyn
+at Bering Island, 123-124; visits Alaska, 125; adventures of, in Luzon,
+Formosa, and China, 126-127; holds French commission in Madagascar, 137;
+returns to Europe, goes to Baltimore, and is sent on filibustering
+expedition to Madagascar, 127; death of, 127-128; authorities for, 128 n.
+
+Berg, cited, 11 n., 22 n., 129, 295.
+
+Bering, Anna, 8 n.
+
+Bering, Jonas, 8 n.
+
+Bering, Thomas, 22 n.
+
+Bering, Unos, 22.
+
+Bering, Vitus Ivanovich, birth and early history of, 8; commissioned by
+Peter the Great to explore waters between Russia and America, 8-10; first
+expedition of (1725-1730), 10-12; second expedition undertaken by, 12;
+difficulties of, with scientists about "Gamaland," 13-15, 19, 22, 24;
+arrival of expedition of, at Okhotsk, 16; start of, from Avacha Bay,
+Kamchatka (1741), 17; cruise of, in _St. Peter_, 22-45; landfall at Kyak
+Island, 26-27, 47 n.; Mt. St. Elias discovered by, 26; exploration of
+coast of Alaskan peninsula by, 28-36; forced to winter at Commander
+Islands, 35-36; death of, 54; summary of work of, 55-56, 61; conclusions
+of, rejected by scientists, 172-173; mentioned in connection with other
+explorers, 183, 184 n., 239, 263, 264; Cook verifies conclusions of,
+189-194.
+
+Bering Bay, 288.
+
+Bering Island, 37-45, 97, 123-124, 300, 315.
+
+Betshevin, Siberian merchant, 84, 87.
+
+Bidarkas, fur hunters' boats, 67.
+
+Billings, Joseph, 254, 258, 259-261.
+
+Boit, John, 230.
+
+Bolcheresk, capital of Kamchatka, 113-114; description of, 114;
+Benyowsky's career at, 114-122.
+
+Boston, interest at, in Gray's expeditions, 215-216, 229-230, 240-241.
+
+"Bostons" (_Bostonnais_), Indians call all Americans, 210.
+
+Brazil, Drake's lost sailors in, 152.
+
+Bristol Bay, 193.
+
+Broughton, Lieutenant, 266, 271, 279, 280, 281; _Voyage_ by, cited, 295 n.
+
+Brown, Samuel, of Boston, 211, 229.
+
+Brown, Dr. William, Ledyard travels with, 258-259.
+
+Bulfinch, Charles, 211, 212; daughter of, named "Columbia," 240.
+
+Bulfinch, Dr., of Boston, 211, 241.
+
+Burney, _Voyages_ by, 295 n.
+
+Burrard Inlet, 273.
+
+Burroughs, John, cited, 72 n.
+
+Bute Inlet, 274.
+
+
+
+C
+
+California, Drake's visit to, 160-165, 169-171; Vancouver's visit to,
+281-282; Russian American Fur Company in, 315.
+
+_California_, vessel for exploration, 174.
+
+Callao, Drake sacks, 155-156.
+
+Campbell, Dr., quoted, 172-173.
+
+Cannibals, Cook's stay among, 187; on Portland Canal, 230.
+
+Cape Adams, 280.
+
+Cape Addington, 46.
+
+Cape Disappointment, 224, 235, 267, 269, 279, 280.
+
+Cape Douglas, 191.
+
+Cape Elizabeth, 191.
+
+Cape Flattery, 185, 223, 224, 235, 270.
+
+Cape Foulweather, 184.
+
+Cape Gregory, 184.
+
+Cape Horn, Drake discovers, 153; Gray expedition rounds, 216-217.
+
+Cape Khitroff, 41.
+
+Cape Lookout, 219.
+
+Cape Meares, 224.
+
+Cape Perpetua, 184.
+
+Cape Prince of Wales, 193, 208.
+
+Captain Harbor, 300; Drusenin at, 89; Ledyard's arrival at, 250.
+
+Carder, Peter, 152 n.
+
+Cartier, Jacques, 272.
+
+Caswell, Joshua, 230.
+
+Catherine, Empress, 7.
+
+Chaplin, Peter, 11 n.
+
+_Chatham_, Lieutenant Broughton commands, in Vancouver cruise, 266.
+
+Chesterfield Inlet, 174-175.
