After the expeditions of Coronado and Alarchon, in 1542, the spirit of enterprise among the Spaniards experienced some check, owing probably to the feeling of mortification and disappointment which accompanied the return of these officers. Yet Mendoza, unwilling wholly to renounce the high hopes he had entertained, despatched a small squadron under Rodriguez Cabrillo, which traced the yet undiscovered coast of North America some degrees beyond Cape Mendocino; and in 1596 and 1602, Sebastian Viscaino extended these discoveries along the coast of New-Albion to a river which appears to have been the present Columbia. It has even been asserted by some authors, that, four years prior to the voyage of Viscaino, Juan de Fuça, a veteran Spanish pilot, conducted a ship beyond the mouth of the Columbia, and doubling Cape Flattery, entered the Straits of Georgia, through which he passed till he came to Queen Charlotte's Sound. De Fuça imagined, not unnaturally, considering the imperfect and limited state of geographical knowledge, that he had now sailed through the famous and fabulous Strait of Anian and that, instead of being in the Pacific as he then actually was, he had conducted his vessel into the spacious expanse of the Atlantic. With this information he returned to Acapulco; but the Spanish viceroy received him coldly, and withheld all encouragement or reward,—a circumstance to which we may perhaps ascribe the cessation from this period of all further attempts at discovery by this nation upon the north-west coast of America. The whole voyage of De Fuça, however, rests on apocryphal authority. CHAPTER II. Russian and English Voyages. Behring-Tchirikow-Cook and Clerke-Meares-Vancouver- As the zeal of the Spanish government in extending their discoveries upon the north-west coast of America abated, another great nation, hitherto scarcely known to Europe, undertook at a later period the task which they had aban doned. Russia, within little more than half a century, had grown up from a collection of savage, undisciplined, and unconnected tribes, into a mighty people. Her conquests had spread with amazing rapidity till they embraced the whole of the north of Asia, and under the energetic administration of Peter the Great this empire assumed at once that commanding influence in the scale of European nations which it has continued to preserve till the present times. Among the many great projects of this remarkable man, the solution of the question, whether Asia, on the north-east, was united with America, occupied a prominent place; and it appears that during his residence in Holland in 1717, he had been solicited by some of the most eminent patrons of discovery among the Dutch to institute an expedition to investigate the subject. The resolution he then formed to set this great point at rest by a voyage of discovery was never abandoned; but his occupation in war, and the multiplicity of those state-affairs which engrossed his attention, caused him to delay its execution from year to year, till he was seized with his last illness. Upon his death-bed he wrote, with his own hand, instructions to Admiral Apraxin, and an order to have them carried into immediate execution. They directed, first, that one or two boats with decks should be built at Kamtschatka, or at any other convenient place; secondly, that with these a survey should be made of the most northerly coast of his Asiatic empire, to determine whether they were or were not contiguous to America; and, thirdly, that the persons to whom the expedition was intrusted should endeavour to ascertain whether on these coasts there was any port belonging to Europeans, and keep a strict look-out for any European ship, taking care also to employ some skilful men in making inquiries regarding the name and situation of the coasts which they discovered,-of all which they were to keep an exact journal, and transmit it to St. Petersburg. Upon the death of Peter the Great, which happened shortly after these instructions were drawn up, the Empress Catherine entered fully into his views, and gave orders to fit out an expedition for their accomplishment. The command was intrusted to Captain Vitus Behring. Under his orders were two lieutenants, Martin Spangberg and Alexei Tchirikow; and, besides other subaltern officers, they en gaged several excellent ship-carpenters. On the 5th of February, 1725, they set out from St. Petersburg, and on the 16th March arrived at Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia. After a survey of the rivers Irtisch, Ob, Ket, Jenesei, Tungusca, and Ilim, they wintered at Ilim, and, in the spring of 1726, proceeded down the river Lena to Jakutzk. The naval stores and part of the provisions were now intrusted to Lieutenant Spangberg, who embarked on the Juduma, intending to sail from it into the Maia, and then by the Aldan into the Leña. He was followed by Captain Behring, who proceeded by land with another part of the stores, while Lieutenant Tchirikow staid at Jakutzk, with the design of transporting the remainder overland. The cause of this complicated division of labour was the impassable nature of the country between Jakutzk and Ochotzk, which is impracticable for wagons in summer, or for sledges during winter. Such, indeed, were the difficulties of transporting these large bales of provisions, that it was the 30th July, 1727, before the whole business was completed. In the mean time a vessel had been built at Ochotzk, in which the naval stores were conveyed to Bolscheretzkoi in Kamtschatka. From this they proceeded to Nischnei Kamtschatkoi Ostrog, where a boat was built similar to the packet-boats used in the Baltic, After the necessary articles were