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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
This narrative of Siberian life and adventure was first given to thepublic in 1870—just forty years ago. Since that time it has neverbeen out of print, and has never ceased to find readers; and theoriginal plates have been sent to the press so many times that theyare nearly worn out. This persistent and long-continued demand for thebook seems to indicate that it has some sort of perennial interest,and encourages me to hope that a revised, illustrated, and greatlyenlarged edition of it will meet with a favourable reception.
Tent Life in Siberia was put to press for the first time while Iwas absent in Russia. I wrote the concluding chapters of it in St.Petersburg, and sent them to the publishers from there in the earlypart of 1870. I was then so anxious to get started for the mountainsof 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 enoughto work it into shape. The present edition contains more than fifteenthousand 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 theOkhotsk Sea to the Volga River—a straightaway sleigh-ride of morethan five thousand miles.
The illustrations of the present edition, which will, I hope, addgreatly to its interest, are partly from paintings by George A. Frost,who was with me on both of my Siberian expeditions; and partly fromphotographs taken by Messrs. Jochelson and Bogoras, two Russianpolitical exiles, who made the scientific investigations for the JesupNorth Pacific Expedition on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.
I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to The CenturyCompany for permission to use parts of two articles originally writtenfor St. Nicholas; to Mrs. A.D. Frost, of North Cambridge, Mass.,for photographs of her late husband's paintings; and to the AmericanMuseum of Natural History for the right to reproduce the Siberianphotographs of Messrs. Jochelson and Bogoras.
February 16, 1910.
The attempt which was made by the Western Union Telegraph Company, in1865-66 and 67, to build an overland line to Europe via Alaska,Bering Strait, and Siberia, was in some respects the most remarkableundertaking of the nineteenth century. Bold in its conception, andimportant in the ends at which it aimed, it attracted at one timethe attention of the whole civilised world, and was regarded as thegreatest telegraphic enterprise which had ever engaged Americancapital. Like all unsuccessful ventures, however, in this progressiveage, it has been speedily