XIII.] THE COSSACKS PENETRATE TO THE KOLYMA. 521 



came to another river falling into the eastern mouth-arm of the 

 Yana, where he found a Yukagir tribe, living in earth huts, with 

 whom he passed two years more, collecting tribute from the 

 tribes living in the neighbourhood. 



At the same time Ivanov Postxik discovered by land the 

 river Indigirka. As usual, tribute was collected from the 

 neighbouring Yukagir tribes, yet not without fights, in which 

 the natives at first directed their weapons against the horses 

 the Cossacks had along with them, thinking that the horses 

 were more dangerous than the men. They had not seen 

 horses before. A simovie was established, at which sixteen 

 Cossacks were left behind. They built boats, sailed down the 

 river to the Polar Sea to collect tribute, and discovered the 

 river Alasej. 



Some years after the river Kolyma appears to have been 

 discovered, and in 1644 the Cossack, MiCHAiLO Staduchix, 

 founded on that river a simovie, which afterwards increased to 

 a small town, Nischni Kolymsk. Here Staduchin got three 

 pieces of information which exerted considerable influence on 

 later exploratory expeditions, for he acquired knowledge of the 

 Chukches, at that time a military race, who possessed the j)art 

 of North Asia which lay a little further to the east. Further, 

 the natives and the Russian hunters, who swarmed in the 

 region before Staduchin, informed him that in the Polar Sea 

 off the mouths of the Yana and the Indigirka there was a large 

 island, which in clear weather could be seen from land, and 

 which the Chukches reached in winter with reindeer sledges in 

 one day from Chukotska, a river debouching in the Polar Sea 

 east of the Kolyma. They brought home walrus tusks from 

 the island, which was of considerable size, and the hunters 

 supposed " that it was a continuation of Novaj^a Zemlya, which 

 is visited by people from Mesen." Wrangel is of opinion that 

 this account refers to no other than Krestovski Island, one of 

 the Bear Islands. This, however, appears to me to be im- 

 l)robable. It is much more likely that it refers partly to the 

 New Siberian Islands, partly to Wrangel Land, and perhaps 

 even to America. That the Russians themselves had not then 

 discovered Ljachoff's, or as it was then also called, Blisclmi 

 Island, which lies so near the mainland, and is so high that it 

 is impossible to avoid seeing it when one in clear weather sails 

 past Svjatoinos, which lies east of the Yana, is a proof that at 

 that time they had not sailed along the coast between the 

 mouths of the Yana and the Indigirka, Finally, a great river, 

 the Pog}i:scha, was spoken of, which could be reached in three 

 or four days' sailing eastward from the mouth of the Kolyma. 

 This was the first account which reached the conquerors of 

 Siberia of the great river Anadyr which falls into the Pacific. 



