d the Aleutian Islands, and
had connected the Russian discoveries in the east with those of the
West-Europeans in Japan and China[329]. The results were thus very
grand and epoch-making. But these undertakings had also required
very considerable sacrifices, and long before they were finished
they were looked upon in no favourable light by the Siberian
authorities, on account of the heavy burden which the transport of
provisions and other equipment through desolate regions imposed upon
the country. Nearly twenty years now elapsed before there was a new
exploratory expedition in the Siberian Polar Sea worthy of being
registered in the history of geography. This time it was a private
person, a Yakutsk merchant, SCHALAUROV, who proposed to repeat
Deschnev's famous voyage and to gain this end sacrificed the whole
of his means and his life itself. Accompanied by an exiled
midshipman, IVAN BACHOFF, and with a crew of deserters and deported
men, he sailed in 1760 from the Lena out into the Polar Sea, but
came the first year only to the Yana, where he wintered. On the 9th
August/29th July, 1761, he continued his voyage towards the east,
always keeping near the coast. On the 17th/6th September he rounded
the dreaded Svjatoinos, sighting on the other side of the sound a
high-lying land, Ljachoff's Island. At the Bear Islands, whither he
was carried by a favourable wind over an open sea, he first met with
drift-ice, although, it appears, not in any considerable quantity.
But the season was already far advanced, and he therefore considered
it most advisable to seek winter quarters at the mouth of the
neigbouring Kolyma river. Here he built a spacious winter dwelling,
which was surrounded by snow ramparts armed with cannon from the
vessel, probably the whole house was not so large as a peasant's
cabin at home, but it was at all events the grandest palace on the
north coast of Asia, often spoken of by later travellers, and
regarded by the natives with amazed admiration. In the neighbourhood
there was good reindeer hunting and abundant fishing, on which
account the winter passed so happily, that only one man died of
scurvy, an exceedingly favourable state of things for that period.

The following year Schalaurov started on the 1st August/21st July,
but calms and constant head-winds prevented him from passing Cape
Schelagskoj, until he was compelled by the late season of the year
to seek for winter quarters. For this he considered the