Note 1 — Chapter XLVIII · KAMCHATKA.

Among early sources of information concerning voyages to the north-eastern seas, we have the “History of Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands,” translated from the Russian by Dr. Grieve in 1764. In 1802 Martin Sauer wrote an account of a geographical and astronomical expedition to the north parts of Russia, the mouth of the Kolima, to East Cape, and islands in the Eastern Ocean, performed by Commodore Joseph Billings from 1785 to 1794; and within 20 years afterwards Captain Burney published a chronological history of north-eastern voyages of discovery, and of the early eastern navigation of the Russians; but these brought us no further than 1819. The admirable “Géographie Universelle” of M. Réclus (by far the best geographical work on Siberia I have met with) gives a map showing the routes not only of the principal travellers by land, but also furnishes an excellent account of Siberian maritime discoveries down to the present day.

To confine ourselves more particularly to Kamchatka, we have the travels in 1787–8 of M. de Lesseps, Consul of France, and interpreter to the Count de la Perouse, who landed in the peninsula, and thence made his way by land round the northern coast of the Okhotsk Sea, and crossed Asia and Europe to Paris. A quarter of a century later, Peter Dobell followed the same route, and was deserted by his Tunguse guides in the vicinity of Okhotsk, which town, however, he at length reached, and crossed Siberia to Europe. Accounts of remarkable travels in this part of the country have been written by two Americans—Messrs. Bush and Kennan—who went, in 1865, to make preliminary surveys for a proposed route for telegraph wires intended to traverse Behring’s Straits from America, continue across the peninsula, and round the Sea of Okhotsk to Nikolaefsk, and thence to the Chinese frontier. The enterprise was ultimately abandoned, but not till the country had been surveyed from the straits to the mouth of the Amur, in doing which these authors passed through portions of country untravelled by foreigners before.

For a short account of the early exploration of Siberia by sea and land, see Appendix E.