+
+Chinook, Indian village, 281.
+
+Chirikoff, Alexei, Bering's second in command, 11, 13, 18, 19, 20, 60;
+cruise of, in the _St. Paul_, 45-53.
+
+Christopher, Captain, 175.
+
+_Christopher_, Drake's vessel, 147.
+
+Christy, Silver Map of, 168.
+
+Chukchee Indians, 5, 9, 193, 194, 318.
+
+Clayoquot, Gray at, 227, 232-234.
+
+Clerke, Captain, 181, 203, 206, 207, 208; death of, 209.
+
+Cleveland, Captain, Boston trader, 295, 331-332.
+
+Collectors of tribute, Cossack, 5, 107, 294-296, 299.
+
+_Columbia_, vessel commanded by Captain Kendrick, on cruise to Pacific,
+212-213, 215; Gray in command of, 228, 268-269.
+
+Columbia River, Meares searches for, 224; Vancouver misses, 235, 267-268;
+Heceta quoted regarding, 235-236; Gray discovers and names, 236-238, 241,
+268, 269; Broughton's trip up, 280.
+
+Commander Islands, Bering expedition at, 37-45, 61; sea-otter found on,
+67, 76.
+
+Cook, Captain James, 19, 64 n., 78, 127, 128 n., 161, 168, 222, 226, 263,
+264, 265; boyhood and youth of, 176-177; seaman on Newcastle coaler, 177;
+enters Royal Navy, 178-180;  before Quebec with Wolfe, 180; sent by Royal
+Society on voyage to South Seas (1768-1771), 180-181; makes voyage round
+the world, 181; starts on historic voyage of discovery and exploration,
+181; John Ledyard's connection with expedition of, 181-182, 247; terms of
+secret commission of, 182-183; Drake's "New Albion" sighted by, 184;
+misses Straits of Fuca, 184-185; anchors at Nootka, 186; visits Kyak
+Island, 189; in Prince William Sound, 190-191; explores Cook's Inlet,
+191-192; sails along coast of Alaska to Cape Prince of Wales, and crosses
+Bering Strait to Siberia, 193; verifies Bering's conclusions, 193-194;
+explores Norton Sound, 195; stops at Oonalaska, 195-196; returns to
+Sandwich Islands to winter, 196-197; friendly reception of, by Hawaiians,
+197-199; sailors of, abuse hospitality of natives, 199-200; difficulties
+of, over boat stolen by natives, 203; brave stand taken by, and death of,
+203-205; authorities for, 209 n.; account of voyage of, leads to sending
+out of Robert Gray, 211; Gray's work and its results compared with those
+of, 239-240.
+
+Cook's Inlet, sea-otter in, 66-67, 68, 69, 79; explored by Cook, 189-192;
+Vancouver's survey of, 287-288; Russian fur traders' doings in, 326-327.
+
+Coolidge, Davis, 214, 230.
+
+Copper Island, 44, 97, 315.
+
+Coquimbo, Drake at, 154.
+
+Cortes, 133-134.
+
+Coxe, William, cited, 61, 82, 105, 295.
+
+Crowning of Drake by Indians, 164.
+
+
+
+D
+
+_Daedalus_, Vancouver's supply ship, 266, 282; seized by Sandwich
+Islanders and two officers murdered, 284.
+
+Da Gama, Vasco, 134.
+
+Dall, cited, 11 n., 295.
+
+Dartmouth College, courses for missionaries at, 244-245.
+
+Davidson, Dr. George, x, 47 n., 162 n., 168, 290 n.
+
+Davidson, George, member of Gray's second expedition, 230, 240, 241.
+
+Dawson, cited, 290 n.
+
+Dementieff, Abraham, 47-48.
+
+Derby, John, 211, 229.
+
+Derby Sound, 228.
+
+Deshneff, explorer, vii, 296.
+
+Deshon, Captain, 253-254.
+
+_Discovery_, Vancouver's ship, 266; on rocks in Straits of Fuca, 275;
+Hawaiian girls onboard of, 284-285.
+
+_Discovery_, vessel commanded by Captain Clerke, in Cook's voyage, 181.
+
+D'Isles, the, geographers, 19, 20, 52.
+
+Distress Cove, 228.
+
+Dixon, George, 78, 209, 227, 254, 290 n.
