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The Jeannette Relief Expedition in Siberia

The Jeannette Relief Expedition in Siberia Date: Saturday, Mar. 18, 1882 Publication: The Illustrated London News (London, England)Volume: 80 , Issue: 2237

THE JEANNETTE RELIEF EXPEDITION IN SIBERIA.,Our Special Artist, Mr. A. Larsen, who accompanies Mfr. Jackson, Special Commissioner of the New York Herald, in his express journey across Siberia to find and relieve the shipwrecked crew of the Jeannette, Arctic exploring vessel, near the mouths of the Lena, has sent us letters and sketches. Having at least five thousand miles to travel in Northern Asia, for the most part by sledges and post-carts, he cannot be expected to accomplish the journey before April. From Tiumen, the first Russian town of importance in West Siberia, two or three days' travelling from Ekaterineburg and the Ural, but soon to be connected with Europe by railway, there is steam-boat conveyance, in summer, to the rivers Irtish and Obi, and to the towns of Tobolsk, Omsk, and Tomnsk; beyond which, still farther eastward, lie Krasnoiarsk, on the Yenisei, Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal, and, to the remote north-east, Yakutsk, on the Upper Lena. These towns and provinces of Siberia are connected by post-roads, kept in good order and supplied with relays of horses or ponies for the traveller's use; and, in the season when the rivers are frozen, as theywere at the time of our Special Artist's journey, the sledge or the tarantass, drawn by three horses, must carry him on from Tiumen to the east. The navigation opens about the middle of April, and closes towards the end of September. Tiumen is a town of 16,000 inhabitants, on the Turna, which flows by the Tobol into the Irtish and Obi ; here are thriving manufactures of iron, earthenware, glass, cloth, carpets, and leather ; but the houses are mostly built of wood, and the town has a mean and dreary aspect. It is the great d6pdt for Russian convicts sent as prisoners to undergo sentences of transportation in Siberia; they are dispatched hence by crowded barge-loads down the river, but have afterwards to trudge long distances on foot. The wandering tribes of Kirghis Tartars, from the vast steppe which extends south-east to the Altai mountains, are still met with in this province of Tobolsk. Our Artist's Sketches represent some of these people loitering before their tents of black hair felt, and some engaged in a festive bridal party. They are a scanty remnant of the once powerful and terrible nation of fierce Asiatic warriors, who conquered half the Old World under Genghis Khan and his successors, and who long held dominion in Russia, where many of them now find employment as porters and grooms. These Tartars are mostly of the Mohammedan religion, but a few tribes remain mere Pagans; their whole number in Western Siberia is reckoned at only forty thnasnndl.

OUR ARTIST WITH THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC RELIEF COMMISSIONER. SEE PAGE 265. _ 1; I- . .. ... .. . i . ____-_____________ _ _ __ _ GROUP OF KIRGRIS IN FRONT OF THEIR FELT TENT. TOWN OF TIUMEN, SIBERIA.,A KIRGHIS BRIDAL PARTY. Broichmore (talk) 14:00, 24 February 2023 (UTC)