Instead of nails, the
Cossack used reindeer thongs to bind the planking together. Instead of
tar, moss and clay and the tallow of sea animals calked the seams.
Needless to say, there was neither canvas nor rope. Reindeer thongs
supplied the cordage, reindeer hides the sails. On such rickety craft,
"with the help of God and a little powder," the Russian voyagers
hoisted sail and put to sea. On just such vessels did Deshneff and
Staduchin attempt to round Asia from the Arctic into Bering Sea
(1647-1650).
To be sure, the first bang of the ice-floes against the prow of these
rickety boats knocked them into kindling-wood. Two-thirds of the
Cossack voyagers were lost every year; and often all news that came of
the crew was a mast pole washed in by the tide with a dead man lashed
to the crosstrees. Small store of fresh water could be carried. Pine
needles were the only antidote for scurvy; and many a time the boat
came tumbling back to the home port, not a man well enough to stand
before the mast.
Always it is what lies just beyond that lures. It is the unknown that
beckons like the arms of the old sea sirens.
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