GILYAK WOMAN.
The banks of this part of the Amoor do not wash like the alluvial lands along the Mississippi and Missouri, but are more like the shores of the Ohio. They are generally covered with grass or bushes down to the edge of the water. There are no shifting sand-bars to perplex the pilot, but the channel remains with little change from year to year. I saw very little drift wood and heard no mention of snags. The general features of the scenery were much like those below Mihalofski. The numerous islands and the labyrinth of channels often permit boats to pass each other without their captains knowing it. One day we saw a faint line of smoke across an island three or four miles wide; watching it closely I found it was in motion and evidently came from a descending steamboat. On another occasion we missed in these channels a boat our captain was desirous of hailing. Once while General Mouravieff was ascending the river he was passed by a courier who was bringing him important despatches.
NIGHT SCENE—GROUP OF PEASANTS.
The pilot steers with a chart of the river before him, and relies partly upon his experience and partly upon the delineated route. Sometimes channels used at high water are not navigable when the river is low, and some are favorable for descent but not for ascent. In general the pilotage is far more facile than on the Mississippi, and accidents are not frequent.
The peasants always came to the bank where we stopped, no matter what the hour. At one place where we took wood at night there was a picturesque group of twenty-five or thirty gathered around a fire; men and women talking, laughing, smoking, and watching the crew at work. The light, of the fire poured full upon a few figures and brought them into strong relief, while others were half hidden in shadow. Of the men some wore coats of sheepskin, others Cossack coats of grey cloth; some had caps of faded cloth, and others Tartar caps of black sheepskin. Red beards, white beards, black beards, and smooth faces were played upon by the dancing flames. The women, were in hoopless dresses, and held shawls over their heads in place of bonnets.
A hundred versts above Sofyesk the scenery changed. The mountains on the south bank receded from the river and were more broken and destitute of trees. Wide strips of lowland covered with forest intervened between the mountains and the shore. On the north the general character of the country remained. I observed a mountain, wooded to the top and sloping regularly, that had a curious formation at its summit. It was a perpendicular shaft resembling Bunker Hill Monument, and rising from the highest point of the mountain; it appeared of perfect symmetry, and seemed more like a work of art than of nature. On the same mountain, half way down its side, was a mass of rock with towers and buttresses that likened it to a cathedral. These formations were specially curious, as there were no more of the kind in the vicinity. Borasdine observed the rocks soon after I discovered them, and at first thought they were ancient monuments.
There were many birds along the shore. Very often we dispersed flocks of ducks and sent them flying over islands and forests to places of safety. Snipe were numerous, and so were several kinds of wading and swimming birds. Very often we saw high in air the wild geese of Siberia flying to the southward in those triangular squadrons that they form everywhere over the world. These birds winter in the south of China, Siam, and India, while they pass the summer north of the range of the Yablonoi mountains.
The birds of the Amoor belong generally to the species found in the same latitudes of Europe and America, but there are some birds of passage that are natives of Southern Asia, Japan, the Philippine Islands, and even South Africa and Australia. Seven-tenths of the birds of the Amoor are found in Europe, two-tenths in Siberia, and one-tenth in regions further south. Some birds belong more properly to America, such as the Canada woodcock and the water ouzel; and there are several birds common to the east and west coasts of the Pacific. The naturalists who came here at the Russian occupation found two Australian birds on the Amoor, two from tropical and sub-tropical Africa, and one from Southern Asia.
The number of stationary birds is not great, in consequence of the excessive cold in winter. Mr. Maack enumerates thirty-nine species that dwell here the entire year. They include eagles, hawks, jays, magpies, crows, grouse, owls, woodpeckers, and some others. The birds of passage generally arrive at the end of April or during May, and leave in September or October.