under the
daring outlaw had sufficed to drive the scattered Asiatic tribes before
them and to establish the sovereignty of Yermak, who then gladly
exchanged his prize with the "Orthodox Tsar" for his "traitorous head."

It was the tremendous energy of one man, Muraviev, which led to the
development of Eastern Siberia. Pathfinder and pioneer in the march
across the Asiatic continent, drawing settlers after him as he moved
along, he reached the mouth of the Amur river in 1846, and, at last,
the empire possessed a naval station upon the Pacific, which was named
Nikolaifsk, after the reigning Tsar, Nicholas I.

It was this Tsar, great-grandfather of Nicholas II., who, grimly
turning his back upon Western Europe, set the face of Russia toward the
East, reversing the direction which has always been the course of
empire. What had Russia to gain from alliances in the West? Her
future was in the East; and he intended to drive back the tide of
Europeanism which his predecessors had so industriously invited.
Russian youths were prohibited from being educated in Western
universities, and at the same time there was established at Canton a
school of instruction where they might learn the Chinese language and
the methods and spirit of Chinese civilization. It was a determined
purpose to Orientalize his empire. And violating all the traditions of
history, the flight of the Russian Eagle from that moment was toward
the rising, not the setting sun.

Muraviev, now Governor of the Eastern Provinces of Siberia, was
empowered to negotiate a treaty with China to determine the rights of
the two nations upon the river Amur, which separated Manchuria, the
northernmost province of China, from Russian Siberia. The treaty,
which was concluded in 1858, conceded the left bank of this river to
Russia.

Nikolaifsk, a great part of the year sealed up with ice, was only a
stepping-stone for the next advance southward. From the mouth of the
Amur to the frontier of Korea there was a strip of territory lying
between the sea on the east and the Ussuri river on the west, which to
the Russian mind, at that time, seemed an ideal possession. How it was
accomplished it is needless to say; but China reluctantly agreed that
there should be for a time a joint occupation of this strip, and, in
1859, needing Russia's friendship, it was unconditionally bestowed.
The "Ussuri Region" was now transformed into the "_Maritime Provinces
of Siberia_," and the Rus