With some account of the River A7uoor. 245 



first to take advantage of it. An American barque named the Oscar, 

 from San Francisco, belonging to a German named Otto Esche, on the 

 14th of July, 1857, reached the Bay of Castries, where pilots were 

 obtained to guide the vessel to the mouth of the Amoor. "WhOe the 

 Oscar remained at Nikolajewsk other six vessels arrived, two from 

 Boston, one from Hong-kong, and three Russian. It would appear 

 that, besides such furs as may be obtained, the chief articles of trade 

 for a return cargo are confined meantime to Siberian hemp, said to 

 compare favourably with that of Bussia, tobacco, which has ah'eady 

 been referred to, and hard wood, such as oak, beech, plane, &c. The 

 Kussian government has fourteen steamers on the river, and there are 

 other fifteen belonging to private parties. Some of these vessels are em- 

 ployed in towing flat boats with cargo from Transbaikalia, and the more 

 southern parts of the Amoor to Nikolajewsk. These flat boats, many 

 of which are 60 feet long 20 feet broad and 8 to 9 feet high, are built 

 at the junction of the Schilka and Argun, and at the mouth of the 

 Seja. They fetch salt meat, ham, pease, hemp, rye-meal, leather, iron 

 ware, wooden casks, household ware, &c. Dried fish may likewise 

 become an important article of trade, the Amoor being frequented by 

 incredible quantities of fish, including salmon, salmon trout, sturgeon, 

 pike, &c., and a fish named Iluam-iu, weighing 1,000 to 2,000 pounds, 

 with very white delicate cartilaginous flesh, and so highly esteemed by 

 the Chinese officials that it is taken for the emperor's table. 



Peschtschuroff' tells us, that besides coin, namely, small silver money, 

 the best articles for trading with the natives, are a kind of blue 

 woollen cloth, of an inferior sort, called Daba, Bussian tobacco, which 

 on account of its intoxicating quality is preferred to the Chinese, and 

 even to the American, powder, lead, small ornamental articles of copper, 

 plated or gilt, common glass beads, &c. 



Foreign merchants, according to the report of the owner of the Oscar, 

 are very well received by the Bussian officials. There are several mer- 

 cantile houses already in Nikolajesvvk, of which two are American, 

 several Bussian, and one German. The CaUfornian butter and wine, 

 brought by the Oscar, met with a ready sale, but foreign goods gener- 

 ally are not yet in great demand, excepting by the Russian settlers and 

 soldiers, who are found in all quarters, and who give in return for what 

 they require valuable products, such as furs. 



Besides trade with foreign parts, an active intercourse will be kept up 

 between Nikolajewsk and the other Bussian ports in the Pacific, more 

 especially with Ajan, the head-quarters of the American-Bussian Fur 

 Company, with Okhotsk, the seaboard termination of the great land 

 route from eastern and central Siberia, by Irkutsk, and Yakutsk,and with 



