PREPARATIONS FOR BERING'S VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY TO AMERICA.--FOUNDING
OF PETROPAVLOVSK.--THE BROTHERS DE L'ISLE.
We left Bering when, in 1740, he was about to depart from the harbor of
Okhotsk with the St. Peter and the St. Paul, two smaller transports,
and a vessel to convey the scientists, Steller and La Croyère, to
Bolsheretsk. The objective point of the main expedition was Avacha
Bay, on the eastern coast of Kamchatka. The excellent harbors here had
been discovered by Bering's crew a couple of years previous. He had
now sent his mate, Yelagin, to chart the bay, find a sheltered harbor
there, and establish a fortified place of abode on this coast. This
work Yelagin completed in the summer of 1740, and when in the latter
part of September the packet boats entered Avacha Bay, they found, in a
smaller bay on the north side, Niakina Cove, some barracks and huts. A
fort was built in the course of the winter and the pious Bering had a
church built and consecrated to St. Peter and St. Paul, thus founding
the present town of Petropavlovsk. The place rapidly became the most
important and pleasant town of the peninsula, although that is not
saying much. In 1779, the place was still so insignificant that Cook's
officers searched long in vain for it with their field-glasses, but
finally discovered about thirty huts on that point which shelters
the harbor. In the middle of this century it had about a thousand
inhabitants, but since the sale of Russian America, Bering's town
has been hopelessly on the decline. At present it has scarcely 600
inhabitants and is of importance only to the fur trade.
Its first permanent inhabitants were brought from the forts on
the Kamchatka, and in the course of the autumn there arrived from
Anadyrskoi Ostrog a herd of reindeer to supply the command of over
two hundred men with food, and thus spare other stores. This was very
necessary, for although Bering had left Okhotsk with nearly two years'
provisions, one of the ships, through the carelessness of an officer,
stranded in crossing the Okhotsk bar, and the cargo, consisting of the
ship's bread for the voyage to America, was destroyed and could not
immediately be replaced. Some lesser misfortunes in Avacha Bay further
diminished the stores, and hence, in the course of the winter, Bering
found it necessary to have large supplies brought across the country
from Bolsheretsk. The distance is about one hundred and forty miles,
and as nothing but dogs could be procured, the natives were gathered
from the remotest quarters of the peninsula to accomplish this work of
transportation. The Kamshadales disliked journeys very much. They had
already suffered terribly under the misrule of the Cossacks. They were
treated cruelly, and many died of overwork and want, and the rest lost
patience. The tribes in the vicinity of Tigil revolted. The Cossack
chief Kolessoff, who was constantly drunk, neglected to superintend
the transportation, and as a result, much was injured or ruined. Some
of those supplies arrived too late to be used for the expedition.
Bering's original plan was to spend two years on this expedition. He
was to winter on the American coast, navigate it from 60° N. latitude
to Bering Strait, and then return along the coast of Asia. But this had
to be abandoned.
In May, 1741, when the ice broke up, he could supply his ships with
frugal, not to say very poor, provisions, for only five and a half
months. Moreover, his ship's stores and reserve rigging were both
incomplete and inadequate. Bering's powers of resistance now began to
wane. After eight years of incessant trouble and toil, after all the
accusations and suspicions he had undergone, he was now forced to face
the thought of an unsatisfactory conclusion of his first voyage, at
least. Besides, Spangberg's fate could not but have a very depressing
influence, for it told Bering and his associates that even with the
best of results it would hardly be possible to overcome the prejudices
of the government authorities or their lack of confidence in the
efforts of the new marine service. Undoubtedly it was such thoughts
as these that swayed Bering and Chirikoff, when, on the 4th of May,
they called the ship's council to consider the prospective voyage (the
proceedings are not known). Although both, as well as the best of their
officers, were of the opinion that America[72] was to be sought in a
direction east by north from Avacha, and in spite of the fact that they
were both familiar with Gvosdjeff's discovery of the American coast
of Bering Strait (1732), and that their observations during the course
of the winter had amply corroborated Bering's earlier opinion, they
nevertheless allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to search first in
a southeasterly direction for the legendary Gamaland. And thus the lid
of Pandora's box was lifted.
This fatal resolution was due principally to the brothers De l'Isle,
and, as this name is most decisively connected with Bering's life
and renown, we must say a few words about these brothers. The elder
and more talented, Guillaume De l'Isle, undoubtedly represented the
geographical knowledge of his day, but he died as early as 1726. He
came in personal contact with the Czar during the latter's visit in
Paris, and corresponded with him afterwards. His maps were the worst
stumbling blocks to Bering's first voyage. The younger brother, Joseph
Nicolas, on the other hand, was called to Russia in 1726, on his
brother's recommendation, and was appointed chief astronomer of the
newly founded Academy. In this position he was for twenty-one years
engaged upon the cartography of the great Russian empire. Under his
supervision the atlas of the Academy appeared in 1745, and it was
supposed that he carried very valuable geographical collections with
him to Paris in 1747. But if this was the case, he did not understand
how to make proper use of them, and, as it is, he is of no geographical
importance. When he went to Russia, he took with him, without special
invitation, his elder brother, Louis, and did everything to secure
him a scientific position in the country. Louis seems to have been
an amiable good-for-nothing, who highly prized a good table and a
social glass, but cared as little as possible for scientific pursuits.
