THE RUSSIANS ON THE AMUR.*
Tars is not a book of travels, but a geographical and statistical memoir, compiled from various sources, and forming a kind of one- volume encyclopredia on the subject of which it treats. We do not mean that its form is that of a dictionary, for its contents are sys- tematically arranged, but that it is extremely comprehensive, and on almost every point on which a question could be asked about the Simi., smile information—if any exists—will be found under one or other of its numerous sectiens. The work is divided into two parts, of which the first traces the history of the Russian settlements in those regions, from the date of their original encroachment, down to the treaty of the 11th November of last year; while the second gives a minute though condensed account of the geography of the Amur, of its tributanes, and of the coast in the neighbourhood of its mouth, with a description of its animal, vegetable, and mineral productions, and of its native inhabitants. There is also a chapter on the com- mercial resources and facilities of the country. 'fhe 'book has, of course, no pretensions to the freshness of a narrative of personal ex- pronition and adventure, but it is by no means unpleasant reading even from this point of view, while for those who are possessed of the geographical taste, which is in some degree a thing apart, it will have a high degreenf interest. To those who care less about the political or scientific aspects of the subject may be recommended the chapter on the native inhabitants, and minds of a speculative turn will find the one on the commercial prospects of the territory far from unacceptable. For these, as well as for his historical sketch, Mr. Ravenstein appears to have had recourse to trustworthy sources of information. The annals of the exploits and sufferings of the early Russian pioneers have been published at St. Petersburg, and have formed the basis of German compilations. Much of the geographical description has been derived from the labours of the Jesuit missionaries settled in the north of China, some of whom essayed to spread Christianity in these barbarous regions, at the cost of terrible -hardship, and apparently Russians on the Amur: its Discovery, Conquest, and Colonisation. With a D.- tertption of the Country, its Inhabitants, Productions, and Commercial Capabilities; and Personal Accounts of Russian 2'ravellera, By E. G. Ravenstein, F.R.G.S. Illustrated. Trills:ter and Co.
with very little success. Since the Crimean war, the Amur has been explored by various Russian travellers from whose works is taken the account of the productions of the country and of' the native customs; while personal communication with men who have resided in the district has furnished the author with data for his remarks on the purely commercial side of the question. The inhabitants of Manchuria, through which the Amur chiefly; flows, are mentioned in the Chinese annals as early as eleven centuries before Christ. Between that date and the beginning of the seven- teenth century of our era the country underwent the vicissitudes common to Oriental powers ; at one time the seat of a powerful empire, whose sovereign was addressed as " most sacred" by the Chinese potentate; at another paying tribute to him; finally, sending out a dynasty which possessed itself of the throne of China, leaving, it would seem, its native soil to be gradually acquired by a still more powerful, though as yet unsuspected, neighbour. The Russians first appeared on the Amur in 1643. Having steadily advanced through Siberia, they at length came to the shore of the eastern sea, where they founded the town of Okhotsk, and where they heard of the river, which, after flowing through a fertile country, emptied itself into the sea, about 400 miles to the South. From the basin of this stream, the Russian territories were then separated by the watershed of the Olekma and Dzeya mountains, in which the northern tributa- ries of the Amur take their rise. Across these an expedition was organized from the town of Yakutsk, which had recently begun to acquire some importance as a depot of the fur trade. It was placed under the command of a Cossack named Poyarkof, who took with him 132 men, with provisions and ammunition. He ascended the river Aldan, on the northern slope of the mountains, crossed them, not without much hardship, and having struck upon one of the afflu- ents of the Amur, was hospitably received at the first Daurian village at which he arrived. He sent forward one of his officers to a settle- ment lower down, who met with similar treatment. Both made an ill return to their entertainers, detained some of them as hostages, and pat no bounds to their rapacity. They were beaten off, and had to prosecute their journey with the loss of about fifty men from starvation; but finally reached the mouth of the Amur, wintered there, and returned to Yakutsk in 1646.
