ashore on the south
side of Turn-Again to take possession. Twenty natives in sea-otter
skins stood by watching the ceremony of flag unfurled and the land of
their fathers being declared the possession of England. These natives
were plainly acquainted with the use of iron; but "I will be bold to
say," relates Cook, "they do not know the Russians, or they would not
be wearing these valuable sea-otter skins."

No Northeast Passage here! So out they ply again for open sea through
misty weather; and when it clears, they are in the green treeless
region west of Cook's Inlet. Past Kadiak, past Bering's Foggy Island,
past the Shumagins where Bering's first sailor to die of scurvy had
been buried, past volcanoes throwing up immense quantities of blood-red
smoke, past pinnacled rocks, through mists so thick the roar of the
breakers is their only guide, they glide, or drift, or move by inches
feeling the way cautiously, fearful of wreck.

Toward the end of June a great hollow green swell swings them through
the straits past Oonalaska, northward at last! Natives are seen in
green trousers {193} and European shirts; natives who take off their
hats and make a bow after the pompous fashion of the Russians.

Twice natives bring word to Cook by letter and sign that the Russians
of Oonalaska wish to see him. But Captain Cook is not anxious to see
the Russians just now. He wants to forestall their explorations
northward and take possession of the Polar realm for England. In
August they are in Bristol Bay, north of the Aleutians, directly
opposite Asia. Here Dr. Anderson, the surgeon, dies of consumption.
Not so much fog now. They can follow the mainland. Far ahead there
projects straight out in the sea a long spit of land backed by high
hills, the westernmost point of North America--Cape Prince of Wales!
Bering is vindicated! Just fifty years from Bering's exploration of
1728, the English navigator finds what Bering found: that America and
Asia are _not_ united; that no Northeast Passage exists; that no great
oceanic body lies north of New Spain; that Alaska--as the Russian maps
had it after Bering's death--is not an island.

Wind, rain, roily, shoaly seas breaking clear over the ship across
decks drove Cook out from land to deeper water. With an Englishman's
thoroughness for doing things and to make deadly sure just how the two
continents lay to each other, Cook now scuds across Bering Strait
thirty-nine miles to the Ch