282 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



bound for Vladivostok, whence it was to be shipped 

 around to London by sea. In the afternoon we em- 

 barked on board the Ccsai'evitch in a heavy downpour 

 of rain. That stern-wheeler, belonging to the Amur 

 Navigation Company, was a fairly clean boat, and our 

 accommodation on it quite luxurious compared with 

 that on the Tsitsikar. It was to convey us to 

 Blagovestchensk, where we should have to shift on 

 to a smaller boat on account of the shallows in the 

 Shilka, which we knew so well. The Cesarevitch had 

 already run the gauntlet under Chinese hre, and traces 

 of the latter were now visible. Several bullets had 

 gone through the second-class cabins, and one of them 

 had struck the edge of the piano in the first-class 

 saloon and glanced to the further corner, where it was 

 found in a brass wash-tub. Fortunately, none of the 

 bullets had hit the boat below the water-line, and the 

 captain seemed to have no high opinion of Chinese 

 marksmanship. The whole of next day was spent in 

 taking in cargo, and delivering the heaped-up piles of 

 postal arrears. Crowds of third-class passengers in- 

 vaded the decks, soon rendering it impossible to move 

 about on board. 



A huoe baroe containinij" over a hundred horses for 

 the front was attached to our boat, which was to tow 

 it up to Khabarovsk, a chstance of 940 versts (600 



