-two were dead. At Kamchatka they had all been
considered dead, and the effects they left behind them had been
scattered and divided. Steller voluntarily remained some time longer
in Kamchatka in order to carry on his researches in natural history.
Unfortunately he drew upon himself the ill-will of the authorities,
in consequence of the free way in which he criticised their abuses.
This led to a trial at the court at Irkutsk. He was, indeed, found
innocent, and obtained permission to travel home, but at Zolikamsk
he was overtaken by an express with orders to bring him back to
Irkutsk. On the way thither he met another express with renewed
permission to travel to Europe. But the powers of the strong and
formerly healthy man were exhausted by his hunting backwards and
forwards across the immeasurable deserts of Siberia. He died soon
after, on the 23rd/12th November, 1746, at Tjumen, only thirty-seven
years of age, of a fever by which he was attacked during the
journey.[361]

The immense quantity of valuable furs brought home by the survivors
of Behring's so unfortunate third voyage affected the fur-dealers,
Cossacks, and hunters of Siberia much in the same way as the rumour
about Eldorado or about the riches of the Casic Dobaybe did the
Spanish discoverers of middle and southern America. Numerous
expeditions were fitted out to the new land rich in furs, where
extensive territories previously unknown were made tributary to the
Czar of Russia. Most of these expeditions landed on Behring Island
during the voyage out and home, and in a short time wrought a
complete change in the fauna of the island. Thanks to Steller's
spirited sketch of the animal life he observed there, we have also
an opportunity of forming an idea of the alteration in the fauna
which man brings about in a land in which he settles.

Arctic foxes were found in incredible numbers on the island during
the wintering of the Behring expedition. They not only ate up
everything that was at all eatable that was left in the open air,
but forced their way as well by day as by night into the houses and
carried off all that they could, even such things as were of no use
whatever to them, as knives, sticks, sacks, shoes and stockings.
Even if anything had been never so well buried and loaded with
stones, they not only found the place but even pushed away the
stones with their shoulders like men. Though they could not eat what
they found, they carried it off and conce