a morning with Mr. Chase in calling upon several foreign
merchants and their families. The most prominent of the merchants is
Mr. Ludorf, a German, who went there in 1856, and has transacted a
heavy business on the Amoor and in Japan and China. Mrs. Ludorf
followed her husband in 1858, and was the first foreign lady to enter
Nicolayevsk.

The most interesting topic to Mr. Chase and the ladies was that of
cooks. Within two weeks there had been much trouble with the _chefs de
cuisine_, and every housekeeper was in deep grief. Servants are the
universal discomfort from the banks of the Hudson to those of the
Amoor. Man to be happy must return to the primitive stages of society
before cooks and housemaids were invented.

The hills around Nicolayevsk are covered with forests of small pines.
Timber for house building purposes is rafted from points on the Amoor
where trees are larger. Formerly the town was in the midst of a
forest, but the vicinity is now pretty well cleared. Going back from
the river, the streets begin grandly, and promise a great deal they do
not perform. For one or two squares they are good, the third square is
passable, the fourth is full of stumps, and when you reach the fifth
and sixth, there is little street to be found. I never saw a better
illustration of the road that commenced with a double row of shade
trees, and steadily diminished in character until it became a
squirrel-track and ran up a tree. There is very little agriculture in
the vicinity, the soil and climate being unfavorable. The chief supply
of vegetables comes from the settlements on the south bank of the
river up to Lake Keezee, and along the shores of the lake. All the
ordinary garden vegetables are raised, and in some localities they
attain goodly size.

Every morning there was a lively scene at the river's edge in front of
the town. Peasants from the farming settlements were there with
articles for sale, and a vigorous chaffering was in progress. There
were soldiers in grey coats, sailors from the ships in the harbor,
laborers in clothing more or less shabby, and a fair sprinkling of
aboriginals. To an American freshly arrived the natives were quite a
study. They were of the Mongol type, their complexions dark, hair
black, eyes obliquely set, noses flat, and cheek bones high. Most of
them had the hair plaited in a queue after the Chinese fashion. Some
wore boots of untanned skin, and a few had adopted those of Russian
make. They