THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS. 185 



sent out one party to hunt and another to carry wood 

 from the strand. In this way they succeeded in struggling 

 through the winter, which on Bering Island is more char- 

 acterized by raging snowstorms (poorgas) than severe cold. 



Meanwhile, death made sad havoc among them. Before 

 they reached Bering Island, their dead numbered twelve, 

 the majority of whom died during the last days of the 

 voyage. During the landing and immediately afterwards 

 nine more were carried away. The next death did not 

 occur until November 22. It was the excellent and 

 worthy mate, the seventy-year-old Andreas Hesselberg, 

 who had plowed the sea for fifty years, and whose advice, 

 had it been heeded, would have saved the expedition. 

 Then came no less than six deaths in rapid succession ; 

 and finally in December the Commander and another 

 officer died. The last death occurred January 6, 1742. 

 In all, thirty-one men out of seventy-seven died on this 

 ill-starred expedition. 



When Bering exerted his last powers to prevent the 

 stranding of the St. Peter, he struggled for life. Before 

 leaving Okhotsk he had contracted a malignant ague, 

 which diminished his powers of resistance, and on the 

 voyage to America scurvy was added to this. His sixty 

 years of age, his heavy build, the trials and tribulations 

 he had experienced, his subdued courage, and his disposi- 

 tion to quiet and inactivity, all tended to aggravate this 

 disease ; but he would nevertheless, says Steller, without 

 doubt have recovered if he had gotten back to Avacha, 

 where he could have obtained proper nourishment and 

 enjoyed the comfort of a warm room. In a sandpit on 

 the coast of Bering Island, his condition was hopeless. 



