All that day it had been dull and leaden; and just as
Bering was being carried, it began to snow heavily. Steller occupied the
sand pit next to the commander; and in {44} addition to acting as cook
and physician to the entire crew, became Bering's devoted attendant.
By the 13th of November, a long sand pit had been roofed over as a sort
of hospital with rug floor; and here Steller had the stricken sailors
carried in from the shore. Poor Waxel, who had fought so bravely, was
himself carried ashore on November 21.
Daily, officers tramped inland exploring; and daily, the different
reconnoitring parties returned with word that not a trace of human
habitation, of wood, or the way to Kamchatka had been discovered.
Another island there was to the east--now known as Copper Island--and two
little islets of rock; but beyond these, nothing could be descried from
the highest mountains but sea--sea. Bering Island, itself, is some fifty
miles long by ten wide, very high at the south, very swampy at the north;
but the Commander Group is as completely cut off from both Asia and
America as if it were in another world.
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