found at Kara, in the gold mines. At twelve o'clock they came out of the mines to dinner, unless, that is, a man had arranged his hours otherwise, for it seems that, so long as they did not worry the Cossacks, or prevent their lounging and smoking, they might do their allot ted number of hours when they pleased. There was, moreover, no definite amount of mineral required of every man daily, and hence he might work hard or easy, pretty much as he liked. This reminded me of what was told me in Siberia by a Pole who had been at Nertchinsk, to the effect that, though condemned to the mines, he worked or not pretty much as he chose. As for the sulphur fumes said to exist in the mines, my informant tells me he never perceived them, and he met with those who had worked in all the mines of Nertchinsk, but that they never complained of them. This, then, appears to have been the condition of affairs at Nertchinsk fourteen years ago, and, from what I heard in Siberia last year, things have since improved. An officer who had visited them five years before told me that he found the men working twelve hours a day, six on and six off, but that they looked sickly; while another gentleman, who had recently visited the mines, and told me of the sorrowful stories of old convicts, said that he believed there were no enormities existing now, though of course he was far from saying that the lot of the convicts was an easy one.

Nor is it my object to make it appear so. Far otherwise. The period of an exile's life spent at the mines before being set free to colonize cannot but be hard. Whatever laxity of discipline may prevail as compared with the prisons of other countries, the herding together of the worst of characters, the deprivation of social, intellectual, and religious privileges, to speak of nothing else, must make life in the mines, from the nature of things, a burden. But this is very different from killing men by inches in sulphur fumes, as is commonly supposed. It is no part of my calling to palliate the deficiencies of the Russian penal system. That system is now, however, in a transition state, and money only is lacked to carry out to the full many reforms that have been already commenced.

Leaving Nertchinsk, the journey was

continued to Stretinsk, on the Shilka, at which place I arrived on the 24th of July, being now as far east as Nanking, and having finished a drive of 3000 miles, accomplished in thirty-seven travelling days and nights, and by the hire of 1000 horses. From this point my interpreter returned to Russia, and I rowed seventy miles in a small boat down the Shilka to Kara, where is a penal colony of 2000 convicts, condemned to hard labor in the gold mines. Of this number about 800 were murderers, 400 were robbers, and 700 vagrants, or "vagabonds." There were also a few political prisoners, but only a few; though I was told that Kara is the place to which such exiles, when condemned to hard labor, are usually sent. After seeing all but two of the principal prisons and penal colonies of Siberia, I came to the conclusion that the number of political prisoners commonly said to be deported thither is largely in excess of the facts. I spent more than two days at Kara, and had ample opportunity of seeing the place well. I went to the mines and saw the men at their work, which is all done on the surface, and which resembled the labor of navvies when making a cutting, stones and earth having to be carted away and put into a machine to be washed. Their hours of labor were from six in the morning to seven at night, with an hour or two's rest for dinner; and this only in the summer season, for in winter the ground is frozen, and they have little or nothing to do. Free laborers in the mines I noticed continued to work after the convicts left, and I learned that the convicts may sleep from nine to five in the summer, and in winter, if they choose, from seven to seven. The food and clothing of the male convicts cost the Government ten guineas a year each, and the food per week given to a hard-labor convict at Kara is nearly double in weight that which is given to a convict in England. The number of indulgences also accorded to a prisoner at Kara, such as receiving visits from relatives, or money from friends, correspondence by letter, and remission of labor, is largely in excess of similar privileges accorded to convicts in England. Kara inherits a bad name from former days, and it was spoken of to me by officials as one of the

severest of places for prisoners; but after seeing it more thoroughly than any other, I came to the conclusion that, under the superintendence of Colonel Kononovitch, its present director, it is one of the best managed of the penal colonies of Siberia. From Kara, on the Shilka, I took steamer for Khabarofka, situate on the Lower Amur, at its junction with the Ussuri. The scenery of the Shilka is particularly beautiful, and compares by no means unfavorably with the Rhine; 200 miles below Stretinsk it finishes a course of 650 miles, and then uniting at Ust Strelka with the Argun it forms the Amur. From Ust Strelka to its mouth the Amur has a course of 1780 miles, with a fall of 2000 feet; but if the Argun be regarded as the head waters of the river, there must be allowed to the Amur a length of 3066 miles, and a fall of 6000 feet. At Ust Strelka the river is 1100 yards wide and ten feet deep. At Albazin, 160 miles lower, it contracts to 500 yards; but the depth increases to 20 feet. Then running 400 miles to the south-east, it passes Blagovestchensk, which is a convenient point for distinguishing between the Upper and Middle Amur. The natives of the Upper Amur are, on the northern bank, the Manyargs, Orochons, and other branches of the Tunguse family; while on the southern bank are the Manchu Chinese, and others falling under the name of Daori.

