The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1923-12-05
CAPTAINS OF
VENTU
By ROGER POCOCK
Copynghs By BsBbskerrn Company
By ROGER POCOCK

I'll only a few were left.
The world had not been laid out
correctly, but Boring held with fer
vor to his faith In hat official chart
for which his men were dying. At last
Tschirikoff. unable TO bear il any long
er, deserted Boring, and sailing east
ward many days, came at last to land
at the mouth Of Cross straits in south
ern Alaska.
Beyond a rocky f~oreshore and white
surf. forests Of pine went up to noun
talns lost In trailing clouds. Behind
a little point rose q film Of smoke from
some savage camp fire. Tsehirikoff
landed a boats crew in search Of pro
visions and water. which vanished be-
hind the point and was seen ne more.
Heart-sick, he sent a second boat,
which vanished behind the point and
was seer no more, but the fire of the
sayages blazed high. TIVE days he
waited, watching that pillar Of smoke,
and listened to a far-off muttering Of
drums, then with the despairing rem
nant of his crew, turned back 10 the
lesser perils of the sea, and fed to
Siberia. Farther to the northward,
some three hundred miles, was Bering
In the Stv Petr. driving his nutinous
people in a last search for land. 1t
wal the day after Tschiriksfrs discoy-
cry. and the ship, flying winged out
before the southwest wind. anne to
green shadows Of the sea. and fogs
that lay in violet gloom ahead, like
some mysterious coast crowned with
white cloud heights towering up the
sky. At sunset. when these clouds had
changed to fame color, they parted,
suddenly revealing high above the
mastheads the most tremendous noun
tain In the world. The sailors were
terrified, and Boring. called suddenly
TO the tall after-castle Of the ship, went
down on his knees in awestruck won
der. By the Russian calendar, the
day was that of the dread Elijah, who
had been taken up from the earth
drawn by winged horses OF flame In
a chariot of fire. and to these lost
mariners 1t seemed that this was no
mere mountain of ice walls glowing
rose and azure through a rift of the
purple clouds, but a vision of the trans
lation of the prophet. Boring named
the mountain Saint Elias.
There is no space here for the de-
tail of Behring'S ~wanderings thereafter
through those ~bewildering labyrinths
Of islands which skirt the range Of
Saint Elias westward. and reach out
as the Aleutian archipelago nearly the
whole way cross the Pacific ocean.
The region is an awful sub-arctic viii
derness of rOck-set gaps between bleak
arctic islands crowned by flaming vol
canoes. lost in eternal fog. 1t has been
my fate 70 see the wonders and the
terrors of that coast which Behring'S
seamen mistook for the vestibuie Of
the internal regions. Scurvy and hun
ger made them more like ghosts OF
the condemned than living men. until
their nightmare voyage ended IN wreck
on the last of the islands, wfttfn tN8
hundred miles of the Siberian ccas5.
Stellar, the German naturalist. who
survived the winter, has left record
Of Boring laid between two rocks for
shelter, where the sand drift covered
his legs and kept him warm through
the last days, then made him n grave
afterward. The island was frequented
by sea-cows, creatures until her IN
known, and since wholly extinct, Stel-
lars being the only account of them.
There were thousands Of sea otter.
another species that win soon become
extinct, and the shipwrecked men had
plenty Of wild meat to feed on while
they passed the winter building from
the timbers OF the wreck a boat to
carry them home. In the spring they
sailed with a load Of sea-otter skins
and gained the Chinese coast. where
their cargo fetched a fortune for all
hands, the furs being valued for the
official robes of mandarins.
At the news OF this new trade in
cea-otter skins the hunters Of Siberia
went wild with excitement SO that the
survivors Of Behring'S crew led expedi-
tons of their own 10 Alaska. BY them
a colony was founded and though the
Straits of Anian were never discoy-
cred because they did not exist, the
czars added TO their dominions a new
empire called Russian America. This
Alaska was sold in 1867 TO the United
States for seven million. five hundred
thousand dollars, and the territory
Yields more than that by far in annual
profits from fisheries, timber and gold.