'the avarice of the conquerors, who retained the surplus for 'themselves. The Kurile Islands were first invaded in 1711. The Russia of the eighteenth century was a different country from the Muscovy of earlier times. The Czar Peter had brought his realm into definite contact with the States of the West, and the knowledge imported from Western Europe rapidly bore fruit. Scientific men, desirous of learning more about the extremities of the continents of Asia and America, brought the subject under the notice of Peter the Great, who drew up with his own hand instructions for an expedition to explore the eastern shores of his empire. Behring was appointed to the command. He reached Okhotsk in the summer of 1727, built and equipped two vessels, and in the next year coasted along the shore of Kamchatka, and sailed through the straits which bear his name. He made several subsequent cruises. In 1740, with two ships, the 'St. Peter' and the St. Paul,' he entered the splendid bay of Avatcha, on a harbour of which was founded the town of Petropaulovsk, a place that became better known to us during the Crimean war.

As might have been expected in a remote region inhabited by a few scattered tribes of savages, the boundary was but little respected by the Russian settlers, and frequent representations on the subject were made by the Chinese authorities to the Governor of Nerchinsk. These representations were, as a rule, carefully considered, and infractions of the treaty were, as far as possible, repressed, at all events for some years. But about the middle of the eighteenth century scientific expeditions were sent in pretty quick succession to explore the Amoor country. These explorations were continued till near the middle of the present century, till within a few years, in fact, of the date of the final cession of the district to Russia. A hundred and forty years ago the advantages of the free navigation of the Amoor to the Russians were pointed out, and the facilities it would afford for the supply of the settlements in Kamchatka. In 1805 Admiral Krusenstern proposed to occupy Aniwa Bay at the southern extremity of Sakhalin, and in the following year a Russian officer actually took possession of the bay, but this proceeding was subsequently disavowed. Diplomatic attempts were made at Peking to obtain the right of navigating the Amoor,* or, at the least, of annually sending a few ships down it with provisions. To back up these negotiations it was proposed to make a hostile demonstration by building a flotilla of gunboats on the river. A scientific

*The Pacific and the Amoor, by F. Marx (London, 1861), p. 4.

journey undertaken by Middendorf in 1844 along the frontier drew particular attention to the Amoor region, and accounts of early Russian adventure in that part of the world began to be published in several Russian newspapers, some of them Government organs.

An important event occurred in 1847. This was the appointment of a very distinguished and able man, Count Nicholas Muravief, as Governor of Eastern Siberia. One of his first acts was to send a small party of exploration down the Amoor. This expedition was never heard of again. He then ordered the coasts of the Sea of Okhotsk and the mouth of the river to be surveyed. In 1850 Lieutenant Orlof entered the Amoor from the sea, and in 1851 Nikolayevsk and Mariinsk, the latter just inland of Castries Bay, were founded. Two years after posts were established in the Gulf of Tartary, at Castries Bay itself, and in Port Imperial, and about the same time a small steamer, which had been bought in England, and had accompanied Admiral Putiatin's squadron to the Pacific, when the clouds were gathering for the war in the East which ended in the Crimea, wintered in the Amoor. The Russians had then obtained a firm footing on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. American gentleman, Mr. M'Donough Collins, who published twenty years ago an interesting account of his travels* in Siberia and the Amoor country, speaking of the gradual 'but steady advance of the Sclavonic power,' observes: Now 'the Russian finds himself master of the easternmost limits of 'the ancient dominions of Gengis.' Possession de facto had been obtained; the legal title was to be gained afterwards.

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General Muravief's foresight in securing positions in this quarter of the world soon received striking exemplification. In 1854 his country was at war with England and France. Both of these nations had squadrons in the Pacific Ocean, on which the trade of each had already become considerable, and since the opening of the Chinese ports had been gravitating continually towards the north. An attack made on two Russian ships and some strong earthworks at Petropaulovsk in Kamchatka failed, and another division of the Russian naval force in Castries Bay, on the Gulf of Tartary, succeeded in 1855 in eluding an English squadron detached for the purpose of watching them. Muravief had ably prepared to meet all contingencies of the war. At the end of May, 1854, he proceeded down the Amoor in a steamer which had been trans

A Voyage down the Amoor, with a Land Journey through Siberia. New York, 1860.

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ported to the banks of the Shilka, and been there put together, accompanied by a flotilla of barges carrying a thousand men and several guns. Provisions were consequently in readiness for two frigates which called for them at Cape Lazaref. After the unsuccessful attack by the allies, the Kamchatka garrison was withdrawn to Nikolayevsk, and strongly reinforced by successive detachments sent down the Amoor, in defiance of the opposition of the Chinese mandarins. These were accompanied by hundreds of colonists, and settlements were made at several points. Steamers were launched on the river, and a considerable naval force came to regard the posts on the Gulf of Tartary as their head-quarters. In the autumn of 1857 the territory of the Amoor was constituted a separate government, under the designation of the Maritime 'Province of Eastern Siberia; the district above the mouth of the Usuri was subsequently formed into the Amoor Pro'vince.' In 1858, by the treaty of Aigun, China ceded to Russia the left bank of the great river down to the confluence of the Usuri, and below that point both banks. This treaty was afterwards disavowed by the Chinese authorities, but their difficulties with France and England, whose armies occupied Peking, enabled General Ignatief to obtain a second treaty in November, 1860, which confirmed his sovereign in possession of the territories above named, and more minutely defined the boundaries. This acquisition of territory,' said a writer in this Journal eight years ago, magnificent as it was in the 'vast extent of country thereby added to the Russian dominions, 'had its chief value-for the moment at least-in the fact of its 'conferring the long-coveted advantage of accessible harbours 'on the Pacific in a comparatively temperate latitude, where 'navigation is impeded by ice for at the most three or four 'months during the year. The southernmost gulf of the newly 'ceded region, lying in latitude 43° N., contains numerous 'fine harbours and inlets.' The river Tumen was now the southern boundary of Russia in these parts, and divided its province from the kingdom of Corea. The territory has been finally rounded off and completed, as it were, by the treaty with Japan, made in 1875, by which the latter cedes to Russia, in exchange for the Kurile islands, the southern portion of the great island of Sakhalin.

