NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOV. 26, 1874. 



Ill 8qr.) 



BABYLON. 



MORE than several years h*ve faded since my heart was first ii 

 vadc-d 

 By a browusklnned gruy-eyed siren on the merry old South Side, 

 Where the mill Ucraic cataracts glisten, and (lie agile blue Hsh listen 

 To tue fleets or fishing schooners floating on the weedy tide. 



T Tls a land at rum and romance, for the old South Side is no man's. 



But belongs, as all sneh pluccs should belong, to " Uncle Sam." 

 There you'll see the dusky plover, and the woodcock In the cover. 



And the silky trout all over underneath the water dam. 



There amid the sandy reaches, in among the pmes and beeches 

 Oaks and various other kiuds of old primeval forest trees, 



Did we wander in the moonlight, or beneath the silvery moonlight, 

 Whilein ledges sighed the sedges, to the salt salubrious breeze. 



Oh ! 1 loved her more thau sister, often oftentimes T kissed her. 

 Holding pressed against my vest, her slender soft seductive hand, 



Or else by midnight taper, tilled at least a quire of paper, 

 With some graphic ode or Sapphic to the nymph of Babyland. 



Oft we saw thedimblue Higblauds, Coney, Oak aud other islands, 

 Moles that dot the dimpled bosom of the sunny Hammer sen, 



Or o'er polished leaves of lotus, anywhere where our skill might float n 

 Anywhere where none might, note us, there sought we alone to be. 



Dolphin tints, aud hectic hints, of what was shortly coming on, 

 Did I worship Amy Miltou— fragile was the faith I built on, 

 And we parted— broken-hearted I, when she left Babylon. 



As on the moonless water, lies some motionless frigate, 

 Flim;* Iter spars and spidery outlines lightly o'er the lucid plain. 



But when the fresh breeze bloweth, to some distant region goeth, 

 Never more the old haunts knoweth, never more returns again— 



So is woman evanescent, shifting with the shifting present, 

 Changing like thechaugeful tide, and faithless as the ilckle sea, 



Falser thau the fowler's whistle, lighter than the wind blown thistle, 

 Was that coaxing piece of hoaxing, Amy Miltou'a love for me; 



Yes, than transitory bubble floating on 



Though the skies were bright above 

 gone, 

 But till I'm by all forsaken, will my bankrupt heart awaken 



To those golden days— those olden days in happy Babylon. 



sea of trouble, 



, soon those Snmmer days v 



For Forest and Stream. 



gnImoii ot\ the ^Lmoor ffiver. 



"/"^ALL that a fine fish, sir?" said old Jack, our best 

 V— ' foremast hand, as he swung another cod over the 

 rail and deposited him in the deck bucket by his side. 

 "Wait 'till we get on the river, sir, if you want to see fish. 

 Why, the salmon are thicker there, sir, than mossbunkers 

 in the sound, and the Indians feed their sledge dogs on 

 them all the year round." 



How Jack's assertions were verified will be seen. I had 

 goue on deck at early daybreak to get the first close look at 

 the new land, this wonderful Siberia, and found the old 

 tar engaged in the laudable occupation of providing a 

 breakfast of fresh fish for all hands. The distant views of 

 the rugged and heavily timbered coasts of Tartary and 

 Siberia we had obtained while sailing up the gulf, majestic. 

 in their grandeur, were fully sustained by closer inspection. 

 The schooner lay motionless at her anchor on the placid 

 bosom of l)e Castries Bay. Off seaward, the little Oyster 

 Island s, between which we had sailed the previous even 

 ing, almost hid the entrance to the landlocked harbor. At 

 the upper end a few rude log-houses indicated the settle- 

 ment dignified with the high-sounding title of Aloxan- 

 drovsky, where a lieutenant of His Majesty's navy paid 

 penalty for his title of Governor by involuntary exile. 

