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Jean-Baptiste Barthélemy de Lesseps
Travels in Kamtschatka (Vol. 1&2)
During the Years 1787 and 1788 (Complete Edition)
e-artnow, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
EAN: 4064066390020
Table of Contents
VOLUME 1
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
My work is merely a journal of my travels. Why should I take any steps to prepossess the judgment of my reader? Shall I not have more claim to his indulgence when I have assured him, that it was not originally my intention 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 the necessity I found of filling up my leisure moments, and that my vanity extended no farther than to give my friends a faithful journal of the difficulties I had to encounter, and the observations I made on my road? It is evident I wrote by intervals, negligently or with care, as circumstances permitted, or as the impressions made by the objects around me were more or less forcible.
Conscious of my own inexperience, I thought it a duty I owed myself to let slip no opportunity of acquiring information, as if I had foreseen, 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 perhaps the scrupulous exactness to which I confined myself, entailed on my narration a want of elegance and variety.
The events which relate personally to myself are so connected with the subject of my remarks, that I have taken no care to suppress them. I may therefore, not undeservedly, be reproached with having spoken too much 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 certain subjects, particularly in respect of travels, it is scarcely possible to avoid an uniformity of style. To paint the same objects, we must employ the same colours; hence similar expressions are continually recurring.
With respect to the pronunciation of the Russian, Kamtschadale, and other foreign words, I shall observe, that all the letters are to be articulated distinctly. I have thought it adviseable, even in the vocabulary, to reject those consonants, the confused assemblage of which discourages the reader, and is not always necessary, The kh is to be pronounced as the ch of the Germans, or the j of the Spaniards, and the ch as in the French. The finals oi and in, are to be pronounced, the former as an improper diphthong (oï) and the latter in the English, not in the French manner.
The delay of publishing this journal renders some excuse necessary. Unquestionably I might have given it to the world sooner, and it was my duty to have done it; but my gratitude bad me wait the return of the count de la Perouse. What is my journey, said I to myself? To the public, it is only an appendage to the important expedition of that gentleman; to myself, it is an honourable proof of his confidence: I had a double motive to submit my account to his inspection. My own interest also prescribed this to me. How happy should I have been, if, permitting me to publish my travels as a supplement to his, he had deigned to render me an associate of his fame! This, I confess, was the sole end of my ambition; the sole cause of my delay.
How cruel for me, after a year of impatient expectation, to see the wished for period still more distant! Not a day has passed since my arrival, on which my wishes have not recalled the Astrolabe and Boussole. How often, traversing in imagination the seas they had to cross, have I sought to trace their progress, to follow then from port to port, to calculate their delays, and to measure all the windings of their course!
When at the moment of our separation in Kamtschatka, the officers of our vessels sorrowfully embraced me as lost, who would have said, that I should first revisit my native country; that many of them would never see it more; and that in a little time I should shed tears over their fate!
Scarcely, in effect, had I time to congratulate myself on the success of my mission, and the embraces of my family, when the report of our misfortunes in the Archipelago of navigators arrived, to fill my heart with sorrow and affection. The viscount de Langle, that brave and loyal seaman, the friend, the companion of our commander; a man whom I loved and respected as my father, is no more! My pen refuses to trace his unfortunate end, but my gratitude indulges itself in repeating, that the remembrance of his virtues and his kindness to me, will live eternally in my bosom.
Reader, who ever thou art, pardon this involuntary effusion of my grief. Hadst thou known him whom I lament, thou wouldst mingle thy tears with mine: like me thou wouldst pray to Heaven, that, for our consolation, and for the glory of France, the commander of the expedition, and those of our brave Argonauts, whom it has preserved, may soon return. Ah! if whilst I write, a favourable gale should fill their sails, and impel them towards our shores!—May this prayer of my heart be heard! May the day on which these volumes are published, be that of their arrival! In the excess of my joy, my self-love would find the highest gratification.
TRAVELS
IN
KAMTSCHATKA, &c.
I have scarcely completed my twenty-fifth year, and am arrived at the most memorable æra of my life. However long, or however happy may be my future career, I doubt whether it will ever be my fate to be employed in so glorious an expedition as that in which two French frigates, the Boussole, and the Astrolabe, are at this moment engaged; the first commanded by count de la Perouse, chief of the expedition, and the second by viscount de Langle[1].
The report of this voyage round the world, created too general and lively an interest, for direct news of these illustrious navigators, reclaimed by their country and by all Europe from the seas they traverse, not to be expected with as much impatience as curiosity.
How flattering is it to my heart, after having obtained from count de la Perouse the advantage of accompanying him for more than two years, to be farther indebted to him for the honour of conveying his dispatches over land into France! The more I reflect upon this additional proof of his confidence, the more I feel what such an embassy requires, and how far I am deficient; and I can only attribute his preference, to the necessity of choosing for this journey, a person who had resided in Russia, and could speak its language.
On the 6 September 1787, the king's frigates entered the port of Avatscha, or Saint Peter and Saint Paul[2], at the southern extremity of the peninsula of Kamtschatka. The 29, I was ordered to quit the Astrolabe; and the same day count de la Perouse gave me his