XIII.] THE SEA OF OKOTSK OPENED TO iiAVIGATION. 
175 
off because at that time there were at Okotsk neither seagoing 
boats, seamen, nor even men accustomed to the.use of the com¬ 
pass. Some years after the governor Prince Gagarin sent to 
that town IvAN SoROKAUMOV with twelve Cossacks to make 
arrangements for this voyage. For want of _ships and seamen 
however^ this could not now be undertaken, and after Sorokau- 
mov had created great confusion he was imprisoned by the 
authorities of the place, and sent back to the Governor. 
Peter I. how commanded that men acquainted with navigation 
should be sought for among the Swedish prisoners of war 
and sent to Okotsh; that they should build a boat there and, 
provided with a compassy go by sea along with some Cossacks 
to Kamchatka and return} Thus navigation began on the 
Sea of Okotsk. Among the Swedes who opened it, is men¬ 
tioned Henry Busch,^ according to Strahlenberg a Swedish 
corporal, who had previously been a ship-carpenter. According to 
Muller, who met with him at Yakutsk as late as 1736, he 
was born at Hoorn in Holland, had served at several places 
as a seaman, and finally among the Swedes as a trooper, until 
he was taken prisoner at Viborg in 1706. He gave Muller 
the following account of his first voyage across the Sea of 
Okotsk. 
After arriving at Okotsk they had built a vessel, resembling 
the lodjas used at Archangel and Mesen for sailing on the White 
Sea and to Novaya Zemlya. The vessel was strong ; its length 
was eight and a half fathoms, its breadth three fathoms, the 
^ Von Baer, Beitrdge zur Kentniss des Russischen Reiches^ xvi. p. 33. 
2 Ambjorn Molin, lieutenant in the Scanian cavalry regiment, who was 
taken prisoner at the Dnieper in 1709, also took part in these journeys. 
Compare Berdttelse om de i Stora Tartariet hoende tartarer, som trdffats 
Idngst nordost i Asien, pa drlcehislcop E. Benzelii hegdran upsatt af Amhjorn 
Molin {Account of the Tartars dioelling in Great Tartary who were met with 
at the north-east extremity of Asia, written at the request of Archbishop 
E. Benzelius by Ambjorn Molin), published in Stockholm in 1880 by Aug. 
Strindberg, after a manuscript in the Linkoping library. 
