we met with a reception worthy
of far doughtier deeds than we had accomplished. In 1896, Seattle was a
country town of some 30,000 inhabitants, and I could scarcely recognise
this fine modern city of over 100,000 souls which may shortly rival San
Francisco as a commercial and social centre. This wonderful change is
partly due to discoveries in the Klondike, but chiefly perhaps to the
increasing trade of Puget Sound with the East. Fine Japanese liners now
run direct every fortnight from Seattle to Japan, and on one of these a
passage was obtained for my faithful friend and comrade, Stepan
Rastorguyeff, whose invaluable services I can never repay, and to whom I
bade farewell with sincere regret. I am glad to add that the plucky
Cossack eventually reached his home in safety (_via_ Yokohama and
Vladivostok) arriving in Yakutsk by way of Irkutsk and the Lena River
early in the new year of 1902. Vicomte de Clinchamp also left me here,
to return direct to France _via_ New York and Le Havre.

There is little more to tell. Travelling leisurely in glorious weather
through the garden-girt towns and smiling villages of the "Rouge-River"
Valley, perhaps the most picturesque and fertile in the world, a day was
passed at Shasta Springs, the summer resort of fashionable Californians,
where the sun-baked traveller may rest awhile in a little oasis of
coolness and gaiety, cascades and flowers, set in a desert of dark
pines. A week with old friends in cosmopolitan, ever delightful San
Francisco, a rapid and luxurious journey across the American continent,
land on August 25, 1902, New York was reached, and the long land journey
of 18,494 miles from Paris, which had taken us two-thirds of a year to
accomplish, was at an end.

APPENDIX I

APPROXIMATE TABLE OF DISTANCES
PARIS TO NEW YORK

EUROPE AND ASIA

E. M.
Paris to Moscow (rail) 1,800
Moscow to Irkutsk (rail) 4,000
Irkutsk to Yakutsk (employed 720 horses) 2,000
Yakutsk to Verkhoyansk (employed 80 horses and 240 reindeer) 623
Verkhoyansk to Sredni-Kolymsk (employed 620 deer) 1,006
Sredni-Kolymsk to Nijni-Kolymsk (employed 8 horses,
27 reindeer, 50 dogs). 334
Nijni-Kolymsk to Bering Straits (started with 64 dogs,
arrived at Bering Straits with 9)