XIII.] 
DEATH OF BEHRING. 
197 
severely from it, on which account the command was mainly in 
the hands of Lieut. Waxel. At an island the explorers came 
into contact with the natives, who at first were quite friendly, 
until one of them was offered brandy. He tasted the liquor, and 
was thereby so terrified that no gifts could calm his uneasiness. 
On this account those of the crew who were on land were 
ordered to come on board, but the savages wished to detain 
their guests. At last the Russians were set free, but a Koryak 
whom they had taken with them as an interpreter was kept 
behind. In order to get him set at liberty, Waxel ordered two 
musket salvos to be fired over the heads of the natives, with the 
result that they all fell flat down from fright, and the Koryak 
had an opportunity of making his escape. Now the fire-water 
is a liquor in great request among these savages, and they are 
not frightened at the firing of salvos of musketry. 
During the following months Behring’s vessel drifted about 
without any distinct plan, in the sea between Alaska and Kam¬ 
chatka, in nearly constant fog, and in danger of stranding on 
some of the many unknown rocks and islands which were passed. 
On the 5th November the vessel was anchored at an island 
afterwards called Behring Island. Soon however a great wave 
arose which threw the vessel on land and crushed it against the 
rocky coast of the island. Of the wintering there, which, through 
Steller’s taking part in it, became of so great importance for 
natural history, I shall give an account further on in connection 
with the narrative of our visit to Behring Island. Here I shall 
only remind the reader that Behring died of scurvy on the ^g®th 
December, and that in the course of the voyage great part of his 
crew fell a sacrifice to the same disease. In spring the. survivors 
built a new vessel out of the fragments of the old, and on the 
x|-th of August they sailed away from the island where they had 
undergone so many sufferings, and came eleven days after to a 
haven on Kamchatka. 
After parting from Behring, Chirikov on the 2|.th July sighted 
