74 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



course, and anxiously sought the commander, until it, too, had 

 sighted this same coast, three days earlier than had its storm- 

 separated consort. Tschericov came to anchor off some distance 

 from " steep and rocky cliffs "* in "lat. 56," July 15. Weary and 

 expectant, the captain sent his mate with the long-boat and a crew 

 of ten or twelve of his best men away to the shore for the purpose 

 of inquiry and for a fresh supply of water. The ship's boat dis- 

 appeared behind the point sheltering a small wooded inlet ; it and 

 its men were never seen again by their shipmates. Troubled in 

 mind, but thinking that the surf, perhaps, had stove the boat in 

 landing, the captain sent his boatswain in the dingy with five men 

 and two carpenters, all well armed, to furnish the necessary assist- 

 ance. The small boat disappeared also, and it, too, was never seen 

 again. At the same time a great smoke was constantly ascending 

 from the shore. Shortly afterward two huge canoes, filled with 

 painted, yelling savages, paddled out from the recesses of the bay, 

 and lying at some distance from the ship, all howled, in standing 

 chorus, " Agai agai ! " then, flourishing their rude arms, they 

 rapidly returned to the shore. Sorrowfully the disturbed and dis- 

 tressed Tschericov turned his ship's course about and hurried home,f 

 not knowing the fate of his men, unable to help them, and, to this 

 day, no authentic inkling of what became of these Slavonian sea- 

 men has ever been produced. Unquestionably, they were tortured 

 and destroyed. 



The rains caught in the ship's sails filled the casks of the 

 Saint Paul, since Tschericov, deprived of his boats and thoroughly 

 alarmed, made no further attempts to land ; but he had not the 

 faintest idea of the presence, at that moment, of his superior officer 

 in the same waters, and only a few leagues to the northward, who 

 also, like himself was eagerly looking for his storm-parted consort. 

 What a most remarkable voyage, this voyage of the discovery of 



* That point, most likely, was Kruzov Island, and the bay into which 

 the unhappy Russians were decoyed was Klokachev Gulf. This island forms 

 the western shore of Sitka Sound. 



f He reached Kamchatka on the 9th October following, with only forty- 

 nine survivors out of his original crew of seventy. Bering never did ; he was 

 shipwrecked and died on a bleak island, of the Commander group, December 

 8, 1741. They seem to have really sailed over this course of six thousand 

 miles almost together, anxiously searching for each other, yet unconscious of 

 their proximity. 



