CH. VI.] 
RODIVAN IVANOV, 1690. 
269 
dragged to another lake, Selennoe, from which they were finally 
carried down the River Selennaja to the Gulf of Obi.^ 
These and similar accounts were collected with great difficulty, 
and not without danger, by the Muscovy Company’s envoys; but 
among the accounts that have been thus preserved we do not 
find a single sketch of any special voyage, on the ground of 
which we could place a Russian name beside that of Willoughby, 
Burrough, Pet and Barents in the older history of the North- 
East Passage. The historical sources of Russia too must be 
similarly incomplete in this respect, to judge from the otherwise 
instructive historical introduction to Liitke’s voyage. Gallant 
seamen, but no Hakluyt, were born during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth century on the shores of the White Sea, and 
therefore the names of these seamen and the story of their 
voyages have long since fallen into complete obscurity, excepting 
some in comparatively recent times. 
In the second edition of Witsen’s great work we find, at page 
913, an account of an unsuccessful hunting voyage to the Kara 
Sea, undertaken in 1690, that is to say, at a time when voyages 
between the W^hite Sea and the Obi and Yenisej were on the 
point of ceasing completely. The account was drawn up by 
Witsen from an oral communication by one of the shipwrecked 
men, Rodivan Ivanov, who was for several years mate on a 
Russian vessel, employed in seal-fishing on the coast of Novaya 
Zemlya and Yaygats Island. 
On the September this Rodivan Ivanov suffered ship- 
^ Compare : “ The names of the places that the Russes sayle by, from 
Pechorskoie Zauorot to Mongozey ” (Purchas, iii. p. 539) ; “The voyage of 
Master Josias Logan to Pechora, and his wintering there with Master 
William Pursglove and Marmaduke Wilson, Anno 1611 ” (loc. cit. p. 541) : 
“ Extracts taken out of two letters of Josias Logan from Pechora, to Master 
Hakluyt, Prebend of Westminster” {loc. cit. p. 546) : “Other obseruations 
of the sayd William Pursglove ” (loc. cit. p. 550). The last paper contains 
good information regarding the Obi, Tas, Yenisej, Pjasina, Chatanga, 
and Lena. 
