524 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



"Deschnev could not obtain from the natives any augmentation 

 of the certainly very small supply of food which he carried 

 with him, he succeeded nevertheless in passing the winter in 

 that region. First in the course of the following summer did 

 he fall in with natives, from whom a large tribute was collected, 

 but not without fierce conflicts. A simovie was built at the 

 place where afterwards Anadyrski Ostrog was founded. While 

 Deschnev remained here, at a loss as to how, when the boats 

 were broken up, he would be able to return to the Kolyma, 

 or find a way thither by land, there came suddenly on the 

 ""'/^"•^'.. 1650, a new party of hunters to his winter hut. 



25th April, ' X ^ 



For the accounts of islands in the Polar Sea, and of the river 

 Pogytscha, which was said to fall into the sea three or four days' 

 journey beyond the Kolyma, had led to the sending out of another 

 expedition under the Cossack Staduchin. He started from 

 Yakutsk in boats on the fth June, 1647, wintered on the Yana, 

 travelled thence in sledges to Indigirka, and there again built 

 boats in which he rowed to the Kolyma. It is to be observed 

 that Staduchin, just because he preferred the land-route to the 

 sea-route between the Yana and the Indigirka, missed discover- 

 ino[ the larcre island in the Polar Sea, of which so much has 

 been said. Next summer (1649) Staduchin again sailed down 

 the river Kolyma to the sea, and then for seven days along its 

 coast eastwards, without finding the mouth of the river sought for 

 by him. He therefore returned ^vith his object unaccomplished, 

 carrying with him a heap of walrus-tusks, which were sent 

 to Yakutsk as an appendix to a proposal to send out hunters 

 to the Polar Sea to hunt for these animals. In the mean- 

 time a true idea of the course of the Anadyr had been obtained 

 through statements collected from the natives, and a land-route 

 had become known between its territory and that of the Kolyma. 

 Several Cossacks and hunters now petitioned for the right to 

 settle on the Anadyr, and collect tribute from the tribes in that 

 neighbourhood. This was granted. Some natives were forced 

 to act as guides. The party started under the command of 

 Simeon Motora, and came finally to Deschnev's simovie on the 

 Anadyr. Staduchin followed, and traversed the way in seven 

 weeks. He however soon quarrelled with Deschnev and Motora, 

 and parting from them on that account, betook himself to the 

 river Penschina. Deschnev and Motora built themselves boats 

 on the Anadyr in order to prosecute exploratory voyages, but 

 the latter was killed in 1651 in a fight with natives called 

 Anauls. They had been the first of all the natives of the 

 Pacific coast of North Asia to pay "jassak" to Deschnev, and 

 he had already at that time come into collision with them 

 and extirpated one of their tribes. 



In 1652 Deschnev travelled down the Anadyr to the river 



