out bows and arrows. They regaled the Russians with "whale's flesh," but declined strong drink. One of them, on receiving a cup of brandy, "spit the brandy out again as soon as he had tasted it, and cried aloud, as if he was complaining to his countrymen how ill he had been used." This was on one of the Shumagin Islands, near the southern coast of the peninsula of Alaska.

Meanwhile the other solitary ship, proceeding on its. way, had sighted the same coast 15th July, 1741, in the latitude of 56°. Anchoring at some distance from the steep and rocky cliffs before him, Tschirikoff sent his mate with the long-boat and ten of his best men, provided with small-arms and a brass cannon, to inquire into the nature of the country and to obtain fresh water. The long-boat disappeared behind a headland, and was never seen again. Thinking it might have been damaged in landing, the captain sent his boatswain with the small boat and carpenters, well armed, to furnish necessary assistance. The small boat disappeared also, and was never seen again. At the same time a great smoke was observed continually ascending from the shore. Shortly afterwards, two boats filled with natives sallied forth and lay at some distance from the vessel, when, crying, "Agai, Agai," they put back to the shore. Sorrowfully the Russian navigator turned away, not knowing the fate of his comrades, and unable to help them. This was not far from Sitka.

Such was the first discovery of these northwestern coasts, and such are the first recorded glimpses of the aboriginal inhabitants. The two navigators had different fortunes. Tschirikoff, deprived of his boats, and therefore unable to land, hurried home. Adverse winds.

and storms interfered. He supplied himself with fresh water by distilling sea-water or pressing rain-water from the sails. But at last, on the 9th of October, he reached Kamtchatka, with his ship's company of seventy diminished to forty-nine. During this time Behring was driven, like Ulysses, on the uncertain waves. A single tempest raged for seventeen days, so that Andrew Hasselberg, the ancient pilot, who had known the sea for fifty years, declared that he had seen nothing like it in his life. Scurvy came with disheartening horrors. The Commodore himself was a sufferer. Rigging broke; cables snapped; anchors were lost. At last the tempesttossed vessel was cast upon a desert island, then without a name, where the Commodore, sheltered in a ditch, and half covered with sand as a protection against cold, died, 8th December, 1741. His body, after his decease, was "scraped out of the ground" and buried on this. island, which is called by his name, and constitutes an outpost of the Asiatic continent. Thus the Russian navigator, after the discovery of America, died in Asia. Russia, by the recent demarcation, does not fail to retain his last resting-place among her possessions.

TITLE OF RUSSIA.

FOR some time after these expeditions, by which Russia achieved the palm of discovery, imperial enterprise in those seas slumbered. The knowledge already acquired was continued and confirmed only by private individuals, who were led there in quest of furs. In 1745 the Aleutian Islands were discovered by an adventurer in search of sea-otters. In successive voyages all these islands were visited for similar

purposes. Among these was Oonalaska, the principal of the group of Fox Islands, constituting a continuation of the Aleutian Islands, whose inhabitants and productions were minutely described. In 1768 private enterprise was superseded by an expedition ordered by the Empress Catharine, which, leaving Kamtchatka, explored this whole archipelago and the peninsula of Alaska, which to the islanders stood for the whole continent. Shortly afterwards, all these discoveries, beginning with those of Behring and Tschirikoff, were verified by the great English navigator, Captain Cook. In 1778 he sailed along the northwestern coast, "near where Tschirikoff anchored in 1741"; then again in sight of mountains "wholly covered with snow from the highest summit down to the sea-coast," with "the summit of an elevated mountain above the horizon," which he supposed to be the Mount St. Elias of Behring; then by the very anchorage of Behring; then among the islands through which Behring zigzagged, and along the coast by the island of St. Lawrence, until arrested by ice. If any doubt existed with regard to Russian discoveries, it was removed by the authentic report of this navigator, who shed such a flood of light upon the geography of the whole region.

Such from the beginning is the title of Russia, dating at least from 1741. I have not stopped to quote volume and page, but I beg to be understood as following approved authorities, and I refer especially to the Russian work of Müller, already cited, on the "Voyages from Asia to America," the volume of Coxe on "Russian Discoveries," with its supplement on the "Comparative View of the Russian Discoveries," the volume of Sir John Barrow on "Voyages into the Arctic Regions,"

Burney's "Northeastern Voyages," and the third voyage of Captain Cook, unhappily interrupted by his tragical death from the natives of the Sandwich Islands, but not until after the exploration of this coast.

There were at least four other Russian expeditions, by which this title was confirmed, if it needed any confirmation. The first was ordered by the Empress Catharine, in 1785. It was under the command of Commodore Billings, an Englishman in the service of Russia, and was narrated from the original papers by Martin Sauer, secretary of the expedition. In the instructions from the Admiralty at St. Petersburg the Commodore was directed to take possession of "such coasts and islands as he shall first discover, whether inhabited or not, that cannot be disputed, and are not yet subject to any European power, with consent of the inhabitants, if any"; and this was to be accomplished by setting up "posts marked with the arms of Russia, with letters indicating the time of discovery, a short account of the people, their voluntary submission to the Russian sovereignty, and that this was done. under the glorious reign of the great Catharine the Second."1 The next was in 1803-6, in the interest of the Russian American Company, with two ships, one under the command of Captain Krusenstern, and the other of Captain Lisiansky, of the Russian navy. It was the first Russian voyage round the world, and lasted three years. During its progress, Lisiansky visited the northwest coast of America, and especially Sitka and the island of Kadiak. Still another enterprise, organized by the celebrated minister Count Romanzoff, and at

42.

1 Articles XV., XVI.: Billings's Expedition, Appendix, No. V., pp. 41,

his expense, left Russia in 1815, under the command of Lieutenant Kotzebue, an officer of the Russian navy, and son of the German dramatist, whose assassination darkened the return of the son from his long voyage. It is enough for the present to say of this expedition that it has left its honorable traces on the coast even as far as the Frozen Ocean. There remains the enterprise of Lütke, at the time captain, and afterward admiral in the Russian navy, which was a voyage of circumnavigation, embracing especially the Russian possessions, commenced in 1826, and described in French with instructive fulness. With him sailed the German naturalist Kittlitz, who has done so much to illustrate the natural history of this region.

A FRENCH ASPIRATION ON THIS COAST.

So little was the Russian title recognized for some time, that, when the unfortunate expedition of La Pérouse, with the frigates Boussole and Astrolabe, stopped on this coast in 1786, he did not hesitate to consider the friendly harbor, in latitude 58° 36', where he was moored, as open to permanent occupation. Describing this harbor, which he named Port des Français, as sheltered behind a breakwater of rocks, with a calm sea and a mouth sufficiently large, he announces that Nature seemed to have created at the extremity of America a port like that of Toulon, but vaster in plan and accommodations; and then, considering that it had never been discovered before, that it was situated. thirty-three leagues northwest of Los Remedios, the limit of Spanish navigation, about two hundred and twenty-four leagues from Nootka, and a hundred leagues