turned
homewards. The ship was rotten, and it took three months to repair
her at Batavia before proceeding farther. With pumps going night and
day, they made their way to the Cape of Good Hope; but off the island
of Ascension the _Roebuck_ went down, carrying with her many of
Dampier's books and papers. But though many of the papers were lost,
the "Learned and Faithful Dampier" as he is called, the "Prince of
Voyagers," has left us accounts of his adventures unequalled in those
strenuous ocean-going days for their picturesque and graphic details.

[Illustration: DAMPIER'S STRAITS AND THE ISLAND OF NEW BRITAIN. From
a map in Dampier's _Voyages_, 1697.]

CHAPTER XLIV

BEHRING FINDS HIS STRAIT

In the great work of Arctic exploration during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, it is to England and Russia that we owe our
knowledge at the present day. It is well known how Peter the Great
of Russia journeyed to Amsterdam to learn shipbuilding under the Dutch,
and to England to learn the same art under the English, and how the
Russian fleet grew in his reign. Among the Danish shipbuilders at
Petersburg was one Vitus Behring, already a bold and able commander
on the high seas.

The life of the great Russian Czar was drawing to its close--he was
already within a few weeks of the end--when he planned an expedition
under this same Vitus Behring, for which he wrote the instructions
with his own hands.

"(1) At Kamtchatka two decked boats are to be built. (2) With these
you are to sail northward along the coast and, as the end of the coast
is not known, this land is undoubtedly America. (3) For this reason
you are to inquire where the American coast begins, and go to some
European colony and, when European ships are seen, you are to ask what
the coast is called, note it down, make a landing, and after having
charted the coast return."

Were Asia and America joined together, or was there a strait between
the two? The question was yet undecided in 1725. Indeed, the east coast
of Asia was only known as far as the island of Yezo, while the Pacific
coast of America had been explored no farther than New Albion.

Peter the Great died on 28th January 1725. A week later Behring started
for Kamtchatka. Right across snow-covered Russia to the boundary of
Siberia he led his expedition. March found him at Tobolsk. With rafts
and boats they then made their way by the Siberian rivers till they
reached Yakutsk, where they sp