Accuunt of the Russian Officer {Waxel). 229 



landed. Wlien they had approached near enough to be heard they be- 

 gan to call out, 'Agai, agai,' and then went back. M. Tschh'ikow did not 

 know what to think of tlieir conduct, and now, despairing of the return 

 of his men and having no more boats to send on shore, he determined, 

 on tlie 27tli of July, to leave the place, follow the coast as much as possi- 

 ble, and then return to Kamshatka. M. de I'lsle, then, makes an addition 

 of his own when he says tlaat ' M. Tschirikow made many excursions 

 into the country, during the month of August, while waiting for the re- 

 turn of his men.' To return to the truth, M. Tschirikow, in a distance of 

 one hunth-ed miles, never lost sigiit of land ; he battled often with con- 

 trary Avinds, had much anxiety on account of the heavy fogs, and lost an 

 anchor which he liad put out, not far from the coast, in a moment of 

 great danger. He was visited by twenty-one canoes, of tanned skins, 

 each one containing a man; but this was all — for he was unable to 

 converse with them. The scarcity of water and the scurvy carried off 

 many of his men. Among the officers he lost two lieutenants — Lichat- 

 schew and Plautin, fine men and excellent mariners — who might have 

 rendered good service had they lived. M. Tschirikow himself began to 

 have the symptoms of disease, but good food and the air on land restored 

 him to health. M. de la Croyere was not so fortunate; he appeared to 

 have held his own until he was just at the point of death. His compan- 

 ions marveled at the good effects of the large quantities of brandy which 

 he ch-ank every day ; but they soon saw that the only good it did him was 

 to make him forget his sufferings. He died on the 10th of October, as 

 they were entering the port of Avatscha, having dressed himself to go on 

 shore and having celebrated his arrival by new excesses. We cannot 

 ignore the imj)ortant service rendered by M. de la Croyere to the expedi- 

 tion, when he recognized the Americans who came to M. Tschirikow as 

 bearing great resemblance to the inhabitants of Canada, whom he had 

 met while serving in that country seventeen years before coming to 

 Russia, with the King of France's troops." 



Note. — A pamphlet which has just come into my possession, entitled 

 " Lettre de Monsieur d'Anville au R. P. Castel, Jesuit. Au sujetdes Pays 

 de Kamtchatka," etc (24mo, Paris, 1737), throws some light on the map 

 of du Halde (1732), and definitely fixes the date and locality of the obser- 

 vation of the eclipse, of the moon referred to by de I'lsle and the Russian 

 officer, as well as later geographers. 



D'Anville says: "The map of Bering's voyage is attributed to me. 

 * -X- * 'j'jjg only part I had therein was to reduce it from the much 

 larger original map, of which I had made a tracing by means of oiled 

 pajaer. * * * I first learned of Bering's voyage by letters from de I'lsle, 

 then in Russia ; and finally an account of this voyage having been sent to 

 R. P. du Halde by His Majesty Stanislas, King of Poland, it was placed in 

 my hands. 



31— Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. Ill, 1891. 