When, as a young man, he studied theology in Paris, his father found
it necessary to send him to Canada, where he assumed his mother's
name, La Croyère, and for seventeen years lived a soldier's wild life,
until his brothers, on the death of the father, recalled him from his
exile. In St. Petersburg his brother instructed him in the elements
of astronomy, sent him upon a surveying expedition to Lapland, and
finally secured him a position as chief astronomer of Bering's second
expedition. This was a great mistake. Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère
very unsatisfactorily filled his position. His Academic associates
Müller and Gmelin had no regard for him whatever, and hence under
the pressure of this contempt, and as a result of this irregular and
protracted life in a barbaric country, La Croyère, having no native
power of resistance, sank deeper and deeper into hopeless sluggishness.
His astronomical determinations in Kamchatka are worthless. His Russian
assistants, especially Krassilnikoff, did this part of the work of the
expedition.
As early as 1730, Bering, as we have seen, came into unfortunate
relations with Joseph De l'Isle, and this state of affairs afterwards
grew gradually worse. In 1731, the Senate requested the latter to
construct a map of the northern part of the Pacific in order to present
graphically the still unsolved problems for geographical research. He
submitted this map to the Senate on the 6th of October, 1732, that
is, two years and a half after Bering's proposition to undertake the
Great Northern Expedition, but this did not deter him, in 1750, from
ascribing to himself, on the basis of this same map and an accompanying
memoir, Bering's proposition, nor from publishing an entirely perverted
account of Bering's second expedition. He clung to all of his brother's
conjectures about Gamaland, Kompagniland, and Staatenland as well as
Jeço, although they were based on very unreliable accounts and the
cartographical distortions of several generations. On the other hand,
he most arbitrarily rejected all Russian accounts of far more recent
and reliable origin, so that only Bering's and part of Yevrinoff's
and Lushin's outlines of the first Kuriles were allowed to appear
on the official map. He would rather reject all Russian works that
could be made doubtful, than his brother's authority, and even in
1753, over twenty years after Spangberg's and Bering's voyages, he
persistently sought to maintain his brother Guillaume's and his own
unreasonable ideas concerning the cartography of this region. It was
in part this dogged persistence in clinging to family prejudices that
robbed Spangberg of his well-earned reward and brought Bering's last
expedition to a sad end.
When the second Kamchatkan expedition left St. Petersburg, a copy of De
l'Isle's map was given to Bering as well as to La Croyère. De l'Isle
wrote the latter's instructions--ably written, by the way--and it was
a result of his efforts that the Senate ordered Bering and Chirikoff
to consult with La Croyère concerning the route to America,--a very
reasonable decree in case he had been a good geographer. As it was, the
order simply meant that they were to go according to the regulations
of De l'Isle in St. Petersburg. In the ship's council on the 4th of
May, 1741, La Croyère immediately produced the above-mentioned map,
and directed the expedition first to find Gamaland, which, it was
claimed, could lie but a few days' sailing toward the southeast, and
would furnish good assistance in finding America. But La Croyère was
only a spokesman for his brother, who in his memoir had constructed
his principal reasoning on this basis. He says here that America can
be reached from the Chukchee peninsula as well as from the mouth of
the Kamchatka River, but with greatest ease and certainty from Avacha
Bay in a southeasterly direction to the northern coast of Gamaland.
In order to support this supposition he adds: "It grieves me not to
have found other information about this land seen by Don Juan de Gama
than what is given on the map of my late brother, his most Christian
Majesty's first geographer. But as he indicated the position of this
country with reference to Kompagniland and Jeço, and as I am certain,
from other sources, of the position of these two countries, I am
consequently convinced of their correct situation and distance from
Kamchatka."
That these miserable arguments exercised any influence upon the ship's
council on the 4th of May, would seem impossible, if we did not bear
in mind the conduct of the authorities in St. Petersburg. Two years
previous Spangberg had sailed right across Kompagniland, Staatenland
and Jeço, and thus made every point in De l'Isle's argument untenable.
Bering and Chirikoff were familiar with the results of these voyages,
and shared Spangberg's opinion. For this reason they could not possibly
ascribe any great importance to De l'Isle's directions which were
based on antiquated assumptions, but on the other hand, they had
neither moral nor practical independence enough to take their own
course. The government laws, and especially the Senate decrees, bound
their hands. They were to submit all important measures to the action
of a commission, and were far from being sovereign commanders in any
modern sense. Under these circumstances they found it advisable, and
possibly necessary, to act in accordance with the opinion of these
learned scholars, so as to be able later to defend themselves in every
particular against the criticisms of the Academy. Hence the commission
resolved that the expedition should first find the northern coast of
Gamaland, follow this coast in an easterly direction to America, and
turn back in time to be at home in Avacha Bay by the end of September.
In this way their ships were carried far into the Pacific and away from
the Aleutian chain of islands, which, like the thread of Ariadne, would
speedily have led them to the western continent.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] Note 55.