Vol. XIII, No. 2 



WASHINGTON 



February, 1902 



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A TRIP THROUGH SIBERIA* 



By Ebenezer J. Hill, Member of Congress from 



Connecticut 



IT has been my pleasure during the 

 present year to make a trip around 

 the world, starting from New York 

 and journeying westward until I again 

 reached New York, five months and 

 fifteen days later. The route was 

 through Hawaii, Guam, the Philip- 

 pines, China, Japan, Korea, and by 

 the Amur River and Trans-Siberian 

 Railroad across Asia into Europe. 



It is of this latter portion of the trip 

 that I have been requested by your 

 Society to give some reminiscences, 

 supplemented by views of the country, 

 both mental and photographic. Its his- 

 tory can be quickly told, for it illus- 

 trates the Russian saying that ' ' the 

 empire only goes where the Cossack can 

 march dryshod." 



THE RUSSIAN CONQUEST OF THE 

 AMUR VALLEY AND MANCHURIA 



Its conquest was begun in 1580 by a 

 robber chief named Yermak, who crossed 

 the Urals and, defeating the Tatars, 

 gave their lands as his own peace offer- 

 ing to the Russian Emperor, Ivan the 

 Terrible. For sixty years the Cossacks 

 fought their way eastward until they 



reached the Okhotsk Sea, easily routing 

 the scattered tribes of the northern 

 country; but it was not until 1650 that 

 Khabarovsk, a Russian farmer, led them 

 into the Amur Valley. His memory 

 has been perpetuated in the name of the 

 flourishing city which stands today at 

 ■the junction of the Amur and Usuri 

 Rivers. The Manchus were a warlike 

 people, and the Black Dragon River, as 

 they called the Amur, was their north- 

 ern boundary. After a contest which 

 continued forty years, they drove the 

 Russians back and held undisputed pos- 

 session for a hundred and sixty-six years, 

 until 1854, when General Muravieff no- 

 tified China that, with or without her 

 consent, he proposed to resume control 

 of the Amur River. In 1855 he rees- 

 tablished the Cossack stations its entire 

 length, and in i860, by the treaty of 

 Aigun, this splendid valley of a river 

 navigable for two thousand miles, and 

 with it the whole Pacific coast of Man- 

 churia, reaching westward to the Usuri 

 River and southward to Korea, was 

 given up to Russia without a struggle. 

 That one accession made Siberia 

 what it is today. Without it, it was 



*An address before the National Geographic Society, December 20, 1901. 



