234 Dr. Blackie on Russian Acquisitions in Manchooria, 



country, having an area of 33,000 square miles (50,000 versts), had 

 been unwittingly handed over by Russia to China, and yet not taken 

 possession of by the latter country. The boundary of 1845 indicates 

 the new line of frontier thus found out. Whether arising from com- 

 munications respecting this unexpected discovery or not, we do not 

 know, but we are informed that in 1847 China granted to Russia the 

 right to navigate the river Amoor. Along with this privilege, that of 

 forming settlements and of erecting forts, would seem likewise to have 

 been conceded. If not conceded, it was certainly soon taken for the 

 settlement of Alexandrovsk, in the Bay of Castries, at which a fort was 

 built, it appears to have been begun in 1850; and the fort of Nikolajewsk, 

 at the mouth of the Amoor, was in all probability erected not later than 

 1852. 



In 1854, when war broke out between Russia and the Western 

 European powers, and it became necessary to strengthen the Russian 

 positions on the Pacific Ocean, the privilege of navigating the Amoor 

 was found to be of the gi'catest advantage. In the month of May in 

 that year, a large armed flotilla, carrying above 1,000 men, soldiers, car- 

 penters, &c., was organized at the town of Shilkinsk, which lies on the 

 Shilka, 200 miles above its junction with the Argun. It sailed on 

 May 13th, and reached the mouth of the Amoor on the 27th of June. 

 It is doubtless to a subsequent and similar expedition that Peschtschuroff 

 (who writes one of the most recent descriptions of the Amoor) refers, as 

 having reached the mouth of the river in the middle of July, and as 

 having supplied to Petropavlovsk the armament which enabled it to 

 give the fleet of the allies such a warm reception. Many such flotillas 

 probably descended this river in the course of 1854 and the following 

 year, for we are informed that in the spring of 1855 long trains of 

 fortress artillery, cannon balls, iron gun carriages, anchors, and steam- 

 engines, passed through Irkutsk and over lake Baikal, all on their way 

 to the Amoorland, so that the forts at the mouth of the river were soon 

 alleged to be strongly fortified, and garrisoned by 8,000 to 10,000 men. 

 Some of the steam engines were probably destined for Nikolajewsk, 

 where there are now extensive government workshops for repairing ships 

 and steamers. By having command of the Amoor, a saving of land 

 caniage for these munitions of war was efiected, of probably not less 

 than 3,000 miles ; the road from Irkutsk to Shilkinsk, from which the 

 flotillas sailed, being about 1,000 miles, while that to Okhotsk, the 

 former port of shipment for Petropavlovsk, is stated to be nearly 4,000 

 miles, and in many places through a very difficult country. 



Where the Russian boundary is fixed at present, it is difficult to say. 

 Probability is in favour of the left bank of the Amoor, with possibly a 