The history of this first expedition is, in substance that of all the subsequent ones, which were numerous. All were distinguished by cruelty and oppression towards the natives, whose spirit, which at first had been friendly, was from time to time roused to bloody retaliations, which of course did not ultimately retard the advance of their con- querors. As usually happens in such cases, the respective govern- ments interfered when the mischief had been done ; but, from the rewards bestowed by that of Russia on some of the successful adven- turers, it does not appear that any strong disapproval was felt of the irregular course which had been pursued. The Chinese complained of the encroachments of the Russians; the latter sent envoys to Pekin to pacify them, and went on building Rifts all the same. At last, in 1683, a regular war was commenced, which, after various reverses on both sides, was concluded by the treaty. of Nerchinsk (1689), by which the whole of the Amur was nominally restored to China; but, owing either to ignorance of the geography of the district, or to the unsettled boundaries of the hunting-grounds belonging to the tribes subject to the respective powers, the Chinese appear to have given up about 23,000 square miles of territory to which they were right- fully entitled, instead of defining their limits by the watershed of the mountains which separate the basin of the Amur from that of the Lena. Matters continued in this state till 1847, when Russia again began to feel her way. Count Muravief, then governor-general of Eastern Siberia, re-explored the river, to the mouth of which a naval expedition. was also despatched. Between 1850 and 1854 five Russian towns were founded on or about the Lower Amur, and SGOR after a Russian expedition was sent down the river to supply the Russian squadron in the Pacific with provisions. To this the Chinese offered no resistance, and three more expeditions descended the river the year after. Muravief continued to form more Russian stations ; a postal service was organized, and steamers began to make their appearance. In 1857 the Russians attempted to negotiate a boun- dary treaty with China, but nothing was then effected, though the Russian encroachments continued to be streng, thened at every opportunity. Treaties, however, were concluded in 1858, by which the left bank of the Amur down to its junction with the Usuri river, and both banks below that point, were ceded to Russia; a result due in some measure to the dread of European power which the English war before the affair of the Takn forts had infused into the Chinese mind. After the repulse of the English on the Peiho, , the Chinese Government assumed a somewhat hostile attitude to- wards Russia; but, through the occupation of Pekin by the allies, contrary influences began to work, and on the 14th of .November of last year another treaty was signed on terms even more favourable to Russia than any of the previous arrangements; for, in addition to the banks of both rivers, the whole of the sea-coast of Manchuria, from the northern frontier of Korea, as well as the territory between that and the Amur, was annexed to the Russian empire.
It is difficnit to overrate the value to Russia of the country thus acquired. Its extent, in the first place, is vast, being probably larger, for instance, than that of Asia Minor; it is well watered by magm- ficent rivers, abounding in fish, covered with forests of fine timber adapted for all kinds of purposes, from ship-building to cabinet-work, and possessing in most parts a fertile soil, favourable, except in the more exposed localities, to the cultivation of cereals, as well as of common. vegetables and tobacco. Much more important than this, however, is its geographical position, which has enabled Russia to turn the corner of the Arctic regions, and given her a vantage- ground in climate tinder which the rivers are blockaded by ice during only six months in the year. Any one who looks at a map of Asia will see that, previously to this acquisition, the whole of the Asiatic possessions of Russia lay to the north of the great watershed of the continent, and that all its rivers emptied themselves north of the Arctic Circle. The great chain of mountains, which, beginning in Turkestan, east of the Aral sea, runs across Asia nearly on the fiftieth parallel of latitude, comes too near to the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk to allow a river of any mag. nitude to Sow into the latter, and thus the commerce of Siberia has, till now, had no outlet except through Europe. The Amur falls into the sea in latitude fifty-three degrees, which has improved the climatic position of Russia by about twenty degrees ; while, putting the navigability of rivers out of the question, she has acquired a sea- board with excellent bays and harbours, extending about ten degrees still further south, the lowest point of which is as nearly as possible - opposite to the strait which separates the two islands of Japan. Nor
can we suppose that the treaty of last year is a final one, and that further encroachments will not be made. A river like the Amur is a much less stable frontier than the top of a range of mountains ; Russia has 14,000 men in the country, and the Chinese are weak neighbours. The great peninsula of Korea (about as large as Portugal) is in tempting proximity, and at no very distant date we may expect to hear of the Russian boundary extending to the point. where the Great Wall of China touches the Gulf of Pecheli.
What influence the Cossack immigration has already had, or is likely to have, upon the native inhabitants, Mr. Ravenstein's work gives no sufficient means of ascertaining. As long as the natives fsznislied their tribute of furs and whatever was wanted by tate settlers in the way of provisions, the Russians do not seem to have troubled themselves about their moral or religious con- dition. There is an establishment of the Greek Church at Pekin, but its members have never engaged in missionary work. The only efforts in this line have been those of the Roman Catholic mis- sionaries since 1838, the extracts from whose journeys form some of the most interesting portions of this volume. The population with whom they had to deal was, in some districts, about the most nn- farsourable that could be imagined. At the junction of the Amur with the Usuri, M.. de la Bruniere found a settlement of Chinese, all of whom were robbers, murderers, and other fugitives from justice ; while the Manchurians proper (known, from their style of dress, as the "Fish-skins") were addicted to the worship of the spirits of the stag, fox, and weasel, after celebrating which they always got drunk upon brandy. Among these people, naturally enough, "the Ten Commandments were universally deemed an insupportable burden," though the missionary's doctrine was, in a purely theoretical point nf view, not objected to. At another place, M. de la Bruniere, while some of the tribes of the Yupitatze were engaged in fishing, set himself "to catch men." Neither party had any success in their pursuit, and just as they were turning to go, he seized one of their lines, threw it in, and caught a large fish directly. He took advan- tage of the respect this feat gained for him to intimate that he had even more valuable secrets to impart, by which they could escape the evil spirits and go straight to heaven: 44. The next day, three long beards of the village made their appearance in my chamber, armed with a jug of brandy and four glasses.
