Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/34

 animous homesickness. For 10 years Bering had equipped himself for this great enterprise; the explorations lasted 10 hours." "We have gone over to the New World," he said, "simply to bring American water to Asia."

But however this may be, Bering had none too much time for his return to Kamachatka. Half his crew were sick already, and the rest were none too strong. Those who would stay here longer, Bering said, forget "how far we are from home and what may yet befall us." So the St. Peter sailed homeward on the wings of a southeast gale. In the mist and fog the coast was invisible, though the soundings showed that land was not far away. Islands they sighted from time to time, black, inhospitable headlands, where the great surf broke before the constant gales. They sailed around the great island of Kadeah, narrowly escaping shipwreck on an island they called the Foggy one; but every island is foggy in those wild, storm-washed seas.

Once more they saw the tall, snow-capped volcanoes of the mainland, as they passed close below the seven high rocks we call the Semidi; and whenever the sun shone for a day the sea grew rougher than ever, for a break in the clouds of the north is the signal for a new storm. Salted meats and hard biscuit without change of diet brought on the disease called scurvy. This comes when men eat too much salt without fruit or vegetables, and it shows itself in loosened teeth which fall out of the shrunken gums. Affairs grew worse and worse, Bering and more than half his men were sick, and when they came to the 13 ragged, barren islands that rise above the surf in the thick mist, they landed there and carried the sick ones ashore. One of the sailors, named Shumagin, died here, and so the islands are called Shumagin to this day.

While the men searched for fresh water Steller looked everywhere for roots and berries with which to heal the men sick with scurvy. Some of the most delicious berries in the world grow on these islands; and Bering was wonderfully helped by them. The medicine chest, it was said, contained "plasters and salves for half an army," but no remedies for men who were hurt inwardly by the poor food.

At the Shumagins the sailors filled their water-casks, but they took water from a pond into which the surf had broken, and when they came to drink it the scurvy grew worse than ever. One of their boats was wrecked as they went on, and they had trouble with the Esquimaux on the shores. Still they sailed on, with the east wind behind and the thick cloud rack overhead.

Then the wind blew from the west and rose from time to time into hurricanes. "I know of no harder, more fatiguing life," wrote one of Bering's officers, "than to sail an unknown sea." And of all the seas in the world, none is rougher than the one the St. Peter sailed, and none has such a wilderness of inhospitable islands along its shores. When Bering's men thought they were half-way home they saw land to the north of them, still another wild, inhospitable cliff, topped by a snowy volcano. They called the island St. Johannes, but its real name is Atka, and there are many more such before one comes to the end, where the far west joins "the unmitigated east." Still they sailed against the west wind, which Steller said "seemed to issue from a flue, with such a whistling, roaring and rumbling that we expected every moment to lose mast and rudder, or to see the ship crushed between the breakers. The dashing of the heavy sea against the vessel sounded like cannon." They could not stand erect on the ship; they could not cook. The few who were well remained so because they did not dare to get sick. All lost "their firmness of purpose; their courage became unsteady as their teeth." Still they sailed on. It was as easy to do that as to return. Still another snow-topped island, Amchitka, came in view to the north, again to their great surprise, for they thought they were in the open sea. They knew nothing of the long line of Aleutian volcanoes which pass in a great bow from Alaska across to Kamchatka. They sailed past Attu, the last of the Aleutian islands. After a time they came to a long, steep coast, running north and south, which they took for Kamchatka. Every one was overjoyed. Bering crawl-