Asiatic mountains; they floated in
skin canoes down the great rivers of the north; slept in the smoky
_pologs_ of the Siberian Chukchis (chook'-chees); and camped out upon
desolate northern plains in temperatures of 50 deg. and 60 deg. below zero.
The poles which they erected and the houses which they built now stand
alone in an encircling wilderness,--the only results of their three
years' labour and suffering, and the only monuments of an abandoned
enterprise.

It is not my purpose to write a history of the Russian-American
telegraph. The success of its rival, the Atlantic cable, has
completely overshadowed its early importance, and its own failure
has deprived it of all its interest for American readers. Though its
history, however, be unimportant, the surveys and explorations which
were planned and executed under its auspices have a value and an
interest of their own, aside from the object for which they were
undertaken. The territory which they covered is little known to the
reading world, and its nomadic inhabitants have been rarely visited
by civilised man. Only a few adventurous traders and fur-hunters have
ever penetrated its almost unbroken solitudes, and it is not probable
that civilised men will ever follow in their steps. The country holds
out to the ordinary traveller no inducement commensurate with the risk
and hardship which its exploration involves.

Two of the employees of the Russian-American Telegraph Company,
Messrs. Whymper and Dall, have already published accounts of their
travels in various parts of British Columbia and Alaska; and believing
that a history of the Company's explorations on the other side
of Bering Strait will possess equal interest, I have written the
following narrative of two years' life in north-eastern Siberia. It
makes no pretensions whatever to fulness of scientific information,
nor to any very extraordinary researches of any kind. It is intended
simply to convey as clear and accurate an idea as possible of the
inhabitants, scenery, customs, and general external features of a
new and comparatively unknown country. It is essentially a personal
narrative of life in Siberia and Kamchatka; and its claim to attention
lies rather in the freshness of the subject, than in any special
devotion to science or skill of treatment.

[Illustration: Head covering used in stalking seals]

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

THE OVERLAND TELEGRAPH LINE TO RUSSIA--SAILING OF