Tent Life in Siberia

Tent Life in Siberia

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Title: Tent Life in Siberia
Author: George Kennan
Release Date: May 12, 2004 [EBook #12328]
Language: English
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TENT-LIFE IN
SIBERIA
By GEORGE KENNAN
[Illustration: George Kennan 1868]

Tent Life in Siberia
A New Account of an Old Undertaking
Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes In Kamchatka and
Northern Asia
By

George Kennan
Author of "Siberia and the Exile System," "Campaigning in Cuba,"
"The Tragedy of Pelee," "Folk Tales of Napoleon"
_With 32 Illustrations and Maps_
1910

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.
This narrative of Siberian life and adventure was first given to the
public in 1870--just forty years ago. Since that time it has never been
out of print, and has never ceased to find readers; and the original
plates have been sent to the press so many times that they are nearly
worn out. This persistent and long-continued demand for the book
seems to indicate that it has some sort of perennial interest, and
encourages me to hope that a revised, illustrated, and greatly enlarged
edition of it will meet with a favourable reception.
Tent Life in Siberia was put to press for the first time while I was
absent in Russia. I wrote the concluding chapters of it in St. Petersburg,
and sent them to the publishers from there in the early part of 1870. I
was then so anxious to get started for the mountains of the Caucasus
that I cut the narrative as short as I possibly could, and omitted much
that I should have put in if I had had time enough to work it into shape.
The present edition contains more than fifteen thousand words of new
matter, including "Our Narrowest Escape" and "The Aurora of the
Sea," and it also describes, for the first time, the incidents and
adventures of a winter journey overland from the Okhotsk Sea to the
Volga River--a straightaway sleigh-ride of more than five thousand
miles.
The illustrations of the present edition, which will, I hope, add greatly
to its interest, are partly from paintings by George A. Frost, who was
with me on both of my Siberian expeditions; and partly from
photographs taken by Messrs. Jochelson and Bogoras, two Russian
political exiles, who made the scientific investigations for the Jesup
North Pacific Expedition on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.
I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to The Century
Company for permission to use parts of two articles originally written

for _St. Nicholas_; to Mrs. A.D. Frost, of North Cambridge, Mass., for
photographs of her late husband's paintings; and to the American
Museum of Natural History for the right to reproduce the Siberian
photographs of Messrs. Jochelson and Bogoras.
GEORGE KENNAN.
BEAUFORT, S.C.
February 16, 1910.

PREFACE
The attempt which was made by the Western Union Telegraph
Company, in 1865-66 and 67, to build an overland line to Europe via
Alaska, Bering Strait, and Siberia, was in some respects the most
remarkable undertaking of the nineteenth century. Bold in its
conception, and important in the ends at which it aimed, it attracted at
one time the attention of the whole civilised world, and was regarded as
the greatest telegraphic enterprise which had ever engaged American
capital. Like all unsuccessful ventures, however, in this progressive age,
it has been speedily forgotten, and the brilliant success of the Atlantic
cable has driven it entirely out of the public mind. Most readers are
familiar with the principal facts in the history of this enterprise, from its
organisation to its ultimate abandonment; but only a few, even of its
original projectors, know anything about the work which it
accomplished in British Columbia, Alaska, and Siberia; the obstacles
which were met and overcome by its exploring and working parties;
and the contributions which it made to our knowledge of an hitherto
untravelled, unvisited region. Its employees, in the course of two years,
explored nearly six thousand miles of unbroken wilderness, extending
from Vancouver Island on the American coast to Bering Strait, and
from Bering Strait to the Chinese frontier in Asia. The traces of their
deserted camps may be found in the wildest mountain fastnesses of
Kamchatka, on the vast desolate plains of north-eastern Siberia, and
throughout the gloomy pine forests of Alaska and British Columbia.
Mounted on reindeer, they traversed the