THE DISCOVERY OF THE KURILE ISLANDS AND JAPAN FROM THE NORTH.
The men that took part in these early Russian explorations have
not yet received their just dues. Not one of them, however, needs
rehabilitation so much as Spangberg. He is entitled to an independent
place in geographical history, but has been completely barred out. O.
Peschel and Prof. Ruge know him as Bering's principal officer, but not
as the discoverer of the Kurile Islands and Japan from the north. And
yet, just this was his task. He was to sail from Kamchatka to Nipon,
chart the Kurile Islands, link the Russian explorations to the West
European cartography of northern Japan, and investigate the geography
of the intervening region,--especially the cartographical monsters
which in the course of a century of contortion had developed from De
Vries's intelligent map of East Yezo, Iturup (Staaten Eiland) and
Urup (Kompagniland). We have already spoken of these geographical
deformities, which assumed the most grotesque forms, and were at that
time accepted by the scientific world. The version of the brothers De
l'Isle, which perhaps was the most sober, may be seen from Map II. in
the appendix.
By Strahlenberg (1730) and by Bellin and Charlesvoix (1735), highly
respected names among scholars of that day, Kamchatka and Yezo
were represented as forming a great continent separated by narrow
sounds from Japan, which was continued on the meridian of Kamchatka
and Yezo, and from an eastern chain of islands--Staaten Eiland and
Kompagniland--that seemed to project into the Pacific in the form of a
continent.
Kiriloff, who was familiar with Bering's map of eastern Asia, and
made use of it, and who knew of the most northerly Kuriles, made
the necessary corrections in his general map of Russia (1734), but
retained, in regard to Yezo and Japan, a strangely unfortunate
composition of Dutch and Strahlenberg accounts, and put Nipon (Hondo)
much too far to the east. In these cartographical aids Spangberg found
only errors and confusion, and he got about the same kind of assistance
from his real predecessors in practical exploration. Peschel tells
that Ivan Kosyrefski, in the years 1712-13, thoroughly investigated
the Kurile chain; there is, however, but little truth in this. Peschel
gives G. F. Müller as his authority and refers to his book, but the
latter says explicitly on this point: "All of Kosyrefski's voyages
were confined to the first two or three Kuriles; farther than this he
did not go, and whatever he tells of beyond them was obtained from the
accounts of others." It is possible that Müller's judgment is a trifle
one-sided, but it is nevertheless certain that Kosyrefski's description
of the Kuriles is based on his own explorations only in a very slight
degree, and that he by no means deserves the place that Peschel and
Ruge have accorded him. Nor did Lushin's and Yevrinoff's expedition in
the summer of 1721 get very far--scarcely beyond the fifth or sixth
island--and with them, until Spangberg appeared on the scene, Russian
explorations in this quarter were at a standstill.
The expedition to Japan (1738) was undertaken with three ships.
Spangberg and Petroff sailed the one-masted brig, the Archangel
Michael, Lieutenant Walton and first mate Kassimiroff the three-masted
double sloop Hope, and Second-Lieutenant Schelting had Bering's old
vessel, the Gabriel. The Michael had a crew of sixty-three, among them
a monk, a physician, and an assayer, and each of the other two ships
had a crew of forty-four. The flotilla left Okhotsk on the 18th of
June, 1738, but was detained in the Sea of Okhotsk by ice, and did not
reach Bolsheretsk until the early part of July. From here, on the 15th
of July, Spangberg departed for the Kuriles to begin charting.
The Kurile chain, the thousand islands or Chi-Shima, as the Japanese
call them, is 650 kilometers long. These islands are simply a multitude
of crater crests which shoot up out of the sea, and on that account
make navigation very difficult. The heavy fog, which almost continually
prevails here, conceals all landmarks. In the great depths, sounding
afforded little assistance, and, furthermore, around these islands
and through the narrow channels there are heavy breakers and swift
currents.
For nearly a century after Spangberg, these obstacles defied some of
the world's bravest seamen. Captain Gore, who was last in command
of Cook's ships, was obliged to give up the task of charting this
region; La Pérouse succeeded in exploring only the Boussale channel;
the fogs forced Admiral Sarycheff (1792) to give up his investigations
here; Captain Broughton (1796) was able to circumnavigate only the
most southerly islands, without, however, succeeding in giving a
correct representation of them; and not until the early part of this
century did Golovnin succeed in charting the group more accurately
than Spangberg. All of these difficulties were experienced in full
measure by Spangberg's expedition. In constant combat with fogs, swift
currents, and heavy seas along steep and rocky coasts, he had, by the
3d of August, 1738, circumnavigated thirty-one islands (our maps have
not nearly so large a number), and at a latitude of 45° 30' he reached
the large island Nadeshda, (the Kompagniland of the Dutch, Urup),
but, as he could nowhere find a place to anchor, and as the nights
were growing dark and long, the ship's bread running short, and the
crew for a long time having been on half rations, he turned back, and
reached Bolsheretsk on the 17th of August. Lieutenant Walton, who had
parted company with his chief and had sailed as far down as 43° 30'
north latitude, thus reaching the parallel of Yezo, arrived a few days
later. As well as the other chiefs of these expeditions, Spangberg had
authority, without a renewed commission, to repeat the expedition the
following summer; hence the winter was spent in preparations for it.