+
+Dobbs, patron of exploration, 174.
+
+_Dobbs_, vessel for exploration, 174.
+
+Doughty, Thomas, 147; trial and execution of, 148-149, 168.
+
+Douglas, Captain, 223-226.
+
+_Dragon_, Drake's vessel, 140.
+
+Drake, Francis, family and boyhood of, 139; with Hawkins in West Indies,
+139; cruises Spanish Main (1570-1573), 140-141; seizes one million pounds
+in silver from Spanish at Nombre de Dios, 141-142; first views Pacific
+Ocean, 143-144; attacks gold train at Venta Cruz, 144-145; returns to
+England, 146; Queen Elizabeth and, 146; starts on historic cruise (1577),
+147; Doughty's trial and execution, 148-149, 168; enters Pacific through
+Straits of Magellan, 150; driven south by storm, 151-153; discovers Cape
+Horn, 153; piratical voyage of, up South American coast, 153-155;
+captures _Glory of the South Seas_, 158; plans to return home by
+Northeast Passage, 158-159; landfall north of California, 159-161, 168;
+gives up idea of Northeast Passage, 161; visits California, 161-162, 169;
+welcomed by Indians, 162-163, 169-170; crowning of, 164; calls region
+"New Albion," 164; returns to England around Cape of Good Hope (1580),
+165; subsequent career of, 166; death and burial of, 166-167, 171;
+authorities for, 167 n.
+
+Drake, John, 141, 142, 157.
+
+Drake's Bay, 162, 281.
+
+Drusenin, Alexei, otter hunter, 81, 84; winters at Oonalaska, 88-91;
+murdered by natives, 91-92.
+
+
+
+E
+
+East Cape, 195, 208-209.
+
+_Elizabeth_, Drake's vessel, 147, 148; returns to England, 152.
+
+Elizabeth, Queen, and Drake, 146.
+
+Elliott, cited, 72 n., 295.
+
+Ellis, explorer, 174-175.
+
+Equator, rites on crossing, 182, 216.
+
+Eskimo Indians, Russian explorers hear about, 6.  _See_ Aleut _and_
+Kolosh Indians.
+
+
+
+F
+
+Fages, Don Pedro, cited, 241.
+
+Fairweather Mountains, 189.
+
+Fletcher, Francis, Drake's chaplain, 149, 154 n., 167; chronicle of,
+quoted, 161, 165, 167 n.-171 n.
+
+Foggy Island (Ukamok), 29, 192.
+
+Folger, sailor with Gray, 230.
+
+Formosa, Benyowsky in, 127.
+
+Fort Defence, 233, 325.
+
+Franklin, Benjamin, Benyowsky's meeting with, 128 n.
+
+Fraser River, Vancouver misses discovering, 272-273.
+
+Friendly Cove, 276, 278.
+
+Frobisher, Martin, 159.
+
+Fuca, Juan de, 173, 174, 184, 264, 272; account of legend of, concerning
+Northeast Passage, 275 n.
+
+Fuca Straits.  _See_ Straits of Fuca.
+
+
+
+G
+
+Galiano, Don, 272-273.
+
+Gama, John de, 6 n.
+
+Gamaland, mythical continent, 6, 9, 168, 173; Bering's conclusion
+concerning non-existence of, 12, 18; on D'Isles' map, 19; Bering's second
+voyage in search of, 22-23; search for, relinquished, 24-25; Cook
+demolishes myth of, 181.
+
+Garret, John, 141.
+
+_Glory of the South Seas_, Spanish galleon, 155, 156, 157; captured by
+Drake, 158.
+
+Glottoff, Stephen, 88, 96; Korovin rescued by, 104.
+
+Gmelin, scientist, 14 n., 295 n.
+
+_Golden Hind_, Drake renames the _Pelican_ the, 150; cruise on the
+Pacific in, 151-165; end of, 166.
+
+Gore, Cook's lieutenant, 190.
+
+Gorelin, Russian sailor, 87, 91 n.