At Blagovestchensk the Amur receives one of its most important tributaries, the Yeya, and at Anjun, somewhat lower, the Amur increases to a mile in width. At Pashkova it commences to flow through the Bureya mountains amid scenery that will bear comparison with many parts of the Danube. From these mountains the stream widens up to the confluence of the Ussuri, which flows into the right bank of the Amur at Khabarofka, which is 1123 miles from Ust Strelka, and divides the Middle and Lower Amur. There are seventy-five stations between Stretinsk and Khabarofka, at which latter I arrived on the 8th of August, intending to proceed up the Ussuri. Instead of this, I had to continue down the Lower Amur, a distance of 600 miles, to Nikolaefsk, and in so doing to pass, though not necessarily to stop at, fifty-two stations. The entire basin drained by the Amur and its

tributaries covers an area of 766,000 square miles, that part of the basin belonging to the lower part of the river being formed on the west by the Bureya Mountain, and on the east by the seacoast range known as the Sikhota Alin. The course of the river is toward the north-east, and it has a current of three knots. The principal tributaries flowing into the left bank are the Kur, Gorin, and Amgun; on the right bank, the Dondon and the Khungar. But for the delays we should have accomplished the voyage from Khabarofka to Nikolaefsk in four days. At our starting the river was 900 yards wide, but we had not travelled far before it grew broader, and included many islands. At the confluence of the Dondon the channel measures three miles in width, which is the greatest breadth of the river in a single stream; seventeen miles lower, the left bank is marshy and dotted with lakes, and here the entire width of the river attains its greatest, which from bank to bank is twelve miles. We came on the third day to a village called Michailofsky. Here we waited for twenty-four hours, which afforded me an opportunity of visiting a Russian village. Cucumbers were just come in, and the people were eating them like apples. In the evening a soirée was extemporized, and the ship's company invited; and when, next morning, two of us called to pay a complimentary visit, we were invited to eat cucumbers and salt, nothing else being placed before us. We succeeded, however, in purchasing here abundance of wild raspberries, and, in returning, at the beginning of September, I bought at Tambofsk melons and ripe black currants; the latter good, but having less taste than those cultivated in England. Other berries were offered for sale, of a tart but juicy nature. It is in this district principally, I believe, that the corn of the Lower Amur is grown. They have a summer of only four months and a half, but with more energy and capital an immense quantity of rye, I was told, might be cultivated. The total cereal produce of the district between Khabarofka and Nikolaefsk amounted in the year preceding my visit to 3276 tons (203,838 poods) of grain, and 811 tons (50,450 poods) of potatoes. North of Nikolaefsk the land is not cultivated.

The natives live by hunting and fishing, and the Russian subjects are supplied with corn by the Government.

our

At Michailofsky we changed steamer, and arrived on the next morning at a Gilyak village called Mukhal, near which are some hot springs, said to be beneficial in cases of rheumatism, syphilis, diarrhoea, and goître. The man who keeps them is allowed to have a monopoly, and the Government gives him a grant of £50 a year. About midday, not far from the mouth of the Amgun, we passed another Gilyak village, called Tuir. The Amur here contracts to a width of 900 yards, and from a bold cliff on the right bank, perhaps a hundred feet high, a fine view is obtained when looking up the stream. The river's banks spread to a width of five miles, and well-wooded islands lie between. To the south are dark forests and mountain ridges, and at the back of the cliff is a table-land several miles wide.

On this hill, moreover, there are objects of archæological interest in the form of Tatar monuments bearing inscriptions, from which it has been inferred that there once stood on the spot a lama monastery. The monuments are by some supposed to have been placed there to mark how far in that direction the Tatars extended their conquests. One account dates them back to the time of Gengis Khan. The best account I have seen of them is in Mr. Ravenstein's work. He says that on the left-hand side of the principal monument are the Sanscrit words "Om-mani-badmeKhum;" that in a second line on the same side are the same words written in Chinese and Nigurian; and that the inscription on the right side contains the same in Chinese, Thibetan, and Nigurian. I myself could examine the monuments only for a few minutes (for the boat would not stop), and whether the foregoing account be true or not, 1 came to the conclusion that it is inadequate and far from exhaustive. There certainly are on the stone some large Chinese characters, perhaps two inches long, and some of my Chinese fellow-passengers were able partially to decipher them; but the general appearance of the stone reminded me of a palimpsest manuscript which had been in

