red miles without going more than sixty
miles from ocean front. By October of 1793 Vancouver had demolished
the myth of {287} a possible passage between New Spain and Russian
America; for he had examined every inlet from San Francisco to what is
now Sitka. While the results were negative to himself, far different
were they to Russia. It was Vancouver's voyage northward that stirred
the Russians up to move southward. In a word, if Vancouver had not
gone up as far as Norfolk Sound or Sitka, the Russian fur traders would
have drowsed on with Kadiak as headquarters, and Canada to-day might
have included the entire gold-fields of Alaska.

Again Vancouver wintered in the Sandwich Islands. In the year 1794 he
changed the direction of his exploring. Instead of beginning at New
Spain and working north, he began at Russian America and worked south.
Kadiak and Cook's Inlet were regarded as the eastern bounds of Russian
settlement at this time, though the hunting brigades of the Russians
scoured far and wide; so Vancouver began his survey eastward at Cook's
Inlet. Terrific floods of ice banged the ships' bows as they plied up
Cook's Inlet; and the pistol-shot reports of the vast icebergs breaking
from the walls of the solid glacier coast forewarned danger; but
Vancouver was not to be deterred. Again the dogged ill-luck of always
coming in second for the prize he coveted marked each stage of his
trip. Russian forts were seen on Cook's Inlet, Russian settlements on
Prince William Sound, Russian flotillas of nine hundred {288} Aleutian
hunters steering by instinct like the gulls spreading over the sea as
far east as Bering Bay, or where the coast of Alaska dips southward.
Everywhere he heard the language of Russia, everywhere saw that Russia
regarded his explorations with jealousy as intrusion; everywhere
observed that Russian and savage had come to an understanding and now
lived as friends, if not brothers. Twice Baranof, the little Czar of
the North, sent word for Vancouver to await a conference; but Vancouver
was not keen to meet the little Russian potentate. One row at a time
was enough; and the quarrel with Spain was still unsettled. The waters
of to-day plied by the craft of gold seekers, Bering Bay, Lynn Canal,
named after his birthplace, were now so thoroughly surveyed by
Vancouver that his charts may still be used.

[Illustration: Reindeer Herd in Siberia.]

Only once did the maze of waterways seem to promise