were laid along the strip of sandy shore,
where the bold foxes were already devouring the dead and could scarcely
be driven off by the dying. In this way perished nine of the _St.
Peter's_ crew during the week of the landing.

By November 10, all was in readiness for Bering's removal from the ship.
As the end approached, his irritability subsided to a quieted
cheerfulness; and he could be heard mumbling over thanks to God for the
great success of his early life. Wrapped in furs, fastened to a
stretcher, the Dane was lowered over the ship, carried ashore, and laid
in a sand pit. All that day it had been dull and leaden; and just as
Bering was being carried, it began to snow heavily. Steller occupied the
sand pit next to the commander; and in {44} addition to acting as cook
and physician to the entire crew, became Bering's devoted attendant.

By the 13th of November, a long sand pit had been roofed over as a sort
of hospital with rug floor; and here Steller had the stricken sailors
carried in from the shore. Poor Waxel, who had fought so bravely, was
himself carried ashore on November 21.

Daily, officers tramped inland exploring; and daily, the different
reconnoitring parties returned with word that not a trace of human
habitation, of wood, or the way to Kamchatka had been discovered.
Another island there was to the east--now known as Copper Island--and two
little islets of rock; but beyond these, nothing could be descried from
the highest mountains but sea--sea. Bering Island, itself, is some fifty
miles long by ten wide, very high at the south, very swampy at the north;
but the Commander Group is as completely cut off from both Asia and
America as if it were in another world. The climate was not intensely
cold; but it was so damp, the very clothing rotted; and the gales were so
terrific that the men could only leave the mud huts or _yurts_ by
crawling on all fours; and for the first three weeks after the landing,
blast on blast of northern hurricane swept over the islands.

The poor old ship rode her best at anchor through the violent storms; but
on November 28 she was seen to snap her cable and go staggering drunkenly
to open sea. The terror of the castaways at this spectacle {45} was
unspeakable. Their one chance of escape in spring seemed lost; but the
beach combers began rolling landward through the howling storm; and when
next the spectators looked, the _St. Peter_ was driving ashore like a
hurricane s