Vikings of the Pacific | Page 4

. . . 171
Captain James Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The Ice Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
The Death of Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Departure of the Columbia and the Lady Washington . . . 211
Charles Bulfinch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Medals commemorating Columbia and Lady Washington Cruise 215
Building the First American Ship on the Pacific Coast . . . 223
Feather Cloak worn by a son of a Hawaiian Chief, at the celebration in honor of Gray's return . . . . . . . . . . 226
John Derby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Map of Gray's two voyages, resulting in the discovery of the Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
A View of the Columbia River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
At the Mouth of the Columbia River . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Ledyard in his Dugout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Captain George Vancouver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
The Columbia in a Squall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
The Discovery on the Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Indian Settlement at Nootka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Reindeer Herd in Siberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Raised Reindeer Sledges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
John Jacob Astor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Sitka from the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Alexander Baranof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

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PART I
DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC
COAST OF AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS, THE OUTLAWS, AND BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE

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Vikings of the Pacific
CHAPTER I
1700-1743
VITUS BERING, THE DANE
Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to discover whether America and Asia are united; Second, to find what lies north of New Spain--Terrible Hardships of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven Thousand Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a Barren Isle
We have become such slaves of shallow science in these days, such firm believers in the fatalism which declares man the creature of circumstance, that we have almost forgotten the supremest spectacle in life is when man becomes the Creator of Circumstance. We forget that man can rise to be master of his destiny, fighting, unmaking, re-creating, not only his own environment, but the environment of multitudinous lesser men. There is something titanic in such lives. They are the hero myths of every nation's legends. We {4} somehow feel that the man who flings off the handicaps of birth and station lifts the whole human race to a higher plane and has a bit of the God in him, though the hero may have feet of clay and body of beast. Such were the old Vikings of the North, who spent their lives in elemental warfare, and rode out to meet death in tempest, lashed to the spar of their craft. And such, too, were the New World Vikings of the Pacific, who coasted the seas of two continents in cockle-shell ships,--planks lashed with deer thongs, calked with moss,--rapacious in their deep-sea plunderings as beasts of prey, fearless as the very spirit of the storm itself. The adventures of the North Pacific Vikings read more like some old legend of the sea than sober truth; and the wild strain had its fountain-head in the most tempestuous hero and beastlike man that ever ascended the throne of the Russias.
[Illustration: Peter the Great.]
When Peter the Great