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At Okhotsk on the Pacific, Major-General Pissarjeff was harbor master.
This old reprobate, once a favorite of Peter the Great, had been
knouted, branded and exiled for conspiracy, forbidden even to conceal
his brand; and now, he let loose all his seventy years of bitterness on
Bering. He not only had _not_ made preparation to house the explorers;
but he refused to permit them inside the stockades of the miserable
huts at Okhotsk, which he called his fort. When they built a fort of
their own outside, he set himself to tantalize the two Danes, Bering
and Spanberg, knouting their men, sending coureurs with false
accusations against Bering to St. Petersburg, actually countermanding
their orders for supplies from the Cossacks. Spanberg would have
finished the matter neatly with a sharp sword; but Bering forbore, and
Pissarjeff {17} was ultimately replaced by a better harbor master. The
men set to work cutting the timber for the ships that were to cross
from Okhotsk to the east shore of Kamchatka; for Bering's ships of the
first voyage could now be used only as packet boats.


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