XIII.] 
BEHRING’S SECOND VOYAGE. 
181 
the sound, which has since obtained the name of Behring’s 
Straits, is considered to have been discovered. But it is 
now known that this discovery properly belongs to the gallant 
hunter Deschnev, who sailed through these straits eighty years 
before. I suppose therefore that the geographical world will 
with pleasure embrace the proposal to attach the name of 
Deschnev along with that of Behring to this part of our globe ; 
which may be done by substituting Cape Deschnev, as the name 
of the easternmost promontory of Asia, for that of East Cape, an 
appellation which is misleading and unsuitable in many respects. 
Several statements by Kamchadales regarding a great country 
towards the east on the other side of the sea, induced Behring 
the following year to sail away in order to ascertain whether this 
was the case. In consequence of unfavourable weather he did not 
succeed in reaching the coast of America, but returned with his 
object unaccomplished, after which he sailed to Okotsk, where 
he arrived on the 1729. Hence he betook himself 
2ard J uly, 
immediately to St. Petersburg, which he reached after a journey 
of six months and nine days. 
In maps published during Behring’s absence, partly by Swedish 
officers who had returned from imprisonment in Siberia,^ Kam¬ 
chatka had been delineated with so long an extension towards 
the south that this peninsula was connected with Yezo, the 
northernmost of the large Japanese islands. The distance 
between Kamchatka and Japan, rich in wares, would thus have 
been quite inconsiderable. This nearness was believed to be 
further confirmed by another Japanese ship, manned by seven¬ 
teen men and laden with silk, rice, and paper, having stranded 
in July 1729 on Kamchatka, south of Avatscha Bay. In this 
neighbourhood there was, along with a number of natives, a 
iii. p. 112). A map of it is inserted in the 1735 Paris edition of Du Halde’s 
work, and in Nouvel Atlas de la Chine^ par M. D'Anville^ La Haye, 1737. 
^ Eistoire genealogique des Tartares (note, p. 107), and Strahlenberg’s oft- 
quoted w'ork (map, text, pp. 31 and 384). 