 On each side the forest-covered hills rolled away from the 

 water in successive tiers until the tall pines, which crowned 

 the summits of the loftiest ranges, seemed to lose their 

 tops among the clouds. Truly, this was the "forest pri- 

 meval ;" nothing but trees to be seen in any direction save 

 on the little clearing where they had been felled to make 

 room for their own trunks in another position. Ordering 

 the boat, the Captain and myself pulled up the bay to pay 

 our respects to the Robinson Crusoe of Alexandrovsky, 



and beg for a pilot to carry the schooner up the Amoor as 

 far as Niekolaefsk. We found him and his man Friday, 

 who, in this instance, happened to be a charming little 

 blue-eyed German wife, anxiously awaiting our arrival, aud 

 in a few moments we were surrounded by the whole garri- 

 son clamoring for news. The Governor was very polite, 

 placed everything in his possession at our disposal; but a 

 pilot ! alas, l 'cest impossible" — there were none there. A 

 chart upon which the buoys and beacons marking the 

 totuous channel of the river Were correctly designated, 

 was given us, and with this, alone, as a guide, we were to 

 find our way over the two hundred miles of the most diffi- 

 cult navigation in the world, which was still between us 

 aud our destination. 



After being shown the trees in which were still em- 

 bedded the bullets fired by the British storming party when 

 they captured the place (luring the so-called Crimean war, 

 we bid adieu lo the kind Governor and his wife,and returned 

 to the "Alert." As the Hood-tide was making, preparations 

 were immediately commenced for getting under way and 

 heaving up the anchor which had touched bottom but once 

 before— (in the harbor of Haleodadi in the Japanese island 

 of Yesso)— during our voyage of eight thousand miles, lite 



little. oelinnnuL- wna RoflD !i'!i'!i"S pttat the mnuth of the bay 



withher bow pointing towards the almost unknown North- 

 ern waters. Prom De Castries, the Gulf of Amoor is 

 formed by the island of Saghalien on one side, and the main 

 Siberian coast, broken by the mouth of the mighty river, 

 on the other. It contains innumerable and constantly 

 shifting sand banks, the largest of which form two chan- 

 nels; one, following the Saghalien coast at varying dis- 

 tances, finds its way into the Ochotsk Sea. The other, 

 which we were to pursue, leads into the Amoor through 

 the Lcmaii, crossing myriads of "liars" and zig-zagging 

 from one side to the other until Niekolaefsk is readied. 

 We had scarcely been under way an hour when long streaks 

 of muddy green began to mingle with the hitherto blue 

 water, gradually increasing in size and consistency until all 

 traces of the sea were lost, and we were sailing on the tur- 

 bid accumulation of mud and sand washed from the 

 thousands of miles of ever-varying banks, through which 

 the Amoor passes on its way to the ocean. 



A description of the vicissitudes of that four days' trip 

 would be almost as tiresome as the voyage itself. Cape 

 Catherine, the first promontory, was passed in safety, and 

 then Ihe thumping and bumping commenced; now an 

 anchor was carried out astern and all hands manned the 

 capstan to heave the vessel off. Now a boat was sent 

 ahead to find the channel or to tow the schooner into it. 

 Once, when in comparatively deep water, while we iu the 

 cabin were eating dinner, the watch on deck cried out, 

 "breakers ahead !" and sure enough there was a long line 

 of foaming, muddy water churned into whitecaps. It was 

 impossible to account for it. There was no wind, and we 

 were not making more than three miles an hour, yet it 

 seemed to he rapidly approaching. Tidal waves do not 

 generally come down a river,or I should have ascribed it to 

 some such phenomena. While we were yet speculating we 

 suddenly found ourselves in the midst of an immense 

 school of grampus. Thousands of the ungainly creatures, 

 evidently bound on a Summer's jaunt to the Ochotsk, or 

 Arctic Ocean, were floundering in every direction, giving 

 the water the appearance of being covered with breaking 

 waves. Following the beacons and buoys, as laid down in 

 our chart, we managed to pass Capes Nevelskoi and Mura- 

 vieff — Lazaref and the dreaded Pronge — and crossed in 

 safety the principal bar where there is a beacon and code 

 of signals giving the depth of water. Only Providence 

 and a light draft carried us over, however, as the inebriated 

 Russian soldier in charge of the signal station displayed 

 the entire code in quick succession, giving us our choice of 

 any depth from a fathom to fifteen feet. Before reaching 

 this point my attention had been attracted by a number of 

 stakes driven in the channel, formed by the sand banks, 

 strongly suggesting the idea of fish nets, and my suspicions 

 were confirmed when a number of canoes were seen push- 

 ing off from the wooded banks and intercepting our course, 



and soon we;had the pleasure of welcoming alongside a 

 parly of Gillak Indians, the aboriginees of the country. 

