RETURN TO PETROPAVLOVSK 311 



come from Okhotsk bringing 1,500 poods of provisions, that Captain 

 Spanberg with five ships had reached Bolsheretsk from Okhotsk on his 

 way to Japan. 



Professor of Astronomy Delisle de la Croyere died of scurvy at ten 

 o'clock. 



At noon Captain Chirikov was taken ashore in a very sick condition. 



October 12, 1741 



Brought the ship around into the Harbor of St. Peter and St. Paul for 

 the winter and began to discharge cargo. 



Note on the Loss of Chirikov's Men 



The loss of Chirikov's men is the most dramatic incident of the voyage of the St. Paul. 

 The question naturally arises, What was their fate? Has any account of this episode been 

 handed down in the traditions of the Indian tribes of the region? This question was sub- 

 mitted to a number of authorities on the ethnology of the Pacific Coast. None of them 

 had heard of any such tradition. Among previous investigators. Professor George David- 

 son, to judge by a footnote on p. 20 of his "The Tracks and Landfalls of Bering and Chirikof 

 on the Northwest Coast of America," San Francisco, 1901, made an attempt in 1901 to 

 ascertain the traditions of the Tlingits through the medium of two members of the Alaska 

 Commercial Company. It is not known that any information was secured. 



One of the ethnologists consulted. Lieutenant George T. Emmons, whose study of a 

 similar first contact between a Pacific Coast tribe and white men (The Meeting between 

 La Perouse and the Tlingit, Amer. Anthropologist, Vol. 13, 1911, pp. 294-298), together 

 with his long labors among the Tlingits, makes him peculiarly well equipped to deal with 

 this question, has likewise, during thirty years' investigation among the coast tribes, 

 never been able to learn anything of the loss of Chirikov's men. However, in the com- 

 munication that he kindly sends, he suggests that Chirikov's two boats may have been 

 swamped in the strong tidal rips that occur at the mouths of such narrow fiord arms as 

 Lisianski Strait, especially if they entered with the strength of a flood tide. That this 

 might easily happen to small boats is evidenced by the fact that today even powerful 

 steamers, as he states, enter Peril Strait, a similar passage somewhat farther south, only 

 at slack water. The assumption that the boats were swamped and their occupants 

 drowned would seem to be borne out by the fact that two native canoes put off from shore 

 and approached the St. Paul. If the Russians had landed and if, in spite of Chirikov's 

 admonitions to his men, there had been a fight, the natives, after this first experience 

 of firearms, even if they had overpowered the landing parties, would certainly rot have 

 exposed themselves to the greater risk of facing the main body of the Russians. The fact 

 that they approached the ship would rather prove their innocence. Also, the similarity 

 of their call of "agai," as reported by Chirikov, to the Tlingit "agou," which means "come 

 here," would seem to imply friendly intentions. In most later instances the first meetings 

 of natives of this coast with Europeans, before the Russians commenced to appropriate 

 their hunting grounds, says Lieutenant Emmons in conclusion, were friendly; indeed, 

 the Tlingits were rather ready to trade. 



The only suggestion of a tradition among the coast tribes that might shed light on the 

 loss of Chirikov's men is contained in a recently published book, "The Story of Sitka, The 

 Historic Outpost of the Northwest Coast, The Chief Factory of the Russian American 

 Company," by C. L. Andrews, Seattle, 1922. The relevant passages (pp. 9-10) follow. 

 The author assumes the locality of the tragedy to be Sitka Sound. 



"Nearly two centuries have passed since the Russian seamen landed and no word has 

 come from them. For more than seventy years the Russian Government sought for some 

 sign of their fate.* Tales were told of a colony of Russians existing on the coast, but each 

 upon investigation proved but a rumor. 



"There is a dim tradition among the Sitkas of men being lured ashore in the long ago. 

 They say that Chief Annahootz, the predecessor of the chief of that name who was a 

 firm friend of the whites at Sitka in 1878, was the leading actor in the tragedy. Annahootz 

 dressed himself in the skin of a bear and played along the beach. So skillfully did he simu- 

 late the sinuous motions of the animal that the Russians in the excitement of the chase 

 plunged into the woods in pursuit and there the savage warriors killed them to a man, 

 leaving none to tell the story. The disappearance of Chirikof's men has remained one of 

 the many unsolved mysteries of the Northland, and their fate will never be known to a 

 certainty." — Edit. Note. 



* "January 20th, 1820, a letter written by the Directory at St. Petersburg to Chief 

 Manager Muravief at Sitka enclosing instructions previously given to Hagemeister, in- 

 structing him to find the descendants of Chirikof's lost men, urging that it must be done 

 and expressing surprise that it had been neglected thus long. (Russian American [Com- 

 pany's] Archives, [State Department, Washington, D. C.,] Correspondence, Vol. 2, 

 No. 108)." 



