Accinest axp A Tate or Horror.
For hundreds of miles the broad, shallow but swift-llewing Amur river curved and swept eastwards among the hills, the left bank Russian, the right bank Chinese. Then it made long stretches to the south. Never the sight of a hut was there on the Chinese side, but at long intervals a ragged grey patch on the Russi—slopes told of a village.
To the eye it was an exceeding fair land. Yet, as I have pointed out, the Siberian is no agriculturalist and the lethargy of the Tartar makes him mentally rheumatie, He won't work to-day because it is a saint's day; he can't work to-morrow because it is Sunday; then comes Monday and everybody knows that it is unlucky to commence anything on a Monday. So the crops fail.
The winter months stretch from September to May when the land Ties frozen. There is no spring. In three days or a week at the outside winter disappears and blazing summer comes. All nature strives to make a rapidity that is amazing. Again the has ce eye for opportunity. He sows his corn when it is too late and he does not think of reaping till the wheat is Thalf rotten in the An ust rains.
Twice a day the little steamer Admiral Tschehachoff—called after a former Minister of Marines who never rose to much popularity, chiefly I fancy owing to the unpronounceability of his name—would drop anchor near one of these villages to take on passengers. At every place were slither-limbed, pale-faced Chinamen, who had no money and wanted a cheap passage. Some of these Celestials were in their native attire, blue-bloused. baggy breeched, with greasy little skull caps and their scanty pigtails elongated with pieces of black cord. Some, however, bad met civilisation half way. There' was one skinny old fellow with parchment face who had on a Russian cap much too large for him, so ho held his head far back and squinted down his nose to look under the brim. Also he wore a huge pair of Russian top boots, far too large for him. So in walking he made a clatter like a small son, aged three, who has a father's shoes. There was a long-shanked Chinaman whose nether garments were truly Chinese.
But for jacket he wore a red and black striped "blazer" and for hat an old English straw with a dirty yellow and blue band.
Their tales were voluble and their countenance melancholy and so ther got their fron passages and grinned triumphantly.
The captain of the Admiral Tschehachaff was a smart young man, quite the sailor, blue eyed. with flaxen torpedo beard and clad in the conventional navy blue with gold braid. Along with him was a pilot, a hulking Muscovite who wore an enormous fur coat and a great fur cap through all the heat of, the day. Tt didn't take long to work up admiration for the Amur pilots. The river is full of traps and the channel must be sonzht aren in broad sheets of water. Now and then there was a jar and a quivering as the vessel touched bottom and scoured the river bed. The captain said that often he had to land all is passengers, to lighten the ship so he could force it to go humping orer the rocks for five or six versts.
Tf there was no fog the steamer jonrnoved "through the nicht. We had starlight bnt the deep shadows of the on-closing hills seemed to bulge ant hanks where there were no hanks. But always wore the twinkling little oil lamps. for uidance—blinking white on Russian soil. dim ruby on the Chinese, and by steering from light to Haht there was a fair cer tainty of being in the channel.
Yot T should not nse the word " always."" On the second night we were in the Amur there was missing a red lamp on. the China side. The consequence was that roing full steam from white light to white icht our shin just at midnight climbed with a crash on a bank of shingle. Then was excitement.
The engines were reversed and the steamer dragged herself off. Rut cho was tugging the convict hare T have already mentioned and this barge with considarable way on came tilting her nose right into the stern of the steamer. There w: the er ch of broken wood and ripped plates.
In the darkness no one could see what had happened. The convict ship however swung off. The captain of the steamer gave orders for the helm to he put orer on the starboard side, and the engines to go full steam. The engines did ce full steam. But alas the rudder had gone and this was not known till the steamer. as a sort of revenge, went furiously into the convict ship. which she did not injure though she smashed in her own bow.
We had a really lively an of hour. Tt was pitch dark and the lamp on the ship accentuated the dark nose, Everything was at sixes and sevens and evershody shouted orders and cursed the captain, and the women wailed and were certain drowning was their lot. The two boats, however, were got alongside the Russian bank and there we bung. till morning light came. Meanwhile a hor been cot from somewhere and a man sas sent off a thi y-six hours.
smok Personally I didn't regret it. We were a pretty cure Int 2 purple haze and the river ike a bit of scenery in the Lake riot. Two hundred yards away was China: the thick trees were a of saffron and ruddy tin On our side stretched a plain dotted with leafless bitch, the bare boughs stretching like grey antlers and a couple of miles off reared bluff crags. The morning gave me portunity, for which there was no pro-ion on board ship, to have a bathe. I took a walk, some miles up stream, through long and tufted grass and there hsel the luxury of a swim.
The day warm. There_was_no sound of a bird or of animal. 7 en the et flowed with a strange stillness. The silence played curiously on the nerves. I sat for an hour, a sort of amateur Robin-sei Crusoe, fairly certain that no other men had ever before been there musing on the scene.
There was a rustle among the trees, coming nearer and nearer. A graceful antelope sprang out not twenty yards from me. For nearly a minute we looked at each other. neither moving. Then it tripped down to the brink and swam the ver.
In the afternoon I took a tramp inland—rough going for the ground was broken, reedy and swampy—and had a stiff climb anzong the pines till T got on the hill top. As far as eye could reach was a land of wooded hills all splashed with autumnal hucs, The river stretched far away like a streak of silver.
At night, as dusk was falling, fires were lit on the bank and here the peasant passengers cooked their meals, making pic-rescue figures in the glow of the flames. Than many of them sang. They were tutored folks, but instinctively they seemed to take up different parts and with winning, soothing cadence they sang their Slavonic songs far into the hushful night.
In the morning the tug boat had arrived. We were tethered to it and side by side we went our way without further mishap.
The Amur became deeper and broader until indeed it was a magnificent river. Woe passed other boats going up stream, stern-wheelers, two-deckers, with long hin chimney stacks—exactly the kind of beats to be seen on the American rivers. The hills fell away to undulating pasture land. one place there was a heave and the hillside presented a sandy face. High up could easily be traced a black streak of antediluvian vegetation twixt sand and sand. The Russians called this "the smoking mountain." There had been spontaneous combustion in the vegetation and in places smoke was oozing. Without attention being called to the real cause you might imagine the smoke was from smouldering fires left by wandering peasants.
On the afternoon of Saturdar, September 21st, we reached Blagovestchensk, the principal town between Irkutsk and the waters of the Pacific. Half a dozen steamers lay moored to floating wharves, a large one flying the mail flag leaving in 2 couple of hours for Khabarovsk. a three days' journey further down river. Through passengers having to make hurried tran-rit. I bade bon vorago to my acquaintances the Russian and French Indies, who were getting a little tired of Siberi eager for the prettiness of lauded J They went on, I decided to stay Rlazovestchensk five days till the next post boat went down stream. Therefore T piled my belongings on a droshki and toll the hairy faced driver to take me to the Grand Hotel—with much misgiving about the kind of place it would tum out tobe. And as There grumbled about other hotels T will give this its due. Tt was excellent. Its front was tawdry, blue and white stucco. much like the French hotels you find overlooking Swiss lakes, hut it was clean, well furnished. electric lighted and its manager. a Frenchman, could appreciate a Britisher's desire for water and plenty of it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.