t43 Account of the laft Ruffian . 
Ruffia had been enriched, fince the time of Peter the Great, 
by exploring that fo little known north-caft corner of Afia, 
the land of Tichukt; to purfue farther if poffible the north- 
eaft paflage, attempted by Cook; and, laftly, to fearch out 
more conyenient potts for the Ruffian fur-trade on the north- 
weft coaft of America. 
Captain Billings fet out with his inftruétions from Pe- 
terfburgh in the end of the year 1785, and in July 1786 
arrived at Ochotzk. Having paffed the winter at Werchne 
Oftrog, in the beginning of the fummer 1787 he left the 
mouth of the Kolyma or Kovyma with two veflels, the larger 
of which, called the Pallas, was commanded by himfelf; 
and the other, the Jefafchna, named after an arm of the. 
river Kovyma, in which it was built, was commanded by 
Captain Sarifchef. This was only a preparatory expedition, 
the object of which, however, was nothing lefs than to 
double Cape T{chelazka, (Cook’s Cape North) and to 
proceed by this unheard-of route from the Frozen Ocean 
through Bering’s Straits to Anadyr. I call the route unheard- 
of, as the romantic voyage of the Starfchina Coflac Semon 
Defchnew, in the year 1648, notwithftanding the account 
of it which the Ruffian hiftoriographer Muller is faid to 
have difcovered in 1736, among the archives at Jakutzk, is 
ftill doubted by many fceptics, who confider a conneétion of 
the northern parts of both continents as poflible. 
- Thefe adventurous navigators, however, could not pro- 
éeed farther than toa certain point betwecn Baranikamen 
and the mouth of the river Tichaun ; becaufe ghe impene- 
-ttable fields of ice which they found there, rendered it im- 
poffible for them to continue their voyage to the North-eatt, 
and obliged them to return from Seredun-Kerymiky Oftrog 
to Jakutzk, in order to pafs the winter. , 
In the mean time, Captains Hall and Bering were em-" 
ployed in preparations for the grand expedition. The former 
fuperintended at Ochotzk the building of the two veffels 
deftined for that purpofe, and the latter had ‘the care -of - 
tranfporting 
