jected, and could not be induced to take exercise. He died on the
19th/8th December.

VITUS BEHRING was a Dane by birth, and when a young man had already
made voyages to the East and West Indies. In 1707 he was received
into the Russian navy as officer, and as such took part in all the
warlike enterprises of that fleet against Sweden. He was in a way
buried alive on the island that now bears his name, for at last he
did not permit his men to remove the sand that lolled down upon him
from the walls of the sand pit in which he rested. For he thought
that the sand warmed his chilled body. Before the corpse could be
properly buried it had therefore to be dug out of its bed, a
circumstance which appears to have produced a disagreeable
impression on the survivors. The two Lieutenants, Waxel and Chitrov,
had kept themselves in pretty good health at sea, but now fell
seriously ill, though they recovered. Only the physician of the
expedition, Georg Wilhelm Steller, was all the time in good health,
and that a single man of the whole crew escaped with his life was
clearly clue to the skill of this gifted man, to his invincible
energy and his cheerful and sanguine disposition. These qualities
were also abundantly tested during the wintering. On the night
before the 10th December/29th November, the vessel, on which no
watch was kept, because all the men were required on land to care
for the sick, was cast ashore by a violent E.S.E. storm. So great a
quantity of provisions was thus lost, that the remaining stock was
not sufficient by itself to yield enough food for all the men during
a whole winter. Men were therefore sent out in all directions to
inquire into the state of the land. They returned with the
information that the vessel had stranded, not, as was hoped at
first, on the mainland but on an uninhabited, woodless island. It
was thus clear to the shipwrecked men that in order to be saved they
could rely only on their judgment and strength. At the beginning
they found that if any provisions were to be reserved for the voyage
home, it was necessary that they should support themselves during
winter to a considerable extent by hunting. They did not like to use
the flesh of the fox for food, and at first kept to that of the
sea-otter. This animal at present is very scarce on Behring Island,
but at that time the shore was covered with whole herds of it. They
had no fear of man, came from curiosity straight to the fires, and
did no