70 SCHALAROFF. 



They cleared the rocks by the aid of their oars, aiid 

 continued to row until they were about three leagues at 

 sea, when they hoisted their sails with a slight breeze 

 from the north. They found that their ship sailed and 

 worked as well as if she had been built by able work- 

 men. On the 18th, they had a strong gale against them 

 from the south-west. The fear of a storm made them 

 fling a part of their ballast overboard. On the 25th, 

 they came in sight of Kamtschatka, entered the Bay of 

 Awatska the next day, and on the 27th anchored ia 

 the port of Petropalauski. 



In 1760, Schalaroff, a merchant of Yakutsk, whose 

 name is venerated throughout Siberia, determined on 

 trying whether the passage attempted by Behring could 

 or could not be accomplished. He persevered during 

 three seasons, in defiance of mutiny and hardships innu- 

 merable. He, too, was wrecked on the desolate coast 

 seventy miles east of Cape Chelagskoi, and, with all his 

 crew, died of starvation. Three years later, Sergeant 

 AndrejefF conducted a sledge expedition across the ice to 

 the Bear Islands ; his reports, which were much exagger 

 ated, led shortly afterwards to the accurate survey of 

 this and the adjacent country. Cook's exploration, 

 of which we shall hereafter speak, led to another expe- 

 dition on the part of the Russians, which sailed from 

 the Kolyma in 1787, under Captain Billings; but the 

 attempts made to navigate either to the east or the west 

 were both defeated. Further efforts were made at inter- 

 vals during the first quarter of the present century, sora 

 of them mainly to search for the northern continent, 

 whose existence, far in the Polar Sea, had so often been 

 the subject of rumor. 



Last we come to the expeditions commanded by 

 Lieutenant Anjou and Admiral von Wrangell, carried 

 on also by means of dogs and sledges, from the year 



