Travels in Kamtschatka, During the Years 1787 and 1788, Volume 1

Route of M de Lesseps Consul of France, in the PENINSULA of KAMTSCHATKA, and along the GULF of PENGINA, from the Port of S t . Peter & S t . Paul as far as Yamsk.

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.


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.