THE SENATE, the AcadeMY, AND THE ADMIRALTY Enlarge

BERING'S PROJECT.

The Senate departed from Bering's project and planned a triple expedition; and in the process of homologating an avalanche of suggestions from the members of the Academy of Sciences, and from the Admiralty, that body outlined, in extenso, the character of the physical, nautical, and geographic explorations to be undertaken by the expedition. Siberia was to be mapped; the Arctic shores were to be charted; the Coast of America was to be outlined to Mexico; the Kuril Islands and Japan were to be laid down. If America proved to be connected with the Tchutchi peninsula, one party was to attempt to find European colonies. To the really nautical and geographic explorations the Academy of Sciences had the influence to demand a scientific exploration of Siberia and Kamchatka. The personnel and outfit of this part of the expedition is painfully but supremely amusing, with its landscape artists, the many wagon loads of instruments, the riding horses, and the library which embraced the classics and light reading. Those persons selected were, of course, utterly ignorant of the conditions of the countries they were to traverse. This unwieldy part of the expedition looked to Bering for its comforts and conveniences; for boats to cross the rivers; for special assistance in flank examinations. He was expected to act as their dry nurse as well as leader. Yet he had no authority over this remarkably heterogeneous congregation of supposed scientific men. It would have required some one with superhuman power and angelic disposition to have satisfied a small fraction of them. We can easily guess at the inevitable results. They ceaselessly stormed Bering with complaints and counter charges; entered them and their judgments in their records; and threatened formal charges against him to the Senate. They never offered to assist him.

Von Baer says that no other geographic enterprise can be compared in vastness or sacrifice with the titanic undertakings that were loaded upon Bering, and actually carried out by him. H. H. Bancroft, in his "History of Alaska" (p. 42) says: "The second "Kamchatka expedition * ** was the most brilliant effort "toward scientific discovery which up to this time had been made "by any government." He further says that "Bering was strong "in body and clear of mind even when near sixty; an acknowledged "man of intelligence, honesty, and irreproachable conduct, though

"in his later years he displayed excessive carefulness and indecision "of character, governed too much by temper and caprice, and sub"mitting too easily to the influence of subordinates." When we read of the trials he endured, the opposition he met with, the gigantic difficulties he overcame and the physical disabilities that necessarily grew upon him by continued exposure, we need not marvel if at sixty years of age he seemed to lack the vigor of his earlier life. At the time of the organization of these great expeditions, Bering was not yet fifty-two years of age; and must have been in the very prime of his manhood. Any but an extraordinary man who cheerfully obeyed the orders of an autocrat would have thrown up the almost superhuman task.

Bering must be judged by the times in which he lived; by the character of those in authority; by the vagueness of his instructions; by the fitness and unfitness and jealousies of the people who were under him; by the great extent and desolateness of the country he traversed destitute of roads and sparse in population; by the necessity of his establishing iron foundries in the midst of Siberia; by his building ships with which to make his explorations across unknown seas with almost constant fogs; by the presence of that scourge of navigator and sailor, the scurvy.

The difficulties to be overcome demanded a man of supreme selfreliance, great physical ability and large resources. And it may be asserted that until Bering was attacked by scurvy he was equal to all emergencies. It seems impossible for any man at the present day to put himself in Bering's place; and therefore flippant criticism and prejudiced opinions must be promptly pushed aside as unworthy of respect or consideration.

THE EXPEDITION STARTS IN 1733.

As the period for the departure of the expedition approached, the Empress Anna, in consideration of the distance, difficulties and privations to be endured and the objects to be gained, doubled every salary. They were going to an unexplored country for an unknown time, and nearly all the officers and the rank and file took their wives with them. The Admiralty estimated the time at six years, but the most of the people were going for sixteen, and the latter were more nearly correct in their estimate.

On the 1st of February, 1733, the first detachment started; by August the scientists brought up the rear and moved towards

Kazan. There were five hundred and seventy officers and men, and thirty or forty Academicians.

The meagre recital of the movement hence to Kamchatka is full of trouble, grumbling and complaints; the scientific men, the missionaries, the contractors, the Siberian authorities, and the subordinates bred incessant friction and discontent. On Bering necessarily fell all the odium attending the faults and misfortunes of this crude and incongruous mass of humanity. That he was not a Russian. born added bitterness to the complaints sent back to St. Petersburg.

BUILDING VESSELS ON THE IRTYSCH FOR THE FIRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

In 1734 Bering built two vessels and four rafts at Tobolsk on the Irtysch (latitude 58°) for the first Arctic expedition which left there on May 13th, and five days later he left with the main command and the Academicians for Yakutsk on the Lena (latitude 62°) which he reached in October. Chirikof arrived in the spring of 1735 with the larger part of the supplies. Here Bering found no preparations as previously ordered by the government; yet in the course of six months he had two large vessels built for the second Arctic expedition; and these with four barges started down the Lena on the 30th of June, 1835, to cruise along the Arctic shore. One vessel was to chart the coast from the Lena westward to the mouth of the Yenéseï. The other was to cruise along the Arctic coast to the Bering Peninsula, and then, if it was a geographical possibility, to sail southward along the coast of the peninsula of Kamchatka. This project of Arctic exploration was planned and thus successfully inaugurated by Bering himself.

