et
above the river. Its fields and gardens extend back from the river
wherever the land is fertile and easiest cleared of the forest. On the
opposite side of the river there are meadows where the peasants engage
in hay cutting. The general appearance of the place was like that of
an ordinary village on the lower St. Lawrence, though there were many
points of difference.

In several rye fields the grain had been cut and stacked. Near our
landing was a mill, where a man, a boy, and a horse were manufacturing
meal at the rate of seven poods or 280 pounds a day. The whole
machinery was on the most primitive scale.

Entering the house of the mill-owner I found the principal apartment
quite neat and well arranged, its walls being whitewashed and
decorated with cheap lithographs and wood-cuts. Among the latter were
several from the Illustrated London News and _L'Illustration
Universelle_. The sleeping room was fitted with bunks like those on
steamboats, though somewhat wider. There was very little clothing on
the beds, but several sheepskin coats and coverlids were hanging on a
fence in front of the house.

Borasdine had business at the telegraph station, whither I accompanied
him. The operator furnished a blank for the despatch, and when it was
written and paid for he gave a receipt. The receipt stated the hour
and minute when the despatch was taken, the name of the sender, the
place where sent, the number of words, and the amount paid. This form
is invariably adhered to in the Siberian telegraph service.

The telegraph on the lower Amoor was built under the supervision of
Colonel Romanoff and was not completed at the time of my visit. It
commenced at Nicolayevsk and followed the south bank of the Amoor to
Habarofka at the mouth of the Ousuree. At Mariensk there was a branch
to De Castries, and from Habarofka the line extended along the Ousuree
and over the mountains to Posyet and Vladivostok. From Habarofka it
was to follow the north bank of the Amoor to the Shilka, to join the
line from Irkutsk and St. Petersburg. Arrangements have been made
recently to lay a cable from Posyet to Hakodadi in Japan, and thence
to Shanghae and other parts of China. When the cable proposed by Major
Collins is laid across the Pacific Ocean, and the break in the Amoor
line is closed up, the telegraph circuit around the globe will be
complete.

The telegraph is operated on the Morse system with instruments of
Prussian manufacture. Compared