241 De. Blackie on Eussian Acquisitioiis in JIanchoona, 



cellently suited for colonization, the opening of the Amoor is an im- 

 portant event for the government of Russia. By means of this 

 great water way free access is obtained to the ocean for several months 

 in the year, enabling supplies to be forwarded from the corn growing 

 country round lake Baikal to the ports and settlements on the Pacific 

 more speedily, and at a cheaper rate than by the long and difficult land 

 route bj' way of Yakutsk to Okhotsk. One single fact will illustrate 

 the remarkable advantage thus gained. In Kamtschatka, meal which 

 formerly had been sold for from 10-15 paper roubles the pound (about 

 8s. 4d. to 12s. 6d.), has, since the opening of the Amoor, fallen to 15 

 kopecks, silver (about 6d). Not only Kamtschatka, but all the eastern 

 pai't of Siberia, will feel the impulse given by the facilities thus attained 

 for sending her mineral and other riches to the ocean, and receiving in 

 return articles of foreign product at a price much below what she must 

 have formerly paid. What effect the opening of the Amoor may 

 have upon the great exchange mart of Kiachta and Maimacheu, it is 

 not easy to predict. It may, however, be reasonably supposed to be con- 

 siderable. The Russians receive there annually 4,700,000 lbs. of tea, 

 some authorities say 12,000,000 lbs. Besides the tea, they receive 

 through this mart silks, nankeens, porcelain, sugar-candy, musk, 

 rhubarb, and tobacco. In return, they supply the Chinese with furs, 

 skins, leather, woollen and linen cloth, cattle and reindeer horns, from 

 which last a gelatine is obtained that forms a much esteemed dehcacy 

 among the celestials. Perhaps the greatest tea district as yet ascer- 

 tained is the vicinity of Shanghai, a port which is distant from Maim- 

 achen 1,600 miles, measured in a bee-line over mountain and dale. If 

 we call the road distance 3,000 miles, we shall probably not over state 

 the length of the path along which the tea must be carried before it 

 reaches the hands of the Russians. Very probably part of the quantity 

 now annually sent to Siberia may find its way by sea to the mouth of 

 the Amoor, and thence by water to the interior of the coimtry; and it 

 is not at all unlikely that some portions of the other kinds of goods, 

 now sent to Maimachen, may follow the tea to Nikolajewsk or to the 

 Bay of Castries. Chinese traders even now descend the Soongari and 

 the Ussuri to the Amoor to barter with the natives, and go as far as 

 the village of Pulj, which lies to the north of lake Kisi. The traflic 

 by these routes may be extended, and Russia may yet form in the 

 Amoorland a market more extensive and more profitable than that of 

 Kiachta. 



Our cousins across the Atlantic have for some years been directing 

 their attention to Siberia as a profitable market, and now that the 

 navigation of the Amoor has been opened, they have been among the 



