136 VOYAGES OF RUSSIAN FUR TRADERS. [1760. 



this want of knowledge of the coasts, and want of means to ascer- 

 tain positions at sea ; and a large number of those engaged in the 

 trade, moreover, fell victims to cold, starvation, and scurvy, and to the 

 enmity of the bold natives of the islands. Even as lately as 1806,* 

 it was calculated that one third of these vessels were lost in each 

 year. The history of the Russian trade and establishments on the 

 North Pacific, is a series of details of dreadful disasters and suffer- 

 ings ; and, whatever opinions may be entertained as to the humanity 

 of the adventurers, or the morality of their proceedings, the courage 

 and perseverance displayed by them, in struggling against such 

 appalling difficulties, must command universal admiration. 



The furs collected, by these means, at Avatscha and Ochotsk, the 

 principal fur-trading ports, were carried to Irkutsk, the capital of 

 Eastern Siberia, whence some of them were taken to Europe ; the 

 greater portion were, however, sent to Kiakta, a small town just 

 within the Russian frontier, close to the Chinese town of Maimatchin, 

 through which places all the commerce between these two empires 

 passed, agreeably to a treaty concluded at Kiakta, in 1728. In 

 return for the furs, which brought higher prices in China than any 

 where else, teas, tobacco, rice, porcelain, and silk and cotton goods, 

 were brought to Irkutsk, whence all the most valuable of those 

 articles were sent to Europe. These transportations were effected 

 by land, except in some places, where the rivers were used as the 

 channel of conveyance ; no commercial exportation having been 

 made from Eastern Russia, by sea, before 1779: and, when the 

 immense distances,f between some of the points above mentioned, 

 are considered, it becomes evident that none but objects of great 

 value, in comparison with their bulk, at the place of their con- 

 sumption, could have been thus transported, with profit to those 

 engaged in the trade, and that a large portion of the price paid by 

 the consumer must have been absorbed by the expense of trans- 

 portation. A skin was, in fact, generally worth, at Kiakta, three 

 times as much as it cost at Ochotsk. 



The Russian government appears to have remained almost en- 

 tirely unacquainted with the voyages and discoveries of its subjects, 



* Krusenstern's journal of his voyage to the North Pacific. 



t In the following table, each number expresses nearly the distance, in geographical 

 miles, between the places named on either side of it : — 



St. Petersburg, 460, Moscow, 1500, Tobolsk, 1800, Irkutsk, 1550, Yakutsk, 600, 

 Ochotsk, 1300, Petropawlowsk, on the Bay of Avatscha; Irkutsk, 300, Kiakta, 

 1000, Pekin. 