+
+Gray, Robert, character of, 213; sent by Boston merchants on fur-trading
+voyage to the Pacific coast, 213-214; departure of, from Boston (October,
+1787), 215-216; rounds Cape Horn and reaches Drake's "New Albion,"
+216-218; adventures of, in Tillamook Bay, 219-222; sails to Nootka,
+222-223; meets Captains Meares and Douglas, 223-225; in spring explores
+Straits of Fuca, 227, 235; takes cargo of furs to China and returns to
+Boston (August, 1790), 228-229; leaves Boston on second voyage
+(September, 1790), 230; winters at Clayoquot (1791-1792), 232-234; builds
+sloop _Adventure_, 233, 234, 325; meets Vancouver expedition, 235,
+268-270; discovers and names Columbia River (May, 1792), 236-238, 241,
+268, 269; goes to China and returns to Boston (July, 1793), 238; death
+of, 238; place of, among discoverers, 238-240; authorities for, 240 n.;
+later mention of, 264, 272, 286, 322; Lieutenant Broughton's view of
+explorations of, 280.
+
+Gray's Harbor, 236, 241.
+
+Greenhow, cited, 241, 290, 295.
+
+Guatalco, Drake stops at, 159.
+
+Gulf of Georgia, 271.
+
+Gvozdef, discoverer, 12 n.
+
+
+
+H
+
+Hagemeister, Lieutenant, 335-336.
+
+Hall, Sir James, and Ledyard, 256.
+
+Hancock, Clayoquot renamed, 227.
+
+Hancock, Governor, 229.
+
+Harriman Expedition, the, 72 n.
+
+Haskins, member of Gray's second expedition, 230.
+
+Haswell, Robert, in Gray's expeditions, 214, 216, 220-222, 228, 230, 234,
+240, 241.
+
+Hatch, Captain Crowell, 211.
+
+Hawkins, Sir John, 135-139, 166.
+
+Hearne, Samuel, 174, 175, 181.
+
+Heceta, Captain Bruno, 219, 241; quoted regarding Columbia River, 235-236.
+
+Henriquez, Don Martin, 136.
+
+Hoffman, German exile, 108-111.
+
+Hood Canal, explored, 270-271.
+
+Howe, Richard, accountant in Gray's expedition, 214.
+
+Howe's Sound, 274.
+
+
+
+I
+
+Icy Cape, Cook names, 195.
+
+Inalook Island, 90.
+
+Indians, Californian, and Drake, 162-165, 169-171.
+
+Ingraham, Joseph, 214, 230, 240, 322.
+
+Isle, Louis la Croyere de l', 19, 20, 209; death of, 52.
+
+Isle of Pinos, 141.
+
+Ismyloff, Russian trader-spy, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128 n.; Cook
+meets, 196; treacherous letters of, 208; Ledyard's encounters with, 251,
+253, 258, 260-261; in service of Russian American Fur Company, under
+Baranof, 322, 323.
+
+
+
+J
+
+Japan, charted by Martin Spanberg, 18; laws to protect the sea-otter
+moved by, 67; Benyowsky's adventures in, 126-127.
+
+Jefferson, Thomas, Ledyard and, 255, 261-262.
+
+Jervis Canal, 274.
+
+Johnstone, with Vancouver, 266, 271, 273, 275.
+
+Jokai, Maurus, Benyowsky's life told by, 127.
+
+Jones, Paul, and Ledyard, 255.
+
+Juan Fernandez, _Columbia_ repaired at, 217.
+
+
+
+K
+
+Kadiak Indians in California, 315.
+
+Kadiak Island, otter-hunting headquarters, 69, 79; Ochotyn at, 124;
+Benyowsky visits, 125; Baranof at, 321-329.
+
+Kakooa, Sandwich Islands, 203, 206.
+
+Kalekhta, Aleutian village, 90, 94.
+
+Kamchatka, Bering sails from, 11; Benyowsky in, 113-122.
+
+Karakakooa Bay, Cook at, 197-205.
+
+Kendrick, Captain John, 213, 214, 216, 217, 225, 226, 228, 229, 264, 272,
+322; adventures of, on Queen Charlotte Island, 230-232; death of, 238.
+
+Kendrick, Solomon, murdered, 232.
+
+Khitroff, in Bering expedition, 26-27, 30-31, 36.
+
+King, Captain, with Cook, 128 n., 186, 192, 198, 200, 203, 206.
+
+Koah, Hawaiian priest, 198, 206, 207.
+
+Kohl, J. G., cited, 168, 295.
+
+Kolosh Indians, massacre by, 307-310, 332; Baranof's encounter with, 330.
