CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 



197 



ON iUl \M001i 



expanded into the town of Nishnei-Kolymsk, and afterwards navigated the sea 

 eastward to Cape Schelagskoi, which may be considered as the north-eastern 

 cape of Siberia. 



In 1648 Semen Deschnew sailed from the Kolyma with the intention of 

 reaching the Anadyr by sea, and by this remarkable voyage — which no one else, 

 either before or after him, has ever performed — discovered and passed through 

 the strait, which properly should bear his name, instead of Bering's, who, sailing 

 from Kamchatka northward in 1728, did not go beyond East Cape, being sat- 

 isfied with the westerly trending of the cape beyond the promontory. Some 

 of Deschnew's companions subsequently reached Kamchatka, and were put to 

 death by the people of that peninsula, which was conquered, in 1699, by Atlas- 

 soff, a Cossack officer wlio came from Jakutsk. 



After having thus rapidly glanced at the progress of the Russian dominion 

 from the Ural to the Sea of Ochotsk, it may not be uninteresting to inquire 

 whether the natives had reason to bless the arrival of their new masters, or to 

 curse the day when they were first made to understand the meaning of the 

 word jassak, or tribute. Unfortunately, history tells us that, while the con- 



