22 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
one of his companions, concerning the right of discovery to a 
walrus bank on the east coast of Kamschatka. This voyage, 
however, was a veritable exploring expedition undertaken with 
the approval of the Government, partly for the discovery of some 
large islands in the Polar Sea, about which a number of reports 
were current among the hunters and natives, partly for extend¬ 
ing the territory yielding tribute to the Russians, over the yet 
unknown regions in the north-east. 
Deschnev started on the 1st July, 1648, from the Kolyma in 
command of one of the seven vessels (KotscJier)} manned with 
thirty men, of which the expedition consisted. Concerning the 
fate of four of these vessels we have no information. It is 
probable that they turned back, and w^ere not lost, as several 
writers have supposed; three, under the command of the 
Cossacks, Deschnev and Ankudinov, and the fur-hunter, Kolmo- 
gorsov, succeeding in reaching Chutskojnos through what appears 
to have been open water. Here Ankudinov’s vessel was ship¬ 
wrecked ; the men, however, were saved and divided among ^ 
the other two, which were speedily separated. Deschnev con¬ 
tinued his voyage along the east coast of Kamschatka to the 
Anadir, which was reached in October. Ankudinov is also 
supposed to have reached the mouth of the Kamschatka River, 
where he settled among the natives and finally died of scurvy. 
The year following (1649) Staduchin sailed again, for seven 
days, eastward from the Kolyma to the neighbourhood of 
Chutskojnos, in an open sea, so far as we can gather from the 
defective account. Deschnev’s own opinion of the possibility 
of navigating this sea may be seen from the fact, that, after 
his own vessel was lost, he had timber collected at the Anadir 
for the purpose of building new ones. With these he intended 
to send to Yakoutsk the tribute of furs which he had received 
from the natives. He was, however, obliged to desist from his 
project by an easily understood want of materials for the build¬ 
ing of the new vessels ; he remarks also in connection with this 
that the sea round Chutskojnos is not free of ice every year. 
A number of voyages from the Siberian rivers northward, were 
also made after the founding of Nischni Kolymsk, by Michael 
Staduschin in 1644, in consequence of the reports which were 
current among the natives at the coast, of the existence of large 
inhabitated islands, rich in walrus tusks and mammoth bones, 
1 Pretty broad, flat-bottomed, keelless vessels, 12 fathoms long, gene¬ 
rally moved forward by rowing ; sail only used with fair wind {Wrangels 
Beise, p. 4). 
