Another explorer, whose book of memoirs has just been republished in Soviet Russia, was Prjevalsky, who started on the first of his two famous trips in 1867, exploring the Ussurivsky region, the southern part of the Maritime provinces that had recently been annexed to Russia. The rich flora and fauna of this belt where the south met the north seemed to have stirred the imagination of the explorer. Certainly there is a strain of poetry running throughout his accounts of hunting in the almost impenetrable forests abounding with bear, sable and tiger, of fishing in ihe Hanka lake so teeming with fish that they were killed by a shi wheels and often jumped on to its very deck, and even of the insects near the Sungacha river that were so plentiful that "im walking through a field they swarm about the' feet in clouds that can be compared only to a swirling snow-storm." In summer tall grass overgrow the plains and fields, and to facilitate hunting the natives set fire to the limitless sea of dry grass. The mighty fire spread with terrific speed, and the awesome picture of hundreds of animals and urds fleeing before the columns of smoke is, once seen, says Prjeval forever inscribed in the memory.
The first time he'"saw this sight on- his way to Vladivostok, then a newly established Russian town of soldiers' barracks, five foreign, houses, approximately ten Chinese huts and a number of stores
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.