Complete Works of A.P. Chekhov, Vol. 1

but in a bay, and that, therefore, Sakhalin was connected to the mainland by an isthmus. At De-Kastri, he had another consultation with the Gilyaks. When he drew an island for them on paper, separated from the mainland, one of them took his pencil and, drawing a line across the strait, explained that the Gilyaks sometimes have to drag their boats across this isthmus and that grass even grows on it—that is how La Pérouse understood it. This convinced him even more firmly that Sakhalin was a peninsula original: "*).

Nine years later, the Englishman W. Broughton was in the Tartar Strait. His vessel was small, drawing no more than 9 feet of water, so he managed to go somewhat further than La Pérouse. Stopping at a depth of two fathoms, he sent his assistant north to take soundings; on his way, he encountered depths among the shoals, but they gradually decreased and led him now to the Sakhalin shore, now to the low, sandy shores of the other side, and the resulting picture was as if both shores were merging; it seemed the bay ended there and no passage existed. Thus, Broughton also had to conclude the same thing as La Pérouse.

Our famous Krusenstern, who explored the island's shores in 1805, fell into the same error. He sailed toward Sakhalin already with a preconceived notion, as he was using La Pérouse's map. He sailed along the eastern coast and, rounding the northern capes of Sakhalin, entered the strait itself, keeping a north-to-south direction, and it seemed he was already very close to solving the riddle, but the gradual decrease in depth to 3 1/2 fathoms, the specific gravity of the water, and, most importantly, the preconceived notion forced even him to acknowledge the existence of an isthmus, which he did not see. Yet, the worm of doubt continued to gnaw at him. "It is highly probable," he writes, "that Sakhalin was once, and perhaps even in recent times, an island." He returned, apparently with a restless soul:

*) It is appropriate here to mention one of Nevelskoy’s observations: the natives usually draw a line between the shores in order to show that one can sail by boat from shore to shore, that is, that a strait exists between the shores.