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Suddenly Steller noticed that the ebb-tide was causing huge combing rollers that might dash the ship against the rocks. Rushing below decks he besought Bering's permission to sound and anchor. The early darkness of those northern latitudes had been followed by moon-light bright as day.
All the month of May, council after council had been held at Avacha Bay to determine which way Bering's two ships should sail. By the vote of this council, Bering, the commander, was compelled to abide; and the mythical Gamaland proved his evil star.
In an impressive silence, on Sunday the 21st of February 1779, the coffin containing the great commander's bones was committed to the deep. The sensational nature of Cook's death, within half a century of Bering's equally tragic fate, while exploring the same unknown seas, spread round the world the fame of the exploits of both.
In foreign relations the department has been chiefly occupied of late in the attempted settlement of the right of the English and Canadians to capture seals in Bering's Sea and Straits, and of the rights of American and English fishermen in the fishing grounds off the coast of New Foundland; in the conclusion of a new extradition treaty with England, and of various treaties concerning trade with other nations.
This did not look like Kamchatka. These birds were not birds of the Asiatic home port. These cliffs were not like the snow-rimmed mountains of Avacha Bay. Waxel called a council. Officers and men dragged themselves to Bering's cabin. Waxel had already canvassed all hands to vote for a landing to winter on these shores. This, the dying Bering opposed with all his might.
From the time Bering's crew and Chirikoff's men had first fired rifles in the presence of these poor savages of the North, the Indians had realized that 'the stick that thundered' was a weapon they must possess, or see their tribe exterminated.
Promptly he was sent out on a second voyage to find or demolish that mythical continent of the southern hemisphere; and he demolished the myth of a southern continent altogether, returning from circumnavigating the globe just at the time when the furor of a Northwest Passage northward of Hudson Bay, northward even of Bering's course on the Pacific, was at its height.
Supplies for Kamchatka and Russian America were brought overland from Yakutsk and shipped to Petropavlovsk, Sitka, and other points under Russian control. Many ships for the Pacific Ocean and Ohotsk sea were built there. I was shown the spot where Bering's vessel was constructed, with its cordage and extra sails of deerskin, and its caulking of moss.
New routes were spoken of across Bering's Strait, and overland by way of Siberia and measures began to be taken to carry this scheme into effect. Amid these discouragements, Field and his associates revived their company, made a new cable, and provided everything that science could then suggest to aid final success.
It was the quest for a passage to the Atlantic that brought Captain James Cook to the Pacific. Before joining the Royal Navy, Cook had been engaged as a captain in the Baltic trade; and from Russian merchantmen he had learned all about Bering's voyage in the North Pacific, which was being quoted by the geographers in proof of an open passage north of Alaska.
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