coo THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



ideas, which probably were not pitched very high. Next year 

 they sailed ou with their Behring-Islaud-built vessel to Okotsk. 

 On their arrival there, of the seventy-six jDersons who originally 

 took part in the expedition, thirty-two were dead. At Kam- 

 chatka they had all been considered dead, and the effects they 

 left behind them had been scattered and divided. Steller 

 voluntarily remained some time longer in Kamchatka in order 

 to carry on his researches in natural history. Unfortunately 

 he drew upon himself the ill-will of the authorities, in consequence 

 of the free way in which he criticised their abuses. This led 

 to a trial at the court at Irkutsk. He was, indeed, found 

 innocent, and obtained permission to travel home, but at Zoli- 

 kamsk he was overtaken by an express with orders to bring 

 him back to Irkutsk. On the way thither he met another 

 express with renewed permission to travel to Europe. But the 

 powers of the strong and formerly healthy man were exhausted 

 by this hunting backwards and forwards across the immeasur- 

 able deserts of Siberia. He died soon after, on the "~l November, 

 1746, at Tjvimen, only thirty-seven years of age, of a fever 

 by which he was attacked during the journey.^ 



The immense quantity of valuable furs brought home by 

 the survivors of Behring's so unfortunate third voyage affected 

 the fur-dealers, Cossacks, and hunters of Siberia much in the 

 same way as the rumour about Eldorado or about the riches of the 

 Casic Dobaybe did the Spanish discoverers of middle and southern 

 America. Numerous expeditions were fitted out to the new 

 land rich in furs, where extensive territories previously unknown 

 were made tributary to the Czar of Russia. Most of these 

 exj)editions landed on Behring Island during the voyage out 

 and home, and in a short time wrought a com^^lete change in the 

 fauna of the island. Thanks to Steller' s spirited sketch of the 

 animal life he observed there, we have also an opportunity of 

 formino; an idea of the alteration in the fauna which man brincjs 

 about in a land in which he settles. 



Arctic foxes were found in incredible numbers on the island 

 during the wintering of the Behring expedition. They not only 



Accordin.t^ to jMilller's official report, probably written for the purpose 

 of refuting the rumours regarding Steller's fate current in the scientitic 

 circles of Europe. According to the biographj^ prefixed to Georg AA^'ilhelm 

 ^teller s Beschi-eihung von dem Lande Kumtschatlca, heraiisgegehen von J. 

 B. S. (Scheerer), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1774, Steller had in 1745 begun 

 his return to St. Petersburg, and was already beyond Novgorod, when he 

 received orders to appear before the court at Irkutsk. After a year he 

 obtained permission to travel to St. Petersburg, but when he came to tlie 

 neighbourliood of Moscow, he received a new order to return, and for 

 further security he was placed under a guard. They had travelled a good 

 way into Siberia, when he froze to death while the guard went into a 

 public-house to warm themselves and Quench their thirst. 



