Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter VIII.
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furnish interpreters, guides, and laborers. The Professors, as
they were called, constituted an itinerant academy.
They drafted their own instructions, and no superior
authority took upon itself to make these subservient to
the interests of the expedition as a whole. From
February, 1734, they held one or two weekly meetings and
passed independent resolutions. It became a part of
Bering’s task to move this cumbersome machine, this
learned republic, from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka, to
care for their comforts and conveniences, and render
possible the flank movements and side sallies that either
scientific demands or their own freaks of will might
dictate. In the original instructions such directions were
by no means few. But Bering had no authority over
these men. They were willing to recognize his authority
only when they needed his assistance. None of them
except Bering and his former associates had any idea of
the mode and conditions of travel in that barbarous
country. That there should be lack of understanding
between men with such different objects in view as
academists and naval officers, is not very strange. Their
only bond of union was the Senate’s senseless ukase. If
it had been the purpose of the government to exhibit a
human parallel to the “happy families” of menageries, it
could hardly have acted differently. In all his
movements Bering was hampered by this academical
deadweight. The Professors not only showed a lack of
appreciation of Bering’s efforts in their behalf, but they also
stormed him with complaints, filled their records with
them, and concluded them—characteristically enough—
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