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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



though separated from that of Asia by the interposition of an 

 arm of the sea, suddenly approaches so near it that a bridge 

 might be thrown from one world to the other. Did human 

 beings inhabit those regions and breathe the pale- blue vapors 

 which pervade them, they might almost converse across the 

 narrow inlet which serves to divide the continents. But now 

 the aurora fades away, and the deceptive mirage sinks back 

 into the shadowy realms from whence it came. Fifty miles of 

 sullen waters roll again between the continents, and a three 

 months' night settles over the ghastly and appalling scene." 



It is not improbable that Behring passed to the north of East 

 Cape, the promontory on the Asiatic side, into the Arctic 

 Ocean beyond. He was soon compelled to return, owing to the 

 disabled condition of his vessel, which Avas wrecked upon an 

 island on the 3d of November, 1741. This island, which was 

 little better than a naked rock, afforded neither food nor shelter ; 

 and Behring, suffering from the scurvy and sinking from disap- 

 pointment, lay down in a cleft of the rock to die. The sand 

 collected and drifted about him, half burying him alive. He would 

 not suffer it to be removed, as it afforded him a grateful warmth. 

 He died in this wretched condition on the 8th of December. The 

 next summer, the few of his crew who survived the winter built 

 a vessel from the timber of the wreck : in this they reached Kam- 

 schatka and made known the miserable fate of their commander. 



Though Behring settled the fact of the existence of the strait 

 which bears his name, it was reserved for Captain Cook to 

 survey the entire length of both coasts. This he did with a 

 precision and accuracy which left nothing for after-voyagers to 

 perform, and which has made the geography of this remote and 

 barbarous region as familiar as that of the Atlantic shores of 

 America. The island upon which Behring died, and which was 

 then uninhabited and without a shrub upon its surface, is now 

 an important trading station, and affords comfortable winter 

 quarters to vessels from Okhotsk and Kamschatka. 



