WKANGELL. 283 



CHAPTER XX. 



WRAXGELL. 



His distinguished Services as an Arctic Explorer. — From Petersburg to Jakutsk in 1820. — Trade of 

 Jakutsk. — From Jakutsk to Xishne-Kolymsk. — The B idarany. — Dreadful Climate of Nishne-Ko- 

 lymsk. — Summer Plagues. — Vegetation. — Animal Life. — Reindeer-hunting. — Famine. — Inundations. 

 — The Siberian Dog. — First Journeys over the Ice of the Polar Sea, and Exploration of the Coast 

 beyond Cape Shelagskoi in 1821. — Dreadful Dangers and Hardships. — ilatiuschkin's Sled;j;e-journey 

 over the Polar Sea in 1822. — Last Adventures on the Polar Sea. — A Run for Life. — Return to St. 

 Petersburg. 



n|^HE expeditions which had been sent out, during the reign of the Empress 

 -^ Anna for the exploration of the Arctic shores of Eastern Siberia, liad per- 

 formed their task so badly as to leave tliem still almost totally unknown. To 

 fill up this blank in geography, the Eiaperor Alexander ordered two new ex- 

 peditions to be fitted out in 1820 for the purpose of accurately ascertaining 

 the limits of these extreme frontiers of his immense empire. Of the one which, 

 under Lieutenant Anjou, coninu^nced its opei'ations from the mouth of the 

 Jana, and comprised within its range New^ Siberia and the other islands of the 

 Lachow group, but little has been communicated to the public, all his papers 

 having been accidentally burned ; but the travels of Lieutenant von WrangcU, 

 the commander of the second expedition, have obtained a world-wide celebrity. 

 Starting from the mouths of the Kolyma, he not only rectified the errors of the 

 coast-line of Siberia, from the Indigirka in the west to Koliutschin Island in 

 the east, but more than once ventured in a sledge upon the Polar Ocean, in 

 the hopes of discovering a large country supposed to be situated to the north- 

 ward of Kotelnoi and Xew Siberia. 



Wrangell left St. Petersburg on March 2?>, 1820, and experiencing in his 

 journey of 3500 miles repeated alternations of spring and winter, arrived at 

 Irkutsk, where the gardens were in full flower, on May 20. 



After a month's rest, a short journey brought him to the banks of the Lena, 

 on which he embarked on June 27, to descend to Jakutsk, which he reached 

 on July 27. This small town of 4000 inhabitants bears the gloomy stamp of 

 the frigid north, for though it has a few good houses, its dwellings chiefly con- 

 sist of the winter yourts of the Jakuts, with turf-covered roofs, doors of skins, 

 and windows of talc or ice. The only " sight " of this dreary place is the old 

 ruinous ostrog or wooden fort built by the Cossacks, the conquerors of the 

 country, in 1647. Jakut.sk is the centre of the interior trade of Siberia. To 

 this place are brought, in enormous quantities, furs of all kinds, walrus-teeth, 

 and mammoth-tusks, from distances of many thousand versts, to an amount of 

 half a million pounds. 



The commercial sphere of the Jakutsk merchants is of an immense extent. 

 During a cold of ten and twenty degrees they set out for the Lachow Isles, for 