So far as it was possible to do so, he sought to provision himself in
Kamchatka, and, especially for reconnoitering the coast, he built of
birchwood an eighteen-oared boat, called the Bolsheretsk.
On the 21st of May, 1739, he again stood out to sea with all four
ships, and on the 25th of the same month he reached Kurile Strait,
and from here sailed south southeast into the Pacific to search for
Gamaland and all the legendary group of islands which appeared on
De l'Isle's map. This southerly course, about on the meridian of
Kamchatka, he kept until the 8th of June, reaching a latitude of 42°.
As he saw nothing but sea and sky, he veered to the west southwest
for the purpose of "doing the lands" near the coast of Japan. Walton,
who, in spite of Spangberg's strictest orders, was constantly seeking
to go off on his own tack, finally, on the 14th of June, found an
opportunity to steal away and sail in a southwesterly direction. In
different latitudes, but on the same day, the 16th of June, both
discovered land. Walton followed the coast of Nipon down to latitude
33°, but Spangberg confined his explorations to the region between 39°
and 37° 30' N. The country was very rich. A luxuriant vegetation--grape
vines, orange trees and palms--decked its shores. Rich fields of rice,
numerous villages, and populous cities were observed from the vessel.
The sea teemed with fish of enormous size and peculiar form, and the
currents brought them strange and unknown plants. The arrival of the
ships caused great excitement among the natives, beacons burned along
the coast all night, and cruisers swarmed about them at a respectful
distance. On the 22d, Spangberg cast anchor one verst from shore, and
sought to communicate with them. The Japanese brought rice, tobacco,
various kinds of fruits and cloths, which, on very reasonable terms,
they exchanged for Russian wares. They were very polite, and Spangberg
succeeded in obtaining some gold coins, which, however, he found were
described by Kæmpfer. Several persons of high rank visited him in his
cabin and attempted to explain to him, by the aid of his map and globe,
the geography of Japan and Yezo. As his instructions enjoined upon him
the most extreme cautiousness, and as on the following day he found
himself surrounded by eighty large boats, each with ten or twelve men,
he weighed anchor and stood out to sea in a northeasterly direction.
It was Spangberg's purpose to chart the southern part of the Kurile
Islands, and, as will be seen from his chart,[69] he sought to
accomplish his task, and thus complete his work of 1738. The casual
observer will, however, find this map unsatisfactory and inaccurate,
and will not only be quite confused in viewing these islands so
promiscuously scattered about, and which seemingly do not correspond
with the actual geography of this region as known to us, but he will
even be inclined to suspect Spangberg of gross fraud. This is certainly
very unjust, however, and after a careful study of a modern map, I
venture the following opinion on this subject: In order to be able to
understand his chart and course, the most essential thing necessary
is simply to determine his first place of landing in the Kuriles,
the island Figurnyi, and to identify it with its present name. He
discovered this island on the 3d of July. Müller says that, according
to the ship's journal, it is in latitude 43° 50' N., and in spite
of the fact that Spangberg's determinations in longitude, based on
the ship's calculations, were as a rule somewhat inaccurate, which
in a measure is shown by Nipon's being located so far west, he is
nevertheless in this case right. Figurnyi is the island Sikotan and has
the astronomical position of this island on the chart (according to
Golovnin 43° 53' N. and 146° 43' 30" E.). This opinion is corroborated
by a map of the Russian discoveries published at St. Petersburg in
1787, and by Captain Broughton, who described the island in the fall of
1796, and gave it the name of Spangberg's Island, in honor of its first
discoverer. With this point fixed, it is not difficult to understand
and follow Spangberg.
