Route of
M de Lesseps
Consul of France,
in the PENINSULA of
KAMTSCHATKA,
and along the GULF of PENGINA, from the Port of St. Peter & St.Paul as far as Yamsk.
TRAVELS
IN
KAMTSCHATKA,
DURING THE YEARS 1787 AND 1788.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
M. DE LESSEPS, CONSUL OF FRANCE,
AND
INTERPRETER TO THE COUNT DE LA PEROUSE, NOW
ENGAGED IN A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, BY
COMMAND OF HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOLUME I.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.
1790.
My work is merely a journal of my travels. Why should I take any stepsto prepossess the judgment of my reader? Shall I not have more claim tohis indulgence when I have assured him, that it was not originally myintention to write a book? Will not my account be the more interesting,when it is known, that my sole inducement to employ my pen was thenecessity I found of filling up my leisure moments, and that my vanityextended no farther than to give my friends a faithful journal of thedifficulties I had to encounter, and the observations I made on myroad? It is evident I wrote by intervals,[iv] negligently or with care,as circumstances permitted, or as the impressions made by the objectsaround me were more or less forcible.
Conscious of my own inexperience, I thought it a duty I owed myselfto let slip no opportunity of acquiring information, as if I hadforeseen, that I should be called to account for the time I had spent,and the knowledge which I had it in my power to obtain: but perhapsthe scrupulous exactness to which I confined myself, entailed on mynarration a want of elegance and variety.
The events which relate personally to myself are so connected with thesubject of my remarks, that I have taken no care to suppress them. Imay therefore, not undeservedly, be reproached with having[v] spoken toomuch of myself: but this is the prevailing sin of travellers of my age.
Besides this, I am ready to accuse myself of frequent repetitions,which would have been avoided by a more experienced pen. On certainsubjects, particularly in respect of travels, it is scarcely possibleto avoid an uniformity of style. To paint the same objects, we mustemploy the same colours; hence similar expressions are continuallyrecurring.
With respect to the pronunciation of the Russian, Kamtschadale, andother foreign words, I shall observe, that all the letters are to bearticulated distinctly. I have thought it adviseable, even in thevocabulary, to reject those consonants, the confused assemblage ofwhich discourages the reader, and is not always necessary, The khis to be pronounced as the ch of the[vi] Germans, or the j of theSpaniards, and the ch as in the French. The fi