+
+Konovalof, bandit, 327-328.
+
+Korelin, companion of Drusenin, 90-91, 92, 94.
+
+Korovin, Ivan, 88, 96; experiences of, at Oonalaska, 97-105.
+
+Koshigin Bay, 319.
+
+Kotches, Russian boats, 295-296, 297.
+
+Kotzebue, dramatist, takes Benyowsky for a subject, 127.
+
+Kotzebue, Otto von, works by, 295.
+
+Kowrowa, Sandwich Islands, 197, 203.
+
+Kracheninnikof, cited, 295.
+
+Krusenstern, Lieutenant, 295, 311.
+
+Kyacks, Eskimo boats, 68.
+
+Kyak Island, Bering's landfall, 26-27, 47 n.; Cook at, 189; Baranof at,
+329-330.
+
+
+
+L
+
+_Lady Washington_, the, Gray sails on, to Pacific coast, 213-219; Captain
+Kendrick in command of, 228; last mention of, 238.
+
+Langsdorff, cited, 295.
+
+La Salle, vii, 60.
+
+Lauridsen, Peter, authority on Bering, 12 n., 61 n.
+
+La Verendrye, vii, 7, 19, 60, 177.
+
+Ledyard, Dr., 243 n.
+
+Ledyard, John, corporal of marines with Cook, 181-182, 195-196, 200, 203,
+205, 247-252; authority for Cook's voyage, 209 n.; early career of,
+242-244; authorities for life of, 243 n., 262 n.; student at Dartmouth
+College, 245; works his way to England, 245-246; experiences of, in
+London, 246-247; on return of Cook expedition sent to fight against
+United States, 252; returns to Groton and deserts from British navy,
+252-253; borrows money, goes to Paris, and meets Paul Jones and Thomas
+Jefferson, 254-255; in England, 256; walks fourteen hundred miles from
+Stockholm around Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg, 257-258; accompanies Dr.
+Brown three thousand miles into Siberia, 258-259; joins Joseph Billings'
+expedition and reaches Lena River, 260; arrested as a French spy, carried
+back to St. Petersburg, and expelled from the country, 260-261; reaches
+London and is sent to discover source of Nile, 261-262; dies at Cairo,
+262.
+
+Lewis and Clark expedition, 60-61; John Ledyard's influence on, 242, 255,
+262.
+
+Lincoln, General, of Boston, 229.
+
+Lisiansky, Captain, 295, 311, 313.
+
+Lok, Michael, 275 n.
+
+Lopez, Marcus, 216, 220; murder of, by Indians, 221.
+
+Lynn Canal, Vancouver's survey of, 288.
+
+
+
+M
+
+Macao, Benyowsky in, 127, 128.
+
+Macfie, _Vancouver Island_ by, 295 n.
+
+Mackenzie, Alexander, 219.
+
+Madagascar, Benyowsky's adventures and death in, 127.
+
+Magellan, explorer, 134-135.
+
+Magellan, Hyacinth de, 128 n.
+
+Makushin Volcano, 86, 96-97, 105 n.
+
+Maquinna, Indian chief, 276, 277-278.
+
+Marquette, Pere, vii, 7.
+
+Martin, _Hudson's Bay Territories_ by, 295 n.
+
+Martinez, Don Joseph, 227.
+
+_Marygold_, Drake's vessel, 147, 148; loss of, 151-152.
+
+Massacre, of Russians at Oonalaska and Oomnak, 100-105; the Sitka,
+307-310, 332.
+
+Mayne, cited, 290 n.
+
+Meares, English sea-captain, 223-226, 227, 235, 254, 264, 267, 272, 273,
+322.
+
+_Meares' Voyages_, cited, 290 n.
+
+Medals, the Drake, 168; of Gray expedition, 215, 241.
+
+Medvedeff, Denis, 88, 96, 97-98; murder of, 104.
+
+Medvednikoff, commander at Sitka, 308.
+
+Menzies, 235, 266, 269, 271.
+
+_Mercury_, Cook on the, 180.
+
+Michael, Kolosh chief, 308, 310.
+
+Middleton, Captain, 174.
+
+Morai, the, Hawaiian burying-place, 198, 201, 202.
+
+Morris, Robert, and Ledyard, 254.
+
+Motley, John Lothrop, cited, 4 n.
