From Paris to New York by Land

The distance from Irkutsk to Yakutsk is about 2000 English miles, but the post-road by which we travelled during the first stage of the overland journey is, properly speaking, n...

While on the subject of railways a few remarks anent the projected line from France (_via_ Siberia and Bering Straits) to America may not be amiss. As the reader is already awar...

Let the reader picture the distance, say, from London to Moscow as one vast undulating plateau of alternate layers of ice and snow, and he has before him the region we traversed...

During our stay in Yakutsk we were the guests of the Chief of Police, an official generally associated (in the English mind) with mystery and oppression, dungeons and the knout....

NOTE.--The information contained in the following chapter was chiefly obtained from Government officials stationed at Sredni-Kolymsk, the facts being afterwards verified, or oth...

A few miles below Nijni-Kolymsk vegetation entirely disappears, and in winter nothing is visible on all sides but vast and dreary plains of snow-covered tundra. The first night...

"The Yukon district is a vast tract of country which forms the extreme north-westerly portion of the north-west territories of Canada. It is bounded to the south by the northern...

Our reception by the Tchuktchis at Cape Shelagskoi[53] was so surly that I began to think there might be some reason for the repeated warnings of our friends on the Kolyma. Two...

The wintry aspect of nature around Bering Straits seemed to predict a late summer, and it looked as though months must elapse before the Revenue cutter courteously placed at my...

The heading of this chapter is not suggested by a flight of fancy, but by solid fact, for there is not a mile along either bank of the Yukon River, over 2000 miles long from the...

The term "cutter" is somewhat of a misnomer, if literally taken, for the Government vessels which patrol these Northern waters. The _Bear_, for instance, which landed us on the...

Lieutenant Schwatka, the famous Alaskan explorer, once remarked that a man travelling in the Arctic must depend upon his own judgment, and not upon the advice of others, if he w...

The time at Whalen passed with exasperating slowness, especially after the first ten days, when monotony had dulled the edge of success and worn off the novelty of our strange s...

The steamer _White Horse_, in which we travelled from Dawson City up the Yukon to the terminus of the White Pass Railway was, although much smaller than the _Hannah_, quite as l...

Loyal Russians call Verkhoyansk the heart of Siberia. Political exiles have another name for the place also commencing with the letter H, which I leave to the reader's imaginati...

The success of my recent land expedition from Paris to New York is largely due to the fact that I had previously essayed the feat in 1896 and failed, for the experience gained o...

We arrived in Irkutsk on the eve of the Russian New Year, when business throughout the Empire comes to a standstill, and revelry amongst all classes reigns supreme. It was, ther...

"Why don't you try to escape," I once asked an exile at Sredni-Koylmsk, "and make your way across Bering Straits to America?" For I was aware that, once in the United States, a...

"You will find a magic city On the shore of Bering Strait, Which shall be for you a station To unload your Arctic freight. Where the gold of Humboldt's vision Has for countless...

I. APPROXIMATE TABLE OF DISTANCES, PARIS TO NEW YORK 361 II. LIST OF POST STATIONS BETWEEN IRKUTSK AND YAKUTSK 363 III. REINDEER STATIONS BETWEEN YAKUTSK AND VERKHOYANSK 368 IV....

I. THROUGH EUROPE. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 15 II. THE PARIS OF SIBERIA 28 III. THE GREAT LENA POST-ROAD 41 IV. THE CITY OF THE YAKUTE 68 V. THE LAND OF DESOLATION 92 VI. VER...

XIV. ACROSS BERING STRAITS--CAPE PRINCE OF WALES 257 XV. AN ARCTIC CITY 274 XVI. A RIVER OF GOLD 286 XVII. DAWSON 304 XVIII. THE UPPER YUKON AND LEWES RIVERS. THE WHITE PASS RAI...