Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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It was from the Kamchatka River, which enters Bering Sea near the cape of the same name, that Vitus Bering sailed on his first voyage. That navigator was a persevering and plucky Dane, who had been drawn into the service of Russia through the fame of Peter the Great, and his first expedition was directly planned by that sagacious monarch, although he did not live to carry it out. Müller, the historian of Bering’s career, says: “The Empress Catherine, as she endeavoured in all points to execute most precisely the plans of her deceased husband, in a manner began her reign with an order for the expedition to Kamchatka.” Bering had associated with him two active subordinates, Spanberg and Tschirikoff. They left St. Petersburg on February 5th, 1725, proceeding to the Ochotsk Sea, viâ Siberia. It is a tolerable proof of the difficulties of travel in those days, that it took them two years to transport their outfit thither. They crossed to Kamchatka, where, on the 4th of April, 1728, Müller tells us, “a boat was put upon the stocks, like the packet-boats used in the Baltic, and on the 10th of July was launched, and named the boat Gabriel.” A few days later, and she was creeping along the coast of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia. Bering on this first voyage discovered St. Lawrence Island, and reached as far north as 67° 18′, where, finding the land trend to the westward, he came to the conclusion that he had reached the eastern extremity of Asia, and that Asia and America were distinct continents. On the first point he was not, as a matter of detail, quite correct; but the second, the important object of his mission, settled for ever the vexed question.