+
+Mottley, John, cited, 4 n.
+
+Mount Baker, 270.
+
+Mount Edgecumbe, 46-47, 189, 331.
+
+Mount Hood, 280.
+
+Mount Olympus, 235.
+
+Mount St. Elias, 26, 189.
+
+Mueller, S., scientist, 12 n., 14 n.; cited, 32, 61, 295.
+
+Murderers' Harbor, 222.
+
+
+
+N
+
+Naplavkof, conspirator, 334-335.
+
+New Albion, Drake's, 164, 173, 182, 183, 184; Gray expedition off, 218;
+Vancouver's expedition sights, 267; Vancouver takes possession of, 271.
+
+New Archangel, modern Sitka, 314, 333.
+
+New Zealand, explored by Cook, 181.
+
+Nicholson, William, edits Benyowsky's memoirs, 128 n.
+
+Nilow, governor of Kamchatka, 116-120.
+
+Nombre de Dios, storehouse of New Spain, 140; Drake's raid, 141-142.
+
+Nootka, Cook's vessels at, 186-189, 248; Gray at, 223-227, 232, 238;
+Vancouver's conference with Spanish at, 276-279.
+
+Nootka Indians, Cook visits, 185-189.
+
+Nordenskjoeld, explorer, 209 n., 295 n.
+
+Norfolk Sound.  _See_ Sitka Sound.
+
+Northeast Passage, the, 158-159, 172; Drake's conclusions regarding, 161;
+Parliament offers reward for discovery of, 174; English agitation over,
+174-175, 181; Cook's efforts to discover, 182-196; Captain Clerke decides
+there is no, 209; Vancouver's attitude on question of, 265-266; Vancouver
+proves the non-existence of, 275, 286-290; the Fuca legend concerning,
+275 n.
+
+_Northwest-America_, launching  of, 223; seized by Spanish, 228.
+
+Norton, Moses, 175.
+
+Norton Sound, Cook explores, 195.
+
+Nuchek Island, Baranof at, 322-324.
+
+Nutting, Gray's astronomer, 214.
+
+
+
+O
+
+Ochotyn, Saxon exile, 123-124.
+
+Ofzyn, Bering's lieutenant, 36, 38, 40.
+
+Okhotsk, Bering's expedition at, 16.
+
+Olympus, Mount, 235.
+
+Olympus Range, 222-223, 268.
+
+Oomnak Island, 84-85; sulphur at, 92; sea-otter on, 98; Korovin's
+adventures at, 102-103; Medvedeff and crew massacred at, 104.
+
+Oonalaska, otter-hunting headquarters, 69, 79, 82, 98; sulphur at, 92,
+103; Korovin's experiences at, 98-101; Cook at, 195-196; Ledyard's visit
+to, with Cook, 250-253.
+
+_Oregon and California_, Greenhow's, 241.
+
+_Oregon and Eldorado_, Bulfinch's, 241.
+
+Oxenham, with Drake, 142.
+
+
+
+P
+
+_Pacha_, Drake's vessel, 141.
+
+Pacific Company, 212.  _See_ Astor.
+
+Pallas, _Northern Settlements_ by, 295 n.
+
+Palliser, Sir Hugh, 179.
+
+Pareea, Hawaiian chief, 198, 203.
+
+_Pelican_, Drake's vessel, 147, 148; renamed _Golden Hind_, 150.
+
+Perpheela, Ledyard's guide, 249.
+
+"Peso," defined, 154 n.
+
+Peter the Great, 4-10; analogy between Cook and, 176.
+
+Petroff, Ivan, cited, 105 n., 295.
+
+Philippine Islands, Benyowsky's visit to, 126; Drake passes by, 165.
+
+Phillips, marine with Cook, 204-205.
+
+_Phoenix_, Baranof builds, 326.
+
+Pickersgill, explorer, 175.
+
+Pilcher, sailor with Drake, 152 n.
+
+Pintard, John Marden, 211, 229.
+
+Pissarjeff, Major-General, 16.
+
+Pizarro, Francisco, 134.
+
+Pleneser, artist, 41.
+
+Point Breakers, 185.
+
+Point Possession, 271.
+
+Point Turn-Again, 192.
+
+Porter, Rev. E. G., lecture by, 241.
+
+Portland Canal, 228; Gray sails up, 230; Vancouver's exploration of, 286.
