194 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
Governments over the affair. Finally my agent in 
England, a barrister who had formerly been an 
official attached to the British Legation in Tokyo, 
wrote me that the Government officials had informed 
him that there were political reasons why the claim 
could not be pushed, and they advised me personally 
to take the case to St. Petersburg. This I did not 
think it worth while to do, and so the matter ended. 
At the time of my sojourn in Vladivostoek it was 
quite a different place from what it is now. Then it 
had only about 10,000 inhabitants. The houses, 
which were mostly built of logs, were scattered over 
about three miles of hillsides on the northern side of 
the harbour, no particular order having been observed, 
apparently, in laying out the town. There was no 
decent hotel, no butcher, no chemist, no tailor, no 
dry-goods store, and no bank. But there were two 
or three general stores, the principal one being that 
of Messrs. Kunst and Albers, who were in every kind 
of business, as merchants, bankers 5 agents, insurance 
agents, steamship agents, storekeepers, Govern¬ 
ment contractors, etc. Personally I had a very 
pleasant time there, made lots of friends, enjoyed 
some riding, driving, and shooting, Lieutenant Abaza 
obtaining for me possession of my gun and ammuni¬ 
tion. Pheasants, woodcock, wild-fowl, and snipe, 
were fairly plentiful. One day I got into a warm 
comer for snipe, and had already secured half a dozen 
couple, and had five more birds on the ground, when 
I saw three policemen making towards me on the 
run from different directions. I wondered what 
would happen ; they all reached me about the same 
time, and with much gesticulation and talk in 
Russian, and threatening attitudes, gave me to 
