rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_1d8ebfe8-66ce-507c-8a8c-bd57ea796c8e">CHAPTER XLIX.
Fourteen years ago Major Perry McD. Collins traversed Northern Asia, and wrote an account, of his journey, entitled "A Voyage Down the Amoor." With the exception of that volume no other work on this little known region has appeared from the pen of an American writer. In view of this fact, the author of "Overland Through Asia" indulges the hope that his book will not be considered a superfluous addition to the literature of his country.
The journey herein recorded was undertaken partly as a pleasure trip, partly as a journalistic enterprise, and partly in the interest of the company that attempted to carry out the plans of Major Collins to make an electric connection between Europe and the United States by way of Asia and Bering's Straits. In the service of the Russo-American Telegraph Company, it may not be improper to state that the author's official duties were so few, and his pleasures so numerous, as to leave the kindest recollections of the many persons connected with the enterprise.
Portions of this book have appeared in Harper's, Putnam's, The Atlantic, The Galaxy, and the Overland Monthlies, and in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. They have been received with such favor as to encourage their reproduction wherever they could be introduced in the narrative of the journey. The largest part of the book has been written from a carefully recorded journal, and is now in print for the first time. The illustrations have been made from photographs and pencil sketches, and in all cases great care has been exercised to represent correctly the costumes of the country. To Frederick Whymper, Esq., artist of the Telegraph Expedition, and to August Hoffman, (Photographer,) of Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, the author is specially indebted.
The orthography of geographical names is after the Russian model. The author hopes it will not be difficult to convince his countrymen that the shortest form of spelling is the best, especially when it represents the pronunciation more accurately than does the old method. A frontier justice once remarked, when a lawyer ridiculed his way of writing ordinary words, that a man was not properly educated who could spell a word in only one way. On the same broad principle I will not quarrel with those who insist upon retaining an extra letter in Bering and Ohotsk and two superfluous letters in Kamchatka.
Among those not mentioned in the volume, thanks are due to Frederick Macrellish, Esq., of San Francisco, Hon. F.F. Low of Sacramento, Alfred Whymper, Esq., of London, and the many gentlemen connected with the Telegraph Expedition. There are dozens and hundreds of individuals in Siberia and elsewhere, of all grades and conditions in life, who have placed me under numberless obligations. Wherever I traveled the most uniform courtesy was shown me, and though conscious that few of those dozens and hundreds will ever read these lines, I should consider myself ungrateful did I fail to acknowledge their kindness to a wandering American.
T.W.K.
ASTOR HOUSE, N.Y., Sept. 15, 1870.
1. FRONTISPIECE, THE AUTHOR IN SIBERIAN COSTUME
2. CHARACTER DEVELOPED
3. ASPINWALL TO PANAMA
4. SLIGHTLY MONOTONOUS
5. MONTGOMERY STREET IN HOLIDAY DRESS
6. SAN FRANCISCO, 1848
7. CHINESE DINNER
8. OVER SIX FEET
9. STEAMSHIP WRIGHT IN A STORM
10. A SEA SICK BOOBY
11. WRECK OF THE SHIP CANTON
12. ALEUTIANS CATCHING WHALES
13. BREACH OF ETIQUETTE
14. UNEXPECTED HONORS
15. RUSSIAN MARRIAGE
16. RUSSIAN POPE AT HOME
17. A SCALY BRIDGE
18. RUSSIAN TEA SERVICE
19. CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR
20. COW AND BEAR
21. A KAMCHATKA TEAM
22. REPULSE OF THE ASSAILANTS
23. VIEW OF SITKA
24. PLENTY OF TIME
25. RUSSIAN OFFICERS AT MESS
26. ASCENDING THE BAY
27. TAKING THE CENSUS
28. LIGHT-HOUSE AT GHIJIGA
29. TOWED BY DOGS
30. KORIAK YOURT
31. DISCHARGING A DECK LOAD
32. REINDEER RIDE
34. WAGON RIDE WITH DOGS
35. YEARLY MAIL
36. DOGS FISHING
37. TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE
38. BOAT LOAD OF SALMON
39. AN EFFECTIVE PROTEST
40. NOTHING BUT BONES
42. SEEING OFF
43. LIFE ON THE AMOOR
44. A GILYAK VILLAGE
45. ABOUT FULL
47. ON THE AMOOR
48. CASH ACCOUNT
49. WOODING UP
50. BEAR IN PROCESSION
51. PRACTICE OF MEDICINE
52. MANJOUR MERCHANT
53. GILYAK MAN
54. GILYAK WOMAN
55. PEASANTS BY MOONLIGHT
56. TAIL PIECE—THE NET
57.