 They were swarthy, Mongolian-featured fellows, of low 

 stature, and dressed in illy-cured skins of wild auimals, all 

 possessing an ancient and fish like smell, which rendered it 

 desirable for us that they should remain in their canoes. 

 What made their visit, welcome, however, was the dis- 

 covery that their boats were loaded with salmon trout just 

 taken from the nets, magnificent speckled beauties, weigh- 

 ing four or five pounds each. By means of signs aud a few 

 mutually intelligible words, a tariff was established and the 

 cargo of each boat purchased. It was the cheapest fishing 

 I had ever participated in. A cup full of rice, or a plug of 

 tobacco for each boat load ! Think of that Messrs. Black- 

 ford & Co. ! a plug of tobacco for fifty salmon trout ! 



The way in which wc feasted, after a two months diet of 

 salt beef and pork, can be imagined. We had trout broiled, 

 fried and baked, and what we could not eat the provident 

 Captain consigned to the pickle barrels to fill the vacuum 

 caused by the consumption of salt horse. 



Another day of hard work and a night passed in fighting 

 a voracious horde of mosquitoes, and we entered upon the 

 last Stretch of the river below Niekolaefsk. On the North 

 bunk woro £requW little rictiriilgU where the Cossacks, 

 under the fostering care of the Government, had abandoned 

 their lives of predatory warfare against Tartars and 

 Khirgis, to cultivate the soil. Rounding the last point the 

 glazed roof of the Greek church came in view, and our 

 anchor was dropped in front of the most important settle- 

 ment in Eastern Siberia. 



The Amoor at this point is over a mile in width, and 

 comes rushing towards the sea with a current so fierce and 

 strong that the Russians, for the preservation of such of 

 their vessels as may be obliged to Winter there, have built 

 immense correfa to protect them from the ice during the 

 Spring freshets. Steamers of considerable size ascend for 

 fifteen hundred miles to Nertschinsk, and following its 

 windings to the junction of the Argoon and Schilka, the 

 dlstauce is fully two.thonsand. 



Niekolaefsk has a population, almost entirely "soldiers, of 

 between two and three thousand souls, all existing on a fish 

 diet. Fish in such profusion I never saw before. The 

 officers had champagne with ihcir salmon, while the rank 

 and file were content with vodky, a vile spirit composed of 

 anything that could be distilled into alcohol. For about a 

 week we enjoyed it and then it palled. One morning the 

 men came aft and informed the Captain that they had 

 enough fish, and wanted their allowance of salt beef and 

 pork again, and even the aristocratic residents of the town 

 were glad enough to avail of the contents of our harness 

 cask. 



The Amoor is open only five months in the year, aud the 

 Russians aver that during each month a different descrip- 

 ion or s pecies of salmon asccntl to their spawning beds iu 

 the tributary streams above. The salmon trout, such as we 

 purchased of the Gillaks at the mouth of the river, they 

 say, are the first to appear, followed by the fish which we 

 found in such quantities upon our arrival at Niekolaefsk. 

 Whether those are the oncliorhyncftns onentalis or not, my 

 ignorance of the icthyc science prevents me from deciding, 

 and our limited stay did not permit me to examine the 

 other descriptions which were said to follow them. They 

 were certainly noble fish, and in general appearance, in 

 their bright, silvery sides aud thickness through the 

 shoulders, closely resembled the salmon of our own East- 

 ern coasts. I remember observing the. difference between 

 them and the darker skinned fish of the Sacramento River. 

 The climatic positions of the Eastern coasts of America and 

 Asia, and the Western coasts of Europe and our continent, 

 are not dissimilar. The great Kuro Sitwa, or Japanese gulf 

 stream, which follows the coast of that Empire, and then, 

 diffusing itself over the North Pacific, gives to California 

 its temperate climate, produces the same geniality that the 

 Atlantic gulf stream does for the shores of Europe. The 

 mouth of the Amoor, which is in about the same latitute 

 as London, is a mass of snow and ice for six months in the 

 year; and Peking, which bears almost the same relation to 



