1648. THE RUSSIAN NAVIGATORS. 353 



passage is less difficult, and has frequently been 

 performed ; but it is not pretended that the voyage 

 from the Kovyma round Tschuktskoi Noss has 

 been accomplished more than once, and that was 

 by a Cossack of the name of Deshneff, as far 

 back as the year 1648. The account of this 

 curious voyage was discovered in the records of 

 Yakutsk, in 1736, and, together with that of 

 some other navigations in the frozen ocean, pub- 

 lished by Muller. Its authenticity appears to 

 have been established bv Behrino- and Cook, who 

 found the description of the nortli-eastern coast of 

 Asia, the opposite islands, and the people, to ac- 

 cord exactly with that which is given in Deshneff 's 

 narrative. It is however a remarkable circumstance, 

 that none of the various attempts to pass Shelatskoi 

 Noss, the point which forms the north-eastern ex- 

 tremity of Asia, have succeeded since the time of 

 Deshneif. The most persevering were those made 

 by Shalaurof, a merchant of Yakutsk, who, hav- 

 ing built a ship at his own expense, descended the 

 Lena in 176 J, but found so much ice in the month 

 of July that he was obliged to take refuge in 

 the Yana, where he was detained by the ice till 

 the 29th August. From hence he coasted to the 

 eastward, doubled Swaitoi Noss, or the " sacred 

 promontory," on the 6th September, and dis- 

 covered land to the northward in the frozen ocean, 

 which was afterwards visited by some Russian 

 officers, and found to be five uninhabited islands, 

 VOL. T. a a 



