XL] EETUEX OF THE SURVIVORS. 251 



difficiilty with the means they had at command, but it was 

 rendered still harder by the loss of all their carpenters. Fortu- 

 nately a Cossack of the party had some knowledge of shipbuilding, 

 and under his directions they commenced their vessel on the 6th of 

 May. Three months later she was launched, and on the 27th of 

 August, 1742, after a voyage of eleven days, the survivors of the 

 ill-fated expedition safely arrived at Petropaulovsky. 



The voyage of the St. Paid, under Tschiiikov, was hardly less 

 calamitous than that of the ^S*^. Fcto' as far as regards the sickness 

 and disease that attacked her crew. The unfortunate loss of their 

 two boats prevented them from landing on the coast, and they were 

 reduced to indifferently distilled salt water, and such rain as could 

 be collected in the ship's sails. Tlie same contrary winds retarded 

 their progress, and scurvy soon appeared among the crew. One by 

 one it carried off its victims, and had it not been for the better — or 

 at least the more successful — navigation of the St. Paul, the 

 mortality on board Tschirikov's vessel would no doubt have been 

 as great as that among Bermg's men. Fortunately they were able 

 to regain Kamschatka before the winter. They entered Avatcha 

 Bay on the 9th of October, and on the following day De la Croyere, 

 who had long been ill, resolved to land. He was destined never to 

 do so alive. The keen air and unwonted exertion had the same 

 effect as in the landing of the St. Peter's crew, and he fell dead on 

 reaching the deck. Of the crew of seventy persons twenty-two 

 had perished. The annals of exploration furnish few stories more 

 tragic than that of Bering's Last Voyage.^ 



^ For further information on Kamschatka the reader may consult Kittlitz's " Reise 

 (lurch Kamschatka"; J. D. Cochrane's "Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey"; P. 

 Dobell's "Travels in Kamschatka"; Coxe's "Russian Discoveries"; Steller's 

 " Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamschatka"; LangsdorfFs "Travels"; Lesseps' 

 "Travels in Kamschatka"; "Voyage of De la Perouse"; Krusenstern's "Japan"; 

 "Captain Cook's Third Voyage"; Krasheninikov's " Kamschatka"; G. P. Miiller's 

 " Samlung Russicher Geschichte " ; Belcher's "Voyage of the Samarang" ; Erman 

 in "Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc." vol. ix. ; Tronson's "Voyage of the Barracouta" ; 

 Whymper's "Travels in Alaska" ; and Bush's "Reindeer and Sno-\vshoes." 