Spangberg labored under very unfavorable circumstances. It rained
constantly, the coast was enveloped in heavy fogs, and at times it was
impossible to see land at a distance of eight yards. From Figurnyi
he sailed southwest, but under these difficult circumstances he took
the little islands of Taroko and the northern point of Yezo to be
one continuous coast (Seljonyi, the green island), and anchored at
the head of Walvisch bay, his Bay of Patience. From here he saw the
western shore of the bay, reached its farthest point, Cape Notske, and
discovered the peninsula of Sirokot and parts of the island Kumashiri,
which he called Konosir and Tsyntrounoi respectively; but, as he turned
from Cape Notske and sailed east into the Pacific, between Sikotan and
the Taroko Islands, he did not reach the Kurile Islands themselves,
and only the most northerly island in the group of the "Three Sisters"
may possibly be the southern point of Iturup. He then proceeded along
the eastern coast of Yezo, took the deep bay of Akischis as a strait
separating Seljonyi and Konosir, then crossed in a southerly direction
the large bay on the central coast of Yezo, without seeing land at its
head, to Cape Jerimo (his Matmai), and had thus navigated the whole
east coast of Yezo; but on account of the heavy fog, which prevented
him from seeing the exact outline of the coast, he made three islands
of Yezo: Matmai, Seljonyi and Konosir. In 1643, De Vries had in his
map linked a number of islands together, making one stretch of country
called Jeço, and now Spangberg had gone to the opposite extreme.
These explorations engaged Spangberg from the 3d to the 25th of July.
He several times met inhabitants of North Yezo, the Aïno people, whose
principal characteristics he has fully described, but as his men were
suffering from scurvy, causing frequent deaths among them (by August
29, when he arrived at Okhotsk, he had lost thirteen, among them the
physician), he resolved to turn at Cape Jerimo, and on his return
trip keep his course so close to the Kuriles that he might strike the
extreme points of De l'Isle's Jeço, all of Kompagniland, and the most
westerly parts of Gamaland.
Spangberg's explorations were far from exhaustive. He but partly
succeeded in lifting the veil that so persistently concealed the
true outline of this irregularly formed part of the globe. His
reconnoissance was to ascertain the general oceanic outline of
these coasts. His charting of Yezo and Saghalin was left to a much
later day,--to La Pérouse, to Krusenstern, Golovnin, and others.
But Spangberg's expedition nevertheless marks great progress in our
geographical knowledge, for not only did he irrevocably banish the
cartographical myths of that region, and, on the whole, give a correct
representation of the Kurile islands clear to Iturup, the next to the
last of them, but he also determined the position of North Japan, and
fully accomplished his original task, namely, to show the Russians the
way to Japan, and thus add this long disputed part of the Northeast
passage to the other explorations for the same purpose.
As was the case with that of all of his colleagues, so Spangberg's
reputation suffered under the violent administrative changes and that
system of suppression which later prevailed in Russia. His reports were
never made public. The Russian cartographers made use of his chart,
but they did not understand how to fit judiciously his incomplete
coast-lines to those already known, or to distinguish right from
wrong. They even omitted the course of his vessel, thus excluding all
possibility of understanding his work. Hence Spangberg's chart never
reached West Europe, and Cook found it necessary to reinstate him as
well as Bering.[70] After that the feeling was more favorable, and
Coxe,[71] for instance, used his representation of the Kuriles; but
new and better outlines of this region appeared about this time, and
Spangberg again sank into complete oblivion.
Spangberg's safe return was a bright spot in the history of the Great
Northern Expedition, and Bering was very well satisfied with the
results. He permitted him and his crew to go to Yakutsk to obtain rest,
and ordered him to return to St. Petersburg the next spring to render
in person an account of the results of the expedition. His preliminary
report, sent in advance, received considerable attention in the cabinet
of the Empress, and caused much talk in the leading circles of the
capital. While in Yakutsk, he received orders to travel day and night
to reach St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, however, his old enemy Pissarjeff
had also been active. Surreptitiously, especially from Walton, who was
constantly at enmity with his chief, he had obtained some information
concerning the expedition and had reported to the Senate that Spangberg
had not been in Japan at all, but off the coast of Corea. This
assertion he sought to prove by referring to pre-Spangberg maps, which,
as we have noted, placed Japan eleven or twelve degrees too far east,
directly south of Kamchatka. This gossip was credited in the Senate,
and a courier was dispatched to stop Spangberg. At Fort Kirinsk, on the
Lena, in the summer of 1740, he received orders to return to Okhotsk
and repeat his voyage to Japan, while a commission of naval officers
and scholars betook themselves to investigate the matter. These wise
men, after several years of deliberation, came to the conclusion that
Walton had been in Japan, and that Spangberg most probably had been off
the coast of Corea. In the summer of 1742, he started out on his third
expedition to Japan, but as this was a complete failure, undoubtedly
due to Spangberg's anger on account of the government's unjust and
insane action, and as it has no geographical significance, we shall
give it no further consideration.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] See Appendix.
[70] Note 53.
[71] Note 54.