THE LORDLY AMOUR

Fair as was the scene that first bright June day on the Amour, we could not altogether forget that we were in Siberia, for, as the lines of the _Baron Korff_ were cast off, another steamer of like pattern anchored just beyond moved out of our way, and we saw that she was towing a convict barge, and the faces of the poor fellows bound for dismal exile could be seen, pressing close up to the bars of their floating cage. These prisoners were bound for Saghalien Island, a thousand miles away, at the mouth of the Amour.

No sooner had the _Baron Korff_ gotten clear of the pier than we found that she, too, towed a convict barge, and henceforth, for days and days, for hundreds of miles, one of these grewsome ships followed in our wake, tugged by the same steam-power that carried us along. But what a difference! We were journeying in comparative luxury, with pleasant company, and all the freedom that a roomy steamer can furnish, to friends in Europe, and then to our home in the home land.

They, shut up in a white, floating cage, in narrow quarters, were facing exile and misery, and perhaps death, far from their homes and kindred. Every revolution of the paddle-wheels was carrying us nearer home, and them farther away. What a mockery the bright sunshine and green, tree-clad banks, and boundless, free prairies, stretching beyond, must have seemed to these cabined, cribbed, confined, hemmed-in voyagers!

It must be confessed that these particular convict barges from a distance did not look either filthy or overcrowded, and closer inspection afterwards convinced me that if prisoners must be exiled, they could scarcely have expected more comfortable conveyance. Still the thought of those fellow-travellers, so near and yet so far from the view-point of freedom, hope, and good cheer, cast a shadow on the journey whenever we looked at their white prison trailing on behind.

The Amour at Khabaroffsk, though we were more than five hundred miles from its mouth, was fully a mile and a half wide, and flowed in a strong, full current, which fact we realized for many a day thereafter, as we made our slow and toilsome way against it. The Amour is one of the few greatest rivers of the world. In length it is equalled by no river in Europe, and surpassed only by the Yang-tse-Kiang and Yenisei, in Asia, by the Nile and Congo, in Africa, and by the Amazon and Mackenzie, in America, though, if we reckon the Mississippi and Missouri as one river, it is longer than any of them except the Nile.

The basin drained by the Amour contains over 500,000 square miles. It is a singular fact that so many of the great rivers of the world are of nearly the same length. The Amour, Yenisei, Mekong, Obi, Hoangho, and Lena, in Asia, are all within two or three hundred miles of the same length, and all surpass 2500 miles.

The Congo, according to the geographers, is only about a hundred miles longer than the Amour, while the Niger is two hundred miles shorter. The Amazon is three hundred miles longer than the Amour, the Mackenzie a hundred miles longer, while the St. Lawrence falls short of it by six hundred miles.

But, in a general way, it may be said that a dozen of the great rivers of the world are practically of the same length. Of them all, few are more majestic and imperious in their flow, or drain a fairer country than the Amour.

Its water is somewhat muddy at Vladivostock, but nothing like the consistency of the Mississippi at St. Louis. It cannot not be said to be “both food and drink.” As we ascend its swift current it constantly grows clearer, until, a thousand miles farther up, it is about the color of white wine, and is sweet and wholesome to the taste.

The Amour is unique in the fact that it flows through a fertile country which is almost uninhabited, and yet is capable of supporting millions. No great cities line its banks, and not many towns that rank larger than hamlets. Even these are few and far between, and one journeys for half a day at a time without seeing even one little hut among the bushes. Its shores are still in their virgin greenery. For hundreds of miles at a time one sees not a cultivated field, though doubtless some such tilled land lies back from the river and out of sight. Great wood-piles for the use of the frequent river-steamers are the most common objects that show the hand of man, but even these are often in desperately lonely spots, so that one can scarcely believe that they were ever visited by human beings. And yet all this immense river basin of half a million square miles is apparently fertile and habitable, and, when we saw it, was glowing in rich and brilliant verdure. Surely the world is not yet over-peopled while such a lordly domain is waiting for the plough and the reaper.

To be sure, we saw the Amour Valley in early June, when everything in nature is at its freshest and best, and our judgment might have been modified had we seen it in December. Still, every country, like every man, should be judged at its best and not at its worst.

Promptly at four o’clock the _Baron Korff_ started on her long journey, and went zigzagging across the lordly river in order to stem the swift current as best she might. On the left-hand side was Chinese Manchuria, on the right Russian Siberia. But the Bear has her huge paw on all this country, and only by sufferance has she for many years allowed the Sick Man of Asia to nominally rule the left bank of the river.

It is a suggestive journey that we are taking on the broad ribbon of water that divides two of the greatest nations of the world--the one hoary and decrepit, with the weakness of her centuries heavy upon her, the other lusty and stout in comparative youth, like a strong young man lately come to the consciousness of virile powers.

