United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


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.

A few years later, Posyet was founded near the head of the Corean peninsula, and is now growing rapidly. It has one of the finest harbors on the Japan Sea, completely sheltered, easily defended, and affording superior facilities for repairing ships of war or commerce. It is free from ice the entire year, and has a little cove or bay that could be converted into a dry dock at small expense.

In 1865 Posyet was visited by ten merchant vessels; it exported fifteen thousand poods of beche de mer, the little fish formerly the monopoly of the Feejees, and of which John Chinaman is very fond. It exported ten thousand poods of bean cake, and eleven times that quantity of a peculiar sea-grass eaten by the Celestials. Ginseng root was also an article of commerce between Posyet and Shanghae.

I saw the specimens which the captain took out in person. The gold was like the best gulch or scale gold in California, with nuggets up to four or five ounces in weight. Gold has been found in other localities. On several tributaries of the Ousuree the Chinese have conducted washings for many years. The Russian settlers near Posyet find gold in the streams flowing into the sea.

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.