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Updated: May 10, 2025
Here were momentous tidings; France and Russia taking part in a war that was not begun when I left America. A French fleet was in Japanese waters and might be watching for us. It had two ships, either of them stronger than the Variag. As the Danzig disappeared we went below.
We cast off the Danzig when fairly out of the Pacific. During the two days the Variag had her in tow we maintained communication by means of a log line and a junk bottle carefully sealed. Casting our bottle on the waters, we allowed it to drift along side the Danzig, where it could be fished up and opened. Answers were returned in the same mail pouch.
The arrival of the Variag and Clara Bell gave unusual activity to the settlement, and the Ispravnik might have returned a large population had he imitated the practice of those western towns that take their census during the stay of a railway train or a steamboat. There was once, according to a rural historian, an aspiring politician in Tennessee who wanted to go to Congress.
With my glass I surveyed the line of coast where the surf was breaking, but was long unable to discover an entering place. The Ohota river is the only harbor, and entirely inaccessible to a ship like the Variag. Descending the ship's side after we anchored, I jumped when the boat was falling and went down five or six feet before alighting.
The steward of the Variag told me that in 1865, when at De Castries, he had two small pigs from Japan. A vessel just from the Amoor had a large hog which had been purchased at Nicolayevsk. The captain of the ship offered his hog for the two pigs, on the plea that he wished to keep them during his voyage.
At Petropavlovsk there was an amusing fraternization between the crews of the Variag and the Wright. The American sailors were scattered among the Russians in the proportion of one to six. Neither understood a word of the other's language, and the mouth and eye were obliged to perform the duties of the ear. The flowing bowl was the manual of conversation between the Russians and their new friends.
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