Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
When the _Rurik_ appeared, Kadu was in the woods a long way from the
coast. He was sent for at once, as he was looked upon as a great
traveller, and he might perhaps be able to say what the great monster
approaching the island was. Now Kadu had more than once seen European
vessels, and he persuaded his friends to go and meet the strangers, and
to receive them kindly.
Such had been Kadu's adventures. He now remained on the _Rurik_,
identified the other islands of the Archipelago, and lost no time in
facilitating intercourse between the Russians and the natives. Dressed
in a yellow mantle, and wearing a red cap like a convict, Kadu looked
down upon his old friends, and seemed not to recognize them. When a
fine old man with a flowing beard, named Tigedien, came on board, Kadu
undertook to explain to him and his companions the working of the
vessel and the use of everything about the ship. Like many Europeans,
he made up for his ignorance by imperturbable assurance, and had an
answer ready for every question.
Interrogated on the subject of a little box from which a sailor took a
black powder and applied it to his nostrils, Kadu glibly told some most
extraordinary stories, and wound up with a practical illustration by
putting the box against his own nose. He then flung it from him,
sneezing violently and screaming so loud that his terrified friends
fled away on every side; but when the crisis was over he managed to
turn the incident to his own advantage.
Kadu gave Kotzebue some general information about the group of islands
then under examination, and the Russians spent a month in taking
surveys, &c. All these islands, which the natives call Radack, were
under the control of one tamon, a man named Lamary. A few years later
Dumont d'Urville gave the name of Marshall to the group. According to
Kadu, another chain of islets, attolls, and reefs was situated some
little distance off on the west.
Kotzebue had not time to identify them, and steering in a northerly
direction he reached Ounalashka on the 24th April, where he had to
repair the serious damage sustained by the _Rurik_ in two violent
storms. This done, he took on board some baidares (boats cased in skins
to make them water-tight), with fifteen natives of the Aleutian
Islands, who were used to the navigation of the Polar seas, and resumed
his exploration of Behring Strait.
Kotzebue had suffered very much from pain in his chest ever since when,
doubling Cape Horn, he had been knocked down by a huge wave and flung
overboard, an accident which would have cost him his life had he not
clung to some rope. The consequences were so serious to his health that
when, on the 10th July, he landed on the island of St. Lawrence, he was
obliged to give up the further prosecution of his researches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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