" Your secret,' said they, is of awful consequence. If our importunity does not hurt your feelings, we would wish to know in what it consists. Let us begin by drinking.'
"Notwithstanding the natural repugnance which I have for Chinese brandy, I thought it necessary to accept the invitation, in order to avoid incurring the aversion of these poor people, who could be made to know or understand nothing but through this channel. I then commenced to de- velop my secret,' by explaining the dogma of original sin, of hell, of the salvation wrought by AIMS Christ, and the application by the sacraments of the merits of the Saviour. It wasin the simplest manner, and by familiar comparisons, that I proceeded. But unluckily, my interrogators taking ten or twelve bumpers to my one, became in five or six minutes incapable of understanding anything."
It is lamentable to find, that the writer of this letter paid with his life for his benevolent attempt ; not at the hands of the people who figure in the above extract, but at those of a predatory tribe, lower down the river, who thought him worth robbing, and to whom the idea did not occur that a man could be robbed without being killed.
Amongst the customs of the various tribes some are curious. The Daurians have an ingenious way of warming their huts, something like that used in greenhouses. A fire is made outside, and the smoke is conducted through wooden tubes, laid under the settees, which sur- round the inside walls, and on which the family sleep ; it finally emerges at the top of the hut. They catch fish when the rivers are frozen by striking the ice at the spot where a fish is resting close underneath; this stuns him, and he is then taken out through a hole. Another tribe hang up the fish outside the houses, which is guarded by an eagle, chained near it, who is allowed to help himself on condi- tion of frightening off other birds. The marriage custom of the Tunguzians is singular. The father chooses his son's bride while both are in infancy, and the girl, with her parents' consent, comes to live with her future father-in-law, where both are brought up to- gether like brother and sister, till they are considered to be of mar- riageable age, which, however, is generally fixed much too early. Among the Mangans, each native village has its bear-cage, where the animal is kept alive to be trotted out on festivals: "In hunting the bear the natives exhibit a great deal of intrepidity. In order not to excite his posthumous revenge, they never attempt to sur- prise him, but have a fair stand-up fight. When it is not desired to secure a bear alive, the Tailgate uses a spear, which he holds firmly planted in the ground, with the point directed towards the bear, upon which the beast throws himself. It is much more exciting sport to catch a living beast. A party of ten men or more, enter the forest provided with straps, a muzzle, and a collar with a chain attached to it. Having discovered the where-. abouts of the beast, a battue is instituted. The individual near whom the bear debouches jumps upon his back in the twinkling of an eye, and seizes hold of his ears. Another man then rapidly throws a running knot round the neck of the beast, and almost suffocates him. He is then muzzled, and the collar is fastened round his neck, and the chain passed between the hind legs. He is led in triumph to the village, and put into his cage. These bear-hunts do not always pass without accident, and one frequently enoomaters an individual frightfully mutilated, a living witness of the dangers encountered with this redoubtable denizen of the forest. Ouse in his wooden cage, the bear is fattened on fish. On high festivals, Nchen it is derived to lead him forth, some of the planks of the roof are taken oat, and the beast is teased until it stands upon its hind legs, when a sling is thrown round its body, and the roof uncovered sufficiently for him to get out. Having succeeded in dragging him forth, one of the men jumps upon his back, again getting hold of the ears, whilst the others tie his paws, and place an iron chain in his mouth. He is then bound between two fixed poles, an involuntary witness of the frolicking going on before him. On very grand occasions, he takes a more direct share in the festival, by being killed with superstitious ceremonies, scrupulously observed on an such occa- sions. The skull, jawbones, and ears are then suspended on a tree, as an antidote against evil spirits ; but the flesh is eaten and much relished, for they believe that all who partake of it acquire a zest for the chase, and become courageous. Sometimes Bruin escapes this fate by scraping a large hole beneath his cage, and escaping to the forests."
Mr. Ravenstein's last chapter, on the commercial wants and re- sources of the country, is well worth looking at. Trade at present is free, and will continue so for twenty years, and merchandise can be imported tia the Amur, not only to the districts immediately adjacent, but to the heart of Southern Siberia, at a cheaper rate than the pro- duce of European Russia. On the other hand, the resources of the country being as yet undeveloped, the exports are trifling, and timber, the article which would be in the greatest request, is not allowed to be exported at all. The police, too, show their usual tendency to aunoying interference ; so that a cargo for Manchuria must be considered at present a rather hazardous venture.
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