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

when he first saw Broughton’s notes in China, he was "not a little gladdened" original: "*).

The error was corrected in 1849 by Nevelskoy. The authority of his predecessors, however, was still so great that when he reported his discoveries to St. Petersburg, he was not believed; his actions were considered audacious and subject to punishment, and they "decided" to demote him. It is unknown what this would have led to if not for the intervention of the sovereign himself, who found his actions heroic, noble, and patriotic original: "). He was an energetic man of fiery temperament, educated, selfless, humane, permeated to the marrow with an idea and devoted to it fanatically, and morally pure. One who knew him wrote: "I have not happened to meet a more honest man." On the eastern coast and on Sakhalin, he made a brilliant career for himself in some five years, but he lost his daughter, who died of hunger, and aged; his wife, "a young, pretty, and pleasant woman" who endured all privations heroically, also aged and lost her health original: "*).

*) The circumstance that three serious explorers, as if in collusion, repeated the same error speaks for itself. If they did not discover the entrance to the Amur, it was because they had the most meager means for exploration at their disposal, and, most importantly, as men of genius, they suspected and almost guessed the other truth and had to reckon with it. That the isthmus and the Sakhalin peninsula are not myths, but existed at one time in reality, has now been proven.

A detailed history of the exploration of Sakhalin is found in the book by A. M. Nikolsky: Sakhalin Island and its Vertebrate Fauna. In this same book, one can also find a fairly detailed index of literature relating to Sakhalin.

) Details in his book: Feats of Russian Naval Officers in the Far East of Russia 1849–1855.
*) Nevelskoy’s wife, Ekaterina Ivanovna, when traveling from Russia to her husband, rode 1,100 versts on horseback in 23 days, while ill, through boggy swamps and wild, mountainous taiga and glaciers of the Okhotsk tract. Nevelskoy's most gifted associate, N. K. Boshnyak, who discovered Imperial Harbor when he was only 20 years old—"a dreamer and a child," as one of his colleagues calls him—recounts in his notes: "On the transport Baikal we all traveled together to Ayan and there transferred to the frail bark Shelikhov. When the bark began to sink, no one could persuade Mrs. Nevelskaya to be the first to disembark. 'The commander and officers disembark last,' she said, 'and I will leave the bark when not a single woman or child remains on the vessel.' And that is what she did. Meanwhile, the bark was already lying on its side"… Further, Boshnyak writes that while often in the company of Mrs. Nevelskaya, he and his comrades heard not a single complaint or reproach—on the contrary, one always noticed in her a calm and proud awareness of that bitter but lofty position which Providence had assigned her. She usually spent the winter alone, as the men were on assignments, in rooms with 5°C warmth. When in 1852 supply ships did not arrive from Kamchatka, everyone was in a more than desperate situation. There was no milk for infants, no fresh food for the sick, and several people died of scurvy. Nevelskaya gave her only cow for general use; everything fresh went to the common good. She treated the natives simply and with such attention that even the uncouth savages noticed it. And she was then only 19 years old (Lt. Boshnyak: "Expedition to the Primorsky Territory", Morskoy Sbornik, 1859, II). Her husband also mentions her touching treatment of the Gilyaks in his notes: "Ekaterina Ivanovna," he writes, "would seat them (the Gilyaks) in a circle on the floor, around a large bowl of porridge or tea, in the only room we had in the wing, which served as a hall, a drawing room, and a dining room. Enjoying such a treat, they would quite often pat the hostess on the shoulder, sending her now for tamchi tobacco, now for tea."