PREFACE
Many who read the following account of our long land journey will not
unnaturally ask: "What was the object of this stupendous voyage, or the
reward to be gained by this apparently unnecessary risk of life and
endurance of hardships?"
I would reply that my primary purpose was to ascertain the feasibility
of constructing a railway to connect the chief cities of France and
America, Paris and New York. The European Press was at the time of our
departure largely interested in this question, which fact induced the
proprietors of the Daily Express of London, the Journal of Paris,
and the New York World to contribute towards the expenses of the
expedition. Another reason is one with which I fancy most Englishmen
will readily sympathise—viz., the feat had never before been performed,
and my first attempt to accomplish it in 1896 (with New York as the
starting-point) had failed half way on the Siberian shores of Bering
Straits.
The invaluable assistance rendered by the United States Government in
the despatch of a revenue cutter to our relief on the Siberian coast is
duly acknowledged in another portion of this volume, but I would here
express my sincere thanks to the "Compagnie Internationale des
Wagonslits" for furnishing the expedition with a free pass from Paris
to the city of Irkutsk, in Eastern Siberia. In America the "Southern
Pacific" and "Wabash" Lines extended the same courtesies, thus enabling
us to travel free of cost across the United States, as guests of two of
the most luxurious railways in the world.
45 Avenue Kléber, Paris,
October 1903.
CHAPTER I
THROUGH EUROPE. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY.
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 on that journey was well worth the
price I paid for it. On that occasion I attempted the voyage in an
opposite direction—viz., from America to France, but only half the
distance was covered. Alaska was then almost unexplored and the now
populous Klondike region only sparsely peopled by poverty-stricken and
unfriendly Indians. After many dangers and difficulties, Alaska was
crossed in safety, and we managed to reach the Siberian shores of Bering
Straits only to meet with dire disaster at the hands of the natives of
that coast. For no sooner had the American revenue cutter which landed
us steamed away than our stores were seized by the villainous chief of
the village (one Koari), who informed us that we were virtually his
prisoners, and that the dog-sleds which, during the presence of the
Government vessel, he had glibly promised to furnish, existed only in
this old rascal's fertile imagination. The situation was, to say the
least, unpleasant, for the summer was far advanced and the ice already
gathering in Bering Straits. Most of the whalers had left the Arctic for
the southward, and our rescue seemed almost impossible until the
following year. When a month here had passed away, harsh treatment and
disgusting food had reduced us to a condition of hopeless despair. I was
attacked by scurvy and a painful skin disease, while Harding, my
companion, contracted a complaint peculiar to the Tchuktchis, which has
to this day baffled the wisest London and Paris physicians. Fortunately
we possessed a small silk Union Jack, which was nailed to an old whale
rib on the beach (for there was no wood), much to the amusement of the
natives. But the laugh was on our side when, the very next morning, a
sail appeared on the horizon. Nearer and nearer came the vessel,
scudding close-reefed before a gale which had raised a mountainous sea.
Would they see our signal? Would the skipper dare to lay-to in such
tempestuous weather, hemmed in as he was by the treacherous ice? Had we
known, however, at the time that the staunch little Belvedere was
commanded by the late Capt. Joseph Whiteside, of New Bedford, we should
have been spared many moments, which seemed hours, of intense anxiety.
Without a thought of his own safety, or a valuable cargo of whales
representing many thousands of pounds, this gallant sailor stood boldly
in shore, launched a boat, which, after a scuffle with the natives and a
scramble over floating ice, we managed to reach, and hauled us aboard
the little whaler, more dead than alive. A month later we were in San
Francisco, far from the fair French city we had hoped to reach, but
sincerely grateful for our preservation. For twenty-four hours after our
rescue no ship could have neared that ice-bound coast, and we could
scarcely have survived, amidst such surroundings, until the following
spring.
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