the first place covered with small characters, about half an inch square or less, and over which the larger characters described by Mr. Ravenstein had been subsequently written. Beside the monumental stone, which was mounted on a pedestal and stood about five feet high, there were lying near some flat stones with transverse grooves cut across the centres, which are supposed to have been originally used, and perhaps are so used still, by the Gilyaks for sacrifices, the grooves serving to pass off the blood. Whether this be so or not I cannot say; but they looked to me much more like the capitals or bases of pillars, the grooves having been made to keep them in place. It is much to be wished that the monuments might be submitted to the examination of some competent scholar. Toward evening we passed another Gilyak habitation called the "White Village," where, in 1850, a Roman Catholic missionary named De la Brunière was killed; and about nine o'clock at night we reached Nikolaefsk. The Amur at Nikolaefsk reaches in some places to a depth of fifteen feet, is a mile and three quarters wide, with a current of from four to five knots. The river enters the sea at a distance of twenty-six miles, the liman or gulf measuring nine miles at its widest. Rather more than a mile below the town there are sandbanks, which render the navigation of the river's mouth very difficult. There is also a sandbar, which prevents the entrance of ships drawing more than thirteen feet of water.

I stayed at Nikolaefsk from the 13th to the 30th of August, but did not succeed in finding a convenient opportunity for crossing to the island of Sakhalien. The climate of Nikolaefsk cannot, I fear, be recommended to those in search of a genial air. The breaking-up of the ice and the opening of the navigation does not take place till between the 12th of May and the 1st of June, and the summer, when come, lasts only about four months. During the eight months' winter keen winds prevail, bringing snow-storms of such violence and density that I heard of a man losing himself in crossing the street from the club to his own house. The snow lies frequently from four to five feet deep.

The Russians have fourteen meteoro

logical observatories in Siberia, the two on the Pacific being situated at Nikolaefsk and Vladivostock. They register thrice daily at seven, one, and ninethe readings of the barometer; the dry and wet bulb thermometers giving the humidity of the atmosphere, record the direction of the wind, and the amount of cloud, rain, snow, etc. In their published statistics for 1877 (the last, I think, at the time of my visit), the temperature at Nikolaefsk during the month of August reached no higher than 82.8 Fahrenheit, and went down to 45.5, the mean temperature of the month being 61.9. The highest temperature of the year was 88.2, which occurred in July; the greatest cold was in February, when the thermometer fell to 26.9 below zero ; the mean temperature for the year being only 30.2. At Vladivostock, which is ten degrees to the south, the summer extends to six months and a half. The maximum temperature in the month of August, already referred to, was 89.1, which proved the highest of the year, and the minimum was 57.0, the mean for the month being 68.7. In January the degrees of cold registered were 10.8 below zero; and the mean temperature for the year was 41.5. During my stay at Nikolaefsk the summer was unusually cold. On several days it rained, and when taking an evening stroll I did not find an ulster coat too warm. On the night of August 19 the thermometer registered 45.5, and during the preceding day did not rise above 50. In Eng. land, at Blackheath, on the same days, the thermometer registered 49.7 in the night, and 70 on the preceding day.

The season, too, for garden produce was about a fortnight late. On August On August 19th we ate new potatoes. They cost 2ąd. a lb., but eight days later they cost but id. a lb. Cucumbers were ready on the 10th of August, and on the 27th they were selling for 3s. per hundred. Eggs cost 5s. per hundred, fresh butter 2s. 3d. per pound, and beef from 7d. to 8d. On August 27th we had our first spring cabbage, made into little pies and eaten with soup. The price of these cabbages" to a friend was 5d. each, but they were expected shortly to fall to from 16s. to 20s. a hundred. I do not remember tasting mutton, but was informed that a good sheep weighs about

On

half a cwt., and costs alive at Nikolaefsk from 225. to 30s. In Western Siberia, about Tomsk, a shreep can be bought for a couple of shillings. Quoting prices in a more general-Way, I may say that in Nikolaefsk and Sophrisk, the price of meat varies, according to the season, from 5d. to 9d. an English pound. the Ussuri it costs from 4d. to 6. Butter, not fresh, costs throughout the province (that is, the coast from Vladivostock to Behring's Straits) from icd. to 13 d. per lb. Black tea from 25 to 4s. the Russian pound, and brick tea from 10d. to 1s. 2d. The price of sugar varies from 6d. to 8d.

The prices, at Nikolaefsk, of game and fish were in striking contrast to some of those I have mentioned. I bought in the streets a capercailzie (called a glookhar, or deaf bird) for 10d., which was thought by no means cheap ; and a blackcock was offered for a similar price, or less. The price of fish throughout the province is stated at from 9s. to 24s. per cwt. The Amur abounds with fish, among which are the salmon, the sturgeon, sterlet, dolphin, trout, and others known by the names of sazan, karass, and a white fish called siug. The Russians think very highly of the sterlet; and the sturgeon also is costly. At Viatskoi, near Khabarofka, we were offered a small sturgeon, three feet long, for half-a-crown, but I was told that at Moscow it would cost a sovereign.

