While groping in fog and tempest on the high seas, Bering drifted one Sunday (July 18th) upon or about the Alaskan mainland coast; he disembarked at the foot of some low, desolate bluffs that face the sea near the spot now known to us as Kayak Island, and in plain view of those towering peaks of the St. Elias Alps. He passed full six weeks in this neighborhood, while the crew were busy getting fresh food-supplies, water, etc., when, on the 3d of September, a storm of unwonted vigor burst upon them, lasted seven days, and drove them out to sea and before it, down as far as 48° 8´ north latitude, and into the lonely wastes of the vast Pacific. Scurvy began to appear on board the _St. Peter_; hardly a day passed without recording the death of some one of the ship’s company, and soon men enough in health or strength sufficient to work the vessel could not be mustered. A return to Kamchatka was resolved upon. Bering became surly and morose, and seldom appeared on deck, and so the second in command, “Stoorman” Vachtel, directed the dreary cruise. After regaining the land, and burying a sailor named Shoomagin on one of a group of Alaskan islets that bear his name to-day, and making several additional capes and landfalls, they saw two islands which, by a most unfortunate blunder, they took to be of the Kurile chain, and adjacent to Kamchatka. Thus they erred sadly in their reckoning, and sailed out upon a false point of departure. In vain they craned their necks for the land, and strained their feeble eyes; the shore of Kamchatka refused to rise, and it finally dawned upon them that they were lost—that there was no hope of making a port in that goal so late in the year. The wonderful discipline of the Russian sailors was strikingly exhibited at this stage of the luckless voyage: in spite of their debilitated and emaciated condition, they still obeyed orders, though suffering frightfully in the cold and wet; the ravages of scurvy had made such progress that the steersman was conducted to the helm by two other invalids who happened to have the use of their legs, and who supported him under the arms! When he could no longer steer from suffering, then he was succeeded by another no better able to execute the labor than himself. Thus did the unhappy crew waste away into death and impotency. They were obliged to carry few sails, for they were helpless to reef or hoist them, and such as they had were nearly worn out; and even in this case they were unable to renew them by replacing from the stores, since there were no seamen strong enough on the ship to bend new ones to the yards and booms.