And
these two great tides of adventurers--the French voyager, threading the
labyrinthine waterways of American wilds westward; the Russian voyager
exchanging his reindeer sled and desert caravans for crazy rafts of
green timbers to cruise across the Pacific eastward--were directed both
to the same region, animated by the same impulse, the capture of the
Pacific coast of America.
{294}
[Illustration: Raised Reindeer Sledges.]
The tide of adventure set eastward across Siberia at the very time
(1579) Francis Drake, the English freebooter, was sacking the ports of
New Spain on his way to California. Yermac, robber knight and leader
of a thousand Cossack banditti, had long levied tribute of loot on the
caravans bound from Russia to Persia. Then came the avenging army of
the Czar. Yermac fled to Siberia, wrested the country from the
Tartars, and obtained forgiveness from the Czar by laying a new realm
at his feet. But these Cossack plunderers did not stop with Siberia.
Northward were the ivory tusks of the frozen tundras. Eastward were
precious furs of the snow-padded forests and mountains toward
Kamchatka.
Pages:
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381