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A Russian village and military post seventeen miles below the mouth of the Songaree is named Michael Semenof, in honor of the Governor General of Eastern Siberia. We landed before the commandant's house, where two iron guns pointed over the river in the direction of China.
The voyage must be a tedious one to any but a Mongol, much like the navigation of the Mississippi before the days of steam-boats. In spite of the great advantages to commerce, the Manjours resisted to the last the introduction of steam on the Amoor just as they now oppose it on the Songaree. In the language of the natives along its banks the Amoor has several names.
The Chinese formerly called the Songaree 'Ku-tong, and considered the lower Amoor a part of that stream. The Goldees named it 'Mongo, and the Gilyaks called it 'Mamoo. The name Amoor was given by the Russians, and is considered a corruption of the Gilyak word. When Mr. Collins descended, in 1857, the natives near Igoon did not or would not understand him when he spoke of the Amoor.
With the red and golden colors of the clouds; the lights and shadows of the mountains; the yellow forests of autumn, and the green plains near the river; the stillness broken only by our own motion or the rippling of the river, the scene was 'most fair to look upon. I have never seen sunsets more beautiful than those of the Amoor. I rose early in the morning to look at the mouth of the Songaree.
The Songaree is navigable to Kirin, about thirteen hundred versts from the Amoor, and it is thought the Nonni can be ascended to Sit-si-gar. The three cities have each a population of about a hundred thousand. According to the treaty of 1860 Russian merchants with proper passports may enter Chinese territory, but no more than two hundred can congregate in one locality.
He knew every fair from Leipsic to Peking, and had been an industrious commercial traveler through all Northern Asia. Once, below Sansin, on the Songaree river, he was attacked by thieves where he had halted for the night. With a single exception his crew was composed of Chinese, and these ran away at the first alarm.
On the Russian shore there were only the villages established by government, but notwithstanding its lack of population, the country was beautiful. With towns, plantations, and sugar-mills, it would greatly resemble the region between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I could perceive that the volume of the river was much diminished above its junction with the Songaree.
Once the fact established that the Songaree is the real Amoor, the Russians would turn to the treaty which gives them "all the land north of the Amoor." Their next step would be to occupy the best part of Manjouria, which would be theirs by the treaty. By far the larger portion of Manjouria is drained by the Songaree and its tributaries.
The native preferred tobacco and was better satisfied when I gave him enough to fill his pipe. The Managres smoke the Manjourian tobacco, which is raised in large quantities along the middle Amoor and the Songaree. It is much like Connecticut leaf, but has a more pungent flavor, and lacks the delicacy of Havana tobacco. Men, women, and children are alike addicted to its use.
The sources of this river are in the Shanalin mountains, that separate Corea from Manjouria, and are ten or twelve thousand feet high. They resemble the Sierra Nevadas in having a lake twelve miles in circumference as high in air as Lake Tahoe. The affluents of the Songaree run through a plateau in some places densely wooded while in others it has wide belts of prairie and marshy ground.
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