But there remains to be told the story of Russia’s search for routes to India and China. That story begins with Martha Rabe, the Swedish nursery governess, who married a dragoon, left him to be mistress of a Russian general, became servant to the Princess Menchikoff, next the lover, then the wife of Peter the Great, and finally succeeded him as empress of all the Russias. To the dazzling court of this Empress Catherine came learned men and travelers who talked about the search of all the nations for a route through North America to the Indies. Long ago, they said, an old Greek mariner, one Juan de Fuca, had bragged on the quays of Venice, of his voyages. He claimed to have rounded Cape Horn, and thence beat up the west coast of America, until he came far north to a strait which entered the land. Through this sea channel he had sailed for many weeks, until it brought him out again into the ocean. One glance at the map will show these straits of Juan de Fuca, and how the old Greek, sailing for many weeks, came out again into the ocean, having rounded the back of Vancouver’s Island. But the legend as told to Catherine the Great of Russia, made these mysterious straits of Anian lead from the Pacific right across North America to the Atlantic Ocean. Here was a sea route from Russia across the Atlantic, across North America, across the Pacific, direct to the gorgeous Indies. With such a possession as this channel Russia could dominate the world. Catherine set her soothsayers and wiseacres to make a chart, displaying these straits of Anian which Juan de Fuca had found, and they marked the place accordingly at forty-eight degrees of north latitude on the west coast of America. But there were also rumors and legends in those days of a great land beyond the uttermost coasts of Siberia, an island that was called Aliaska, filling the North Pacific. All such legends and rumors the astrologers marked faithfully upon their map until the thing was of no more use than a dose of smallpox. Then Catherine gave the precious chart to two of her naval officers, Vitus Bering, the Dane--a mighty man in the late wars with Sweden and a Russian lieutenant--Tschirikoff--and bade them go find the straits of Anian. The expedition set out overland across the Russian and Siberian plains, attended by hunters who kept the people alive on fish and game until they reached the coasts of the North Pacific. There they built two ships, the _Stv Petr_ and the _Stv Pavl_, and launched them, two years from the time of their outsetting from Saint Petersburg. Thirteen years they spent in exploring the Siberian coast, northward to the Arctic, southward to the borders of China, then in 1741 set out into the unknown to search for the Island of Aliaska, and the Straits of Anian so plainly marked upon their chart. Long months they cruised about in quest of that island, finding nothing, while the crews sickened of scurvy, and man after man died in misery, until only a few were left.