+
+Portlock, J. E., 78, 209 n., 254, 290 n.
+
+Port St. Julian, Doughty executed at, 147-149.
+
+Prince of Wales, Cape, 193, 208.
+
+Prince of Wales Island, 228.
+
+Prince William Sound, sea-otter in, 66; named by Cook, 191; Russian
+settlements on, 287, 306, 322-329.
+
+Prybiloff Islands, otter and seal found on, 79.
+
+Puget, Peter, 235, 266, 269, 271, 273, 277, 282.
+
+Puget Sound, explored, 270-271, 273.
+
+_Purchas' Pilgrims_, cited, 152, 167, 275.
+
+Pushkareff, Sergeant, 84-88.
+
+
+
+Q
+
+Quadra, Don, 238, 240, 273, 322; Vancouver's conference with, 277-279.
+
+Quebec, Cook with Wolfe at, 180.
+
+Queen Charlotte Island, discovered, 227; Captain Kendrick at, 230-232.
+
+
+
+R
+
+Radisson, vii, 7, 239.
+
+_Resolution_, Cook's ship, 181-209.
+
+Reward offered by Parliament for discovery of Northeast Passage, 174.
+
+Rezanoff, Nikolai, 306, 311, 314-315.
+
+_Robert Anne_, Benyowsky's vessel, 127.
+
+Roberts, Gray's surgeon, 214, 216.
+
+Ross, Russian California colony, 315.
+
+Russian American Fur Company, 67, 128 n.; chartered, 306; early
+vicissitudes of, 307-314; at New Archangel (Sitka), 314; in California,
+315.  _See_ Baranof.
+
+Ryumin, Ivan, Russian account of Benyowsky by, 129.
+
+
+
+S
+
+Saanach coast, sea-otter on, 69.
+
+St. Lawrence Island, 11, 12.
+
+_St. Paul_, Bering's vessel, 17; Chirikoff in command of, 20, 22, 24 ff.,
+60; voyage of, 45-53.
+
+_St. Peter_, Bering's vessel, 17, 20, 23 ff.; wreck of, 44-45.
+
+_St. Peter_, the second, 58-59.
+
+_St. Peter and Paul_, the, 113, 117; Benyowsky's cruise in, 122-126.
+
+Sands, Mr., of New York, 254.
+
+Sandwich Islands, Cook's visit to and death at, 196-205; Gray stops at,
+228-229; conduct of fur traders who visited, 283-284; Vancouver's actions
+at, 284-285.
+
+San Francisco, Vancouver at, 281-282.
+
+Sauer, cited, 27, 260, 295.
+
+Savelief, Sidor, 48.
+
+Sea cows, 41, 53.
+
+Seals, 42, 56-57, 67.
+
+Sea-otter, 42, 53, 56; habitat of, on Aleutian Islands, 63, 66-67, 82-83;
+Bering's men reap a fortune from, 63-64, 79; influence of, on exploration
+of North Pacific, 65; description of, 65-66; methods of hunting the,
+67-78; prices commanded for fur of, 76; figures of numbers killed, 79;
+the early hunters of, 80-105; Cook's trade in, 187; Gray's bargain, 228.
+
+Selkirk, Lord, 303.
+
+Serdze Kamen, 12 n., 195.
+
+Seymour, Henry, 243.
+
+Shelikoff, Gregory Ivanovich, 303-306, 315.
+
+Shelikoff, Natalie, 304.
+
+Shevyrin, with Drusenin, 92-97.
+
+Shields, English shipbuilder with Baranof, 325-326, 328.
+
+Shumagin Islands, 30, 192.
+
+Silva, Nuno, Drake's pilot, 159, 167 n.
+
+Silver Map of the World, 168.
+
+Simpson, _Voyage Round World_ by, 295 n.
+
+Sitka, Indians massacre Russians at, 50 n., 307-310, 332; as capital of
+Russian America, called Archangel Michael, 306; Russian American Fur
+Company founds New Archangel on site of, 314, 333; Baranof's career at,
+330-336.
+
+Sitka Sound, Chirikoff in, 46-52; sea-otter in, 66, 79; Vancouver ends
+his explorations at, 289.
+
+Snug Cove, 186, 276.
+
+Society Islands, Cook's first visit to, 180-181; second visit, 182.
