XIII.] 
DESCHNEV’S VOYAGES. 
165 
living on the coast, in which fight Alexejev was wounded. 
Soon after Deschnev’s and Alexejev’s “ kotsches ” were parted 
never to meet again. 
Deschnev was driven about by storms and head-winds until 
past the beginning of October. Finally his vessel stranded near 
the mouth of the river Olutorsk, in 61° N.L. Hence he marched 
with his twenty-five men to the Anadyr. He had expected 
to meet with some natives in its lower course, but the region 
was uninhabited, which caused the invaders much trouble, 
because they suffered from want of provisions. Although 
Deschnev could not obtain from the natives any augmentation 
of the certainly very small supply of food which he carried 
with him, he succeeded nevertheless in passing the winter in 
that region. First in the course of the following summer did 
he fall in with natives, from whom a large tribute was collected, 
but not without fierce conflicts. A simovie was built at the 
place where afterwards Anadyrski Ostrog was founded. While 
Deschnev remained here, at a loss as to how, when the boats 
were broken up, he would be able to return to the Kolyma, 
or find a way thither by land, there came suddenly on the 
1650, a new party of hunters to his winter hut. 
For the accounts of islands in the Polar Sea, and of the river 
Pogytscha, which was said to fall into the sea three or four days’ 
journey beyond the Kolyma, had led to the sending out of another 
expedition under the Cossack Staduchin. He started from 
Yakutsk in boats on the ^|th June, 1647, wintered on the Yana, 
travelled thence in sledges to Indigirka, and there again built 
boats in which he rowed to the Kolyma. It is to be observed 
that Staduchin, just because he preferred the land-route to the 
sea-route between the Yana and the Indigirka, missed discover¬ 
ing the large island in the Polar Sea, of which so much has 
been said. Next summer (1649) Staduchin again sailed down 
the river Kolyma to the sea, and then for seven days along its 
coast eastwards, without finding the mouth of the river sought for 