shipped, Captain Behring, determining no longer to delay the most important part of his enterprise, set sail from the mouth of the river Kamtschatka on the 14th of July, steering north-east, and for the first time laying down a survey of this remote and desolate coast. When they reached the latitude of 64° 30', eight men of the wild tribe of the Tschuktschi pushed off from the coast in a leathern canoe, called a baidar, formed of seal-skins, and fearlessly approached the Russian ship. A communication was immediately opened by means of a Koriak interpreter ; and, on being invited, they came on board without hesitation. By these natives Behring was informed that the coast turned towards the west. On reaching the promontory called Serdze Kamen, the accuracy of this information was established, for the land was seen extending a great way in a western direction,-a circumstance from which Behring somewhat too hastily concluded, that he had reached the extremest northern point of Asia. He was of opinion that thence the coast must run to the west, and therefore no junction with America could take place. Satisfied that he had now fulfilled his orders, he returned to the river Kamtschatka, and again took up his winter-quarters at Nischnei Kamtschatkoi Ostrog.* In this voyage it was conjectured by Behring and his officers, from the reports of the Kamtschadales, that in all probability another country must be situated towards the east, at no great distance from Serdze Kamen; yet no immediate steps were taken either to complete the survey of the most northerly coasts of Ochozkoi, or to explore the undiscovered region immediately opposite the promontory. In the course of a campaign, however, against the fierce and independent nation of the Tschuktshi, Captain Pawlutzki penetrated by the rivers Nboina, Beta, and Tcherna, to the borders of the Frozen Sea; and after defeating the enemy in three battles, passed in triumph to a promontory supposed to be the Tgchukotzkoi Noss. From this point he sent part of his little army in canoes, while he himself conducted the remaining division by land round the promontory, taking care to march along the seacoast, and to communicate every evening with his canoes. In this manner Pawlutzki reached the promontory which is conjectured to have been the farthest limit of Behring's voyage, and thence by an inland route returned, on the 21st October, 1730, to Anadirsk, having advanced an important step in ascertaining the separation between America and the remote northeasterly coast of Asia. Although the separation of the two continents had been thus far fixed, a wide field of discovery yet remained unexplored; and in 1741, Behring, Spangberg, and Tchirikow once more volunteered their services for this purpose. These offers were immediately accepted; the captain was promoted to the rank of a commander, the two lieutenants were made captains, and instructions drawn up for the conduct of the expedition, in which it was directed that the destination of the voyages should be eastward to the continent of America, and southward to Japan, while, at the same time, an endeavour was to be made for the discovery of that northern passage through the Frozen Sea which * Harris's Collection of Voyages, vol. ii. p. 1020, 1021; Coxe's Russian Discoveries, p. 23, 24, 94. F had been so repeatedly but unsuccessfully attempted by other European nations. The voyage to Japan, under the command of Captain Spangberg and Lieutenant Walton, was eminently successful; and one of its material results was the correction of a geographical error of considerable magnitude, by which that island had hitherto been placed under the same meridian as Kamtschatka, instead of 11° more to the westward. The expedition of Behring, no less important and satisfactory, was destined to be fatal to its excellent commander. After a winter spent in the harbour of Awatscha, or Petropalauska, on the west side of the great peninsula of Kamtschatka, Behring got his stores on board the two packet-boats built at Ochotzk, expressly for the intended American discoveries. The first of these, the St. Peter, was that in which the commander embarked; the second, the St. Paul, was intrusted to Captain Tchirikow. Along with Behring went Lewis de Lisle de la Croyere, Professor of Astronomy, while Mr. George William Steller, an experienced chymist and botanist, accompanied Tchirikow. All things being ready, a council of officers was held, in which the question regarding the course they should steer was considered, and it happened, unfortunately for the expedition, that an important error had crept into the map presented by the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg to the senate, in laying down a coast south-east from Awatscha, extending fifteen degrees from west to east, while no land was marked due east. At this spot were written on the map the words "Land seen by Don Jean de Gama :" and, trusting to the accuracy of this information, it was determined to steer first south-east-by-east, in the hope of discovering this continent; after which they might follow its coasts as a guide towards the north and east. On the 4th of June, 1741, they accordingly weighed anchor and steered south-east-bysouth, till, on the 12th, they found themselves in latitude 46°, without the slightest appearance of the coast of De Gama. Convinced at last of their error, they held on a northerly course as far as 50° north latitude, and were just about to steer due east, with the hope of reaching the continent of America, when the two ships were separated in a violent storm accompanied by a thick fog. Behring exerted every effort to rejoin his consort; but all proved in vain. He |