550 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



his life itself. Accompanied by an exiled midshipman, Ivan 

 Backoff, and with a crew of deserters and deported men, he 

 sailed in 1760 from the Lena out into the Polar Sea, but 

 came the first year only to the Yana, where he wintered. 

 On the ^^^^*' 1761, he continued his voyage towards the east, 

 always keeping near the coast. On the yth September he 

 rounded the dreaded Svjatoinos, sighting on the other side of 

 the sound a high-lying land, Ljachoffs Island. At the Bear 

 Islands, whither he was carried by a favourable wind over an 

 open sea, he first met with drift-ice, although, it appears, not 

 in any considerable quantity. But the season was already far 

 advanced, and he therefore considered it most advisable to 

 seek winter quarters at the mouth of the neighbouring Kol3"ma 

 river. Here he built a spacious winter dwelling, which was 

 surrounded by snow ramparts armed with cannon from the 

 vessel; probably the whole house was not so large as a peasant's 

 cabin at home, but it was at all events the grandest palace 

 on the north coast of Asia, often spoken of by later travellers, 

 and regarded by the natives with amazed admiration. In the 

 neighbourhood there was good reindeer hunting and abundant 

 fishing, on which account the winter passed so happily, tliat 

 only one man died of scurvy, an exceedingly favourable state 

 of things for that period. 



The following year Schalaurov started on the -oTSjuff ' ^^^^ 

 calms and constant head- winds prevented him from jDassing 

 Cape Schelagskoj, until he was compelled by the late season 

 of the year to seek for winter quarters. For this he considered 

 the neighbouring coast unsuitable on axcount of the scarcit}^' 

 of forests and driftwood ; he therefore sailed back to the west- 

 ward until after a great many mishaps he came again at last 

 on the plJl September to the house which he had built the 

 year before on the Kolyma. 



He proposed immediately to make a renewed attempt the 

 following spring to reach his goal. But now his stores were 

 exhausted, and the wearied crew refused to accompany him. 

 In order to obtain funds for a new voyage he travelled to 

 Moscow, and by means of the assistance he succeeded in 

 procuring there, he commenced in 1766 a voyage from which 

 neither he nor any of his followers returned. Coxe mentions 

 several things which tell in favour of his having actually rounded 

 Cape Desclmev and reached the Anadyr. But Wrangel believes 

 that he perished in the neighbourhood of Cape Schelagskoj. 

 For in 1823 the inhabitants of that cape showed Wrangel's 

 companion Matiuschkin a little ruinous house, built east of the 

 river Werkon on the coast of the Polar Sea. For many years 

 back the Chukches travelling past had found there human bones 

 gnawed by beasts of prey, and various household articles, which 