THREE YEARS OF LABOR ON THE Lena.

To these duties he added others. In the vicinity of Yakutsk he established an iron foundry and furnace, whence the various vessels were supplied with anchors and all other articles of iron.

It is unnecessary to enter upon the difficulties and the opposition which Bering met with at Yakutsk. Here he was compelled to wait and labor for three years. The Academicians were busy at Yakutsk, and their exorbitant demands for conveniences and luxuries led to strained relations with the Captain Commander. Unsatisfactory news came from the expeditions to the Arctic, and Bering

personally superintended the sending of provisions to supply the magazines on that coast.

Charges were sent to the Admiralty and to the Senate by every disgruntled and dissatisfied officer and by the Siberian authorities. Much more money had been spent than had been expected, and the Admiralty found it difficult to supply the necessary funds. They threatened to fine Bering and to court-martial him, and they even withheld his supplemental salary for years. Hard drinking and a hundred accessory troubles, with constant wrangling among the officers and their wives must have nearly broken up all discipline. And to add to this process of disorganization the Admiralty authorized Bering's second in command, Lieutenant Chirikof, to investigate a series of charges against him. It surely required a man of nerve of steel, integrity of purpose and obedience to his original orders to stand up against such a band of gruff and unruly brawlers, gathered from all quarters of the world.

From the description of Bering's characteristics, drawn up by his naturalist friend Steller, it is possible that he held under control that audacity of command which would have promptly stamped out insubordination in such emergencies. He knew the character of the men he was dealing with. Steller says: "He was a true and "honest Christian; noble, kind, unassuming in conduct, and uni"versally loved by his subordinates, high as well as low. ** He "was not naturally a man of quick resolve, but when one considers "his fidelity to duty, his cheerful spirit of perseverance and careful "deliberation, it is a question whether another possessed of more "fire and ardor, could have overcome the innumerable difficulties of "the expedition without having completely ruined those distant "regions; for even Bering far removed from all selfishness, was "scarcely able in this regard to keep his men in check."* Von Baer says: "The whole expedition was planned on such a monstrous "scale that under any other chief it would have foundered without "having accomplished any results whatever."*

BERING MOVES FORWARD TO OKHOTSK.

In the summer of 1737 Bering moved forward to Okhotsk, where Spanberg had gone to build a new town. This settlement embraced a church, houses for officers, barracks for the men, magazines, a large dockyard and other buildings. The old stockaded post was

trans

*NOTE. "Vitus Bering, the discoverer of Bering Strait by Peter Lauridsen lated from the Danish by Julius E. Olson." Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Company, 1889. Vide pages 97-98.

four miles farther in the country. The town was very badly located, for even the drinking water had to be brought a distance of two miles.

Solokoff, who did not write in behalf of Bering, says: "Bering "staid three years in Okhotsk, exerting himself to the utmost in "equipping expeditions, enduring continual vexations from the "Siberian government. * * During all this time he was "sternly and unreasonably treated by the Admiralty, which show"ered upon him threats and reproaches for slowness, sluggishness "and disorder, for false reports and ill-timed accounts." Elsewhere he says: "Bering was well-informed, eager for knowledge, "pious, kind-hearted and honest, but too cautious and indecisive." "Hence he was not particularly well qualified to lead this "great enterprise, especially in such a dark century, and in such a "barbaric country as East Siberia."

* * *

The pest of Bering's life was the infamous Pissarjeff, the "branded" Governor who arrived at the same time and made his quarters at the old stockaded post or fort at Okhotsk. Bering says he was foul mouthed and extremely offensive. Spanberg asked Bering for authority to go and arrest the old knave.

The site of Okhotsk was at the junction of the Okhotsk and Kukhta, on a low, sandy, narrow delta subject to inundation. The climate was particularly unhealthy, with a cold, raw fog hanging over the region almost continually. The party was weakened by fevers; and in this swampy place Bering lost his health.

At Okhotsk, Spanberg pushed forward the building of two new vessels, and the repairing of two others for his own expedition to chart the Kuril Islands and Japan; and in September, 1738, he was ready for sea. In two summer seasons he charted the Kurils, Yezo, and part of Hondo. These expeditions exhausted the provisions at Okhotsk; and Bering made demands upon the districts of Tobolsk and Verkhoiansk for supplies.

TWO BRIGS ARE BUILT AND SAIL FOR KAMCHATKA.

The timber for the construction of his vessels had to be brought twenty-five miles, but in the month of June, 1740, Bering had completed the two ships for the expedition to America; they were launched, and named the St. Peter, and the St. Paul. They were brig rigged; each was 80 feet long, 22 feet beam, and 91⁄2 feet depth of hold; they were each of 108 tons burthen, and carried 14 two and three pounders.