these
shores. This, the dying Bering opposed with all his might. "We roust
be almost home," he said. "We still have six casks of water, and the
_foremast_. Having risked so {36} much, let us risk three days more,
let us risk everything to reach Avacha Bay." Poor Bering! Had his
advice been followed, the saddest disaster of northern seas might have
been averted; for they were less than ten days' run from the home
harbor; but inspired by fool hopes born of fear, like the old marsh
lights that used to lure men to the quicksands--Waxel and Khitroff
actually persuaded themselves this _was_ Kamchatka, and when one
lieutenant, Ofzyn, who knew the north well from charting the Arctic
coast, would have spoken in favor of Bering's view, he was actually
clubbed and thrown from the cabin. The crew voted as a man to land and
winter on this coast. Little did they know that vote was their own
death warrant.

[1] See _Life of Peter the Great_, by Orlando Williams, 1859; _Peter
the Great_, by John Lothrop Motley, 1877; _History of Peter I_, by John
Mottley, 1740; _Journal of Peter the Great_, 1698; Voltaire's _Pierre
le Grand_; Segur's _Histoire de Russie et de Pierre le Grand_.

[2] Who this man _Gama_, supposed to have seen the unknown continent of
Gamaland, was, no one knew. The Portuguese followed the myth blindly;
and the other geographers followed the Portuguese. Texeira, court
geographer in Portugal, in 1649 issued a map with a vague coast marked
at latitude 45 degrees north, with the words "Land seen by John de
Gama, Indian, going from China to New Spain."

[3] These instructions were handed to Peter's admiral--Count Apraxin.

[4] Born 1681, son of Jonas and Anna Bering, whom a petition describes,
in 1719, as "old, miserable, decrepit people, no way able to help
ourselves."

[5] He fought in Black Sea wars of 1711; and from lieutenant-captain
became captain of the second rank by 1717, when Russians, jealous of
the foreigner, blocked his promotion. He demanded promotion or
discharge, and withdrew to Finland, where the Czar's Kamchatkan
expedition called him from retirement.

[6] The expedition left St. Petersburg February 5th.

[7] The midshipman of this voyage was Peter Chaplin, whose journal was
deposited in the Naval College of the Admiralty, St. Petersburg. Berg
gives a summary of this journal. A translation by Dall is to be found
in _Appendix 19, Coast Survey, Washington, 1890_.

[8] A great disput