artly 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 the