*

Mr. Ravenstein, the title of whose most useful and interesting work has been placed at the head of this article, gives an ample account of the climate, productions, and general character

* Edinburgh Review, No. cclxxviii., p. 307.

of these new provinces. That with which we are concerned at present is the condition of the sea-ports and the naval forces which belong to the recently acquired dominion. Since the publication of Mr. Ravenstein's volume, though little has been done to develope the natural resources of the splendid coast province, it has already been rendered a more efficient base for the squadron depending on it for supplies and harbours. Our information on this point is far from extensive; indeed, very little is known in England of the progress made in this direction in the region under consideration. In the year 1877 Captain John C. Colomb, who has long been known as a writer on the proper distribution of our forces and the best method of protecting our vast ocean commerce, read a very important paper on this subject at the Royal United Service Institution. From that document and from the discussion to which it gave rise-both of which are reported in full in the number of the Journal of the Institution prefixed to the present article-much instruction may be derived. To the information there obtainable we propose to add some which we have been able to acquire of a later date.

The mouth of the Tumen, which forms the southern boundary of maritime Siberia, is but little north of the forty-second parallel, and thence to Castries Bay is a stretch of coast upwards of seven hundred miles in extent. This coast is indented with frequent harbours, some of them not only very secure as anchorages, but also easily defensible. From the forty-sixth parallel northwards the long narrow island of Sakhalin, which now entirely belongs to the Czar, reaches to the Sea of Okhotsk, and forms a kind of natural breakwater to many of the ports on the mainland. Unlike the latter, it is entirely without harbours, and though much good coal can be obtained from it, particularly at Dui, the insecurity of the roadsteads throws many difficulties in the way of its shipment. This great island screen forms with the continent south of the Amoor the Gulf of Tartary, and north of it the estuary, or Liman of the Amoor.' The latter is in most places very shallow, the waters of the great river flowing into it with such rapidity that banks of sand and mud have been formed. which cover almost its whole surface, barely leaving two shallow channels, one running to the north and the other to the south. The result is, that the entrance of the river is difficult and at times dangerous. Nikolayevsk, the early capital of the maritime region, stands on the left bank, about twenty miles from the mouth. The population, including the garrison, was stated in 1873 to amount to five thousand. But

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a year later Captain Bax, who visited the place in H.M.S. Dwarf,' says that a move was already commenced to a station further south. Nikolayevsk, though it enjoys the advantages of being on the direct line by which supplies are brought from the interior, and of a position sufficiently far up the river to render the approach of a hostile squadron difficult, has many disadvantages. It is frozen in for several months every year, and is inaccessible to vessels of large size. Castries Bay, about a hundred miles further south, is a less secure harbour, and is equally closed by ice. It is, however, nearer to the bend of the Amoor before the latter turns due north. 'There is,' says Captain Bax, 'quick communication with the river over a short strip of land, and then by steamer across a lake, 'which cuts off a very long distance round.'

Passing over several harbours of no small merit, we come at length to Olga Bay, which is south of the forty-fourth parallel of latitude. Though open to the south, there is shelter from all winds in its northern part, in which the largest ships can lie. Captain Bax informs us that there is an outer and an inner harbour, the outer one being quite safe. The settlement, at his visit, seemed a busy and thriving place, the only one 'where we saw any farming carried on; cattle and sheep were ' plentiful and cheap.' In the move which has been in progress for some time towards the south, Olga Bay appears to have been selected as completing one of the stages, and, for a short period, it was the most southern port occupied. Its advantages are considerable without doubt. There is now a report that the naval head-quarters are to be removed to it from Vladivostok. This, however, is probably inaccurate, as exactly the same report was current in 1876.

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Vladivostok, or the Dominion of the East,' lies in the deep bight formed in the coast line some seventy or eighty miles from the mouth of the Tumen river. We speak from personal experience when we say that this harbour is one of the finest in the world. There is an outer anchorage, which is a fairly snug roadstead, called the Eastern Bosphorus. From this runs direct to the right the inner harbour, called the Golden Horn, after a less convenient, if more celebrated, port in Europe. This is about three miles long, and not much above half a mile wide. The largest ships can ride within a few yards of the shore. The peculiar form of the port renders its defence by torpedoes and batteries easy. Several of the latter were erected in 1877, and it is reported recently that a considerable number of torpedoes have been constructed in Japan for conveyance to this and other places in Maritime Siberia.