Two hundred years ago and more China and Russia tried conclusions on these same plains of the Amour, and then China came off best. Russian garrisons were captured and carried off to Peking, and a treaty was concluded ceding all this land back to China. But during these two centuries China has daily been growing weaker and more corrupt in her senility. Russia has become mightier with each succeeding year.

In 1868, by the treaty of Aigun, so called because of the Chinese town on the banks of the Amour, where the treaty was signed, China ceded all the country north of the river to the Great Bear, who afterwards obtained concession after concession, until she was paramount in all Asia north of and including Peking. Then came the last uprising of China, which began the very month this journey was made, and which again threatened Russia’s domination, at least for a time. Thus the shuttlecock of dominion over northern Asia has been thrown back and forth between the battledore of Russia and China, and the end is not yet.

It will be seen that if this country through which we are making our zig-zag route is lonely, it is not devoid of historic interest. It has been and is a battle-ground for armies and diplomats, and is likely to play a still larger part on the world’s checker-board in the future.

All through the first afternoon and through the long twilight which, in these northern latitudes, leaves but a few hours to the night, the _Baron Korff_ ploughed her way along the mighty river which seemed to be vexed by no other paddles. But so great is its extent that, although there are hundreds of steamboats on the river, to meet one is still an event.

During the first part of the voyage the Manchurian shore presents the most striking scenery. Many bold and picturesque hills come down to the water’s edge, clothed from top to toe in living green, the graceful boles of the white birch, the most abundant tree, gleaming like pillars of silver against the dark background. On the Siberian shore the banks are less bold, but seem to present an endless stretch of rich bottom lands, where the cattle of the world might graze.

One important and interesting feature on all Amour River boats is the constant heaving of the lead, to tell of the treacherous shoals which, all up and down the length of the river, lie in wait for every passing steamer. Constantly, day and night, week in and week out, stands a man near the bow with a stick about ten feet long, loaded at the lower end. To the upper end of this pole a cord is attached, which is tied to the leadsman’s wrist, and this pole he constantly casts, once a minute on the average, to ascertain the depth of the water. The pole is divided into foot lengths, each painted a different color, so that he can tell at a glance how much water there is when the leaded end strikes bottom. When the water is deeper than his pole, he gives no warning cry, but when it comes down to nine, eight, seven, six feet, he calls out the depth with every cast, to the man at the wheel, and throughout half the day and half the night we hear his monotonous sing-song: “shest” (six), “shest polovina” (six and one-half), “pyat” (five), “pyat polovina” (five and one-half). When the leadsman calls out “pyat,” O helmsman, look out, for there is only five feet of water below your water-line, and when he calls out “chiteery polovina,” ring “half-speed” down to the engine-room, for there is only four feet and a half of water, and the _Baron Korff_, flat bottomed as she is, draws four feet.

These frequent shoals add a spice of excitement to the voyage, for one never knows when he may hear the bottom grating on the gravel, and find the steamer laid up for an hour or a day or a week on a sand-bar. The Amour River, like certain men, spreads itself out too thin, and gains breadth at the expense of depth.

The cry of the leadsman reminds one of Mark Twain’s days on the Mississippi, only they “mark dva,” and “tree,” and “chiteery,” and “pyat,” instead of “mark twain,” and “mark three,” and four, and five. When will the genius of the Amour come to the front? And when he comes will he call himself “Dva” or “Pyat”?

The second and third days on the _Baron Korff_ were much like the first--bright, beautiful, rare days in early June. The breath of the flowers came sweet and fresh from either shore, as the steamer swept from one side of the river to the other. No grand scenery marked these early days of the voyage, but much that was exceedingly beautiful, with a quiet loveliness all its own. The whole country has a peculiarly finished and cultivated appearance for such a wild and almost uninhabited land. Though there are few settlements and fewer farms visible from the steamer, there is little of the tangled wildwood of our American forests. Much of the country is open and treeless, and, where trees abound, they grow in stately ranks, with little undergrowth and no impenetrable thickets.

At night the helmsman steers by lights set along the shore at advantageous points and at a distance of a few hundred yards from each other. These lights are like kerosene street lamps, set on posts fifteen or twenty feet high. Some of the lamps are white and others red, and, though their light is feeble, they afford points to steer by, and boats are able to steam day and night, except when stuck upon a sand-bar.

A familiar sight towards evening is the lonely lamplighter in his little Rob Roy canoe, the paddles flashing alternately on either side in the evening sun. Often he is the only inhabitant along the shore for miles and miles, and he must make his solitary rounds alone day after day to fill and light his lamps, and is often obliged to scale almost inaccessible precipices to get at them, for, wherever it is possible, the lamps are placed upon a bluff or headland.

The voyager on the Amour has reason, indeed, to bless the lonely lamplighter, and to say to himself, as the steamer ploughs along through the darkness, guided by the minute points of light in the distance: “How far the little candle throws its beams!”