The price of salmon, however, was the most surprising. Up to the 20th of August salmon trout, weighing from ten to twelve pounds, cost as much as 5d. each, but they are then said to be dear. On the 15th of August a large salmon, the first fish of the season, and weighing perhaps fifteen pounds, was offered to me for 7d.; but this was considered quite "a fancy price.' From the Ist of September to the 17th, during which period the large fish are caught, weighing from fifteen to twenty-five pounds, they may be bought for 10s. a hundred, or a penny each! About 500 tons of salmon are salted yearly at Nikolaefsk for winter use, the Government having yearly two contracts for sixteen tons, and others besides. For the most part, however, the fish of the province is consumed where it is caught, and it is only

quite recently that exportation in small quantities has commenced."

Its

The town of Nikolaefsk extends about a mile along the west bank of the river In 1858 the inhabitants numbered 2552. They subsequently increased to about 5000, and when the town was the residence of the. governor of the province and the port for the Siberian fleet, it was a place of some importance. Now, however, its glory has departed. Grass grows and cows graze in the streets. wooden pavements are rotten, many of its houses empty; and the rusty machinery and bombshells in the arsenal and dockyard seem to have reached the time when nations are to learn war no more: There are three hospitals in the town, one for civilians and two for the soldiers. There are also two prisons, both of which I visited; one is for local offenders, the other serves as a depot for convicts on their way to Sakhalien. The authorities complain that both the prisons are old, built of bad materials, inconvenient, and wanting in proper sanitary arrangements. Some idea of the character of crimes committed in the province in 1871 may be. gathered from the following subdivision of its 114 criminals namely, insubordination to authorities, 13; breaking prison bounds and running away, 4; vagrancy, 31; murder, 5; personal violence, 11; libel and assault, 12; theft, 27; and highway robbery, 11. The chief causes of offence are officially reported as "gamgambling and drunkenness.'

Nikolaefsk, from its position at the mouth of a river which is navigable so far into Asia, will probably continue in its present commercial position, unless perchance railway communication were made from Vladivostock to the Ussuri. The population of the place is estimated at 3500 or less; and there came to it in 1878 twelve merchant vessels, bringing manufactured goods to the value of 52,7817. (527,819 roubles); alcohol, 47057. (47,050 roubles); and wines, beer and porter, 1604. (16,045 roubles). Merchandise was brought overland also to the value of 47,8437. (478,431 roubles). Complaint is made that the imported manufactures are of the lowest quality, to which a merchant made answer to me, that when he imported good articles the Russians admired them, but when he

imported cheap ones they bought them. The foreign merchants complain that, though there is an abundance of timber in the district, it is not allowed to be exported. Neither do they export corn. On the contrary, the first and second qualities of white flour used along the Amur are all imported from America, which may perhaps account for my having to pay for white bread 5d. per lb. at Stretinsk, as against five farthings at Tobolsk. About 15,000 fifty-pound bags (say 335 tons) of white flour are sold yearly in Nikolaefsk, the best costing from 4d. to 6d. per lb., the second from 3d. to 3d., and a third quality, grown at home, from 1d. to 23d. per lb. The price of rye at Nikolaefsk and Sophiisk varies from 1d. to 2d. per lb. On the Ussuri it costs rather less, and north of Nikolaefsk 2d. per lb. is asked. Labor throughout the province is scarce. Many, if not most, of the domestic servants are convict women, and many of the laborers also are convicts who have served their time. A man's wages cost 3s. a day, or, for a man and horse in summer, 6s. a day; but in winter 30s. a month and hay for the horse. A night watchman at Nikolaefsk may get as much as 37. 10s. (35 roubles) a month without board, and a man servant 27. 10s. (25 roubles) a month and his food. This would be considered good pay. There are barracks at Nikolaefsk, Government buildings, and the admiral's house; also a Russian church and a Roman chapel. On the two Sundays I was there I conducted what I was informed were the first English services held on the Amur. The police sent round notice on the Saturdays that I was to hold the services, and on the first Sunday thirty persons were present, many of whom were employés of German merchants.

Finding that I could not get by ship to Japan or China, I determined to retrace my steps by the mail boat which leaves Nikolaefsk every three weeks for Khabarofka. Accordingly, I left on the last day of August in the Onon, fitted with Belgian engines of 30 horse power, and manned by five machinists and eight sailors. We were five days making the return journey to Khabarofka, and we stopped at more stations than in descending, which afforded me opportunity of seeing and hearing more of the inhab