It was noticed that after the ship turned south, the commander looked
ill and depressed. He became intolerant of opposition or approach.
Possibly to avoid irritation, he kept to his cabin; but he issued
peremptory orders for the _St. Peter_ to head back north.
In a few days, Bering was confined to bed with that overwhelming
physical depression and fear, that precede the scourge most dreaded by
seamen--scurvy. Lieutenant Waxel now took command. Waxel had all a
sailor's contempt for the bookful blockheads, who wrench fact to fit
theory; and deadly enmity arose {25} between him and Steller, the
scientist. By the middle of July, the fetid drinking water was so
reduced that the crew was put on half allowance; but on the sleepy,
fog-blanketed swell of the Pacific slipping past Bering's wearied eyes,
there were so many signs of land--birds, driftwood, seaweed--that the
commander ordered the ship hove to each night for fear of grounding.
On the thirteenth of July, the council of underlings had so far
relinquished all idea of a Gamaland, that it was decided to steer
continuously north.
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