+
+Solovieff, Cossack hunter, 105.
+
+South Seas, Cook's voyage to, 180-181.
+
+Spanberg, Martin, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21.
+
+Sparks, Jared, _Life of Ledyard_ by, 243 n., 262 n.
+
+Staduchin, explorer, 296.
+
+Stejneger, Dr. Leo, x, 41 n., 72 n., 295 n.
+
+Steller, George William, 14 n., 20, 23, 25, 26-27, 30, 33, 38-40, 41, 42,
+53-55, 60.
+
+Steller's Arch, 39.
+
+Stephanow, Hippolite, 108, 110, 125, 127.
+
+Straits of Fuca, Cook's conclusion as to non-existence of, 185, 222, 264;
+Gray sails near, 223; Gray explores, 227, 235, 269; Vancouver's arrival
+at and exploration of, 268-270, 273-275.
+
+Straits of Magellan, 135; Drake's passage of, 150.
+
+Sulphur at Oonalaska, 92, 103.
+
+Sunday Harbor, 325.
+
+_Swan_, Drake's vessel, 140, 141, 147.
+
+
+
+T
+
+_Taboo_, the, 198.
+
+Tarapaca, Drake calls at, 154-155.
+
+Terreeoboo, King, 197-206.
+
+Texeira, map-maker, 6 n.
+
+Three Saints, Kadiak, Baranof's arrival at, 321-322.
+
+Tillamook Bay, _Lady Washington_ in, 219-222.
+
+Toledo, Don Francisco de, 155-156.
+
+Treat, fur trader in Gray's expedition, 214.
+
+Tribute collectors, Cossack, 5, 107, 114, 294-296, 299.
+
+
+
+U
+
+Ukamok (Foggy Island), 29.
+
+
+
+V
+
+Valdes, Don, 272-273.
+
+Valparaiso, Drake's raid on, 153-154.
+
+Vancouver, George, vii, 105, 161; midshipman with Cook, 181, 198;
+authority on Cook's voyage, 209 n.; meeting with Gray, 235, 268-270; Gray
+contrasted with, 239-240; as captain in British navy, sent to explore
+Pacific coast of America, 265; ideas on Northeast Passage question,
+265-266; sights Drake's "New Albion," 267; misses Columbia River,
+267-268, 235; explores Puget Sound, 270-272; misses Fraser River, 272;
+explores Straits of Fuca, 272-275; arrives at Nootka, 276; confers with
+Spanish representative, 277-279; sails to Columbia River, 279-280; visits
+California, 281-282; winters at Sandwich Islands (1792-1793), 283-285;
+acts of injustice and justice at, 284-285; returns to American coast and
+surveys Portland Canal, 286-287; in 1794 surveys Cook's Inlet, 287-289;
+work of, results in explosion of theory of Northeast Passage, 289-290;
+authorities for, 290 n.
+
+Vancouver Island, 228, 278.
+
+_Vega_, the, 209 n., 295 n.
+
+Veniaminof, _Letters on Aleutians_ by, 295 n.
+
+Venta Cruz, Drake at, 141-145.
+
+Vera Cruz, Hawkins and Drake _vs_. the Spanish at, 135-138.
+
+Verendrye.  _See_ La Verendrye.
+
+_Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, Cook's, 209 n.
+
+
+
+W
+
+Walrus, the Pacific, 73; Cook's men hunt, 194-195.
+
+Waters, Abraham, 230.
+
+Waxel, Lieutenant, 20, 24-25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35-36, 37-38, 41, 42,
+57-58, 60.
+
+Williams, Orlando, cited, 4 n.
+
+Woodruff, mate in Gray's expedition, 214, 216.
+
+_World Encompassed, The_, by Francis Fletcher, 167 n.-171 n.
+
+
+
+Y
+
+Yakutat Bay, sea-otter in, 66, 79.
+
+Yakutsk, Bering's second expedition winters at, 15; fur traders'
+rendezvous near, 107, 259; Ledyard's arrival at, 259.
+
+Yelagin, Chirikoff's pilot, 52.
+
+Yendell, Samuel, 230.
+
+Yermac, Cossack robber, 294.
+
+Yukon, Russian traders on the, 314, 315.
+
+
+
+Z
+
+Zarate, Don Francisco de, quoted regarding Drake, 150 n.
+
+
+
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