A Voyage down the Amoor; with a Land Journey through Siberia, and
Incidental Notices of Manchooria, Kamschatka, and Japan. By PERRY
McDONOUGH COLLINS, United States Commercial Agent at the Amoor River, New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860. pp. 390.
This is a very amusing book. The introductory part of it, in which the author recounts his adventures in Siberia before setting out on his expedition down the Amoor, is full of bad taste, bad rhetoric, and bad grammar. If we had read no farther, we should have thought that a more unfit personage than this gentleman with the monumental name could not have been chosen for any public service.
Mr. Perry McDonough Collins gives us the bill of fare of gentlemen's tables at which he dined, tells us how much and what kinds of wine were "drank," and sometimes winds up his account of the feast with a compliment to the "amiable and interesting" family of his host. Mr. Egouminoff's dinner, he tells us, "was excellent, with several kinds of wine, closing with Champagne. We had also the pleasure of the company of Mrs. E. and her daughter, and several other guests, besides a handsome widow." There is something charmingly naïf in thus throwing in the company as a succedaneum to the dinner, and carefully segregating the widow from the rest of mankind as a distinct species.
Mr. Collins also reports for us carefully the orations he made on various festive occasions,—a piece of very proper economy, since they were delivered in English to an audience of Russians. He confesses that it is not the custom to make after-dinner-speeches in Siberia, which proves that the Russian Government has neglected at least one opportunity of adding to the terrors of a Penal Colony. At one dinner he had the satisfaction of making three of these terrible mistakes. He responds to the health of General Mouravieff, Governor of the Province, to that of President Buchanan, and to that of "our guests." We should like to have been present at this display, provided we could have been speech-proofed, like the Russians in their ignorance of English. It was certainly a proud day for America, and the bird of our country will be glad that the eloquence has been carefully saved by Mr, Collins for the good of his compatriots.
After this multiloquent festival, the Siberian merchants, naturally exasperated, seized upon Mr. Collins, and an unhappy countryman of his who was present, and tossed them after the fashion of Sancho Panza. "This sport," adds our traveller, gravely, "is called in Russian podkeedovate, or tossing-up, and is considered a mark of great respect. General Mouravieff told me, after our return, that he had had podkeedovate performed upon him in the same room." The General must be something of a humorist.
Mr. Collins, however, has a more astounding incident to relate than even the respectful tossing-up of a general in the army and governor of Siberia by a party of provincial shopkeepers. In returning from an excursion, Mr. Collins had the ill-luck to lose a horse.
"The death of that horse," he says, "was a singular circumstance. We were galloping rapidiy and were approaching the station, when the animal dropped as if struck by lightning. We were in such rapid motion upon the smooth ice of the river, that, though several yards from the stopping-point, the other horses kept on, dragging the dead horse, nor did the driver attempt to stop them, but seemed determined to reach the station at full speed. As soon as we had stopped, I got out and examined the body. It was as stiff as a poker and stirred not a muscle, the eyes being cold and glassy. The fact is, the horse must have been dead before he fell, and his muscular action was kept up some time after life had departed." (p. 89.)
We do not remember to have met with a more wonderful example of the force of habit.
After Mr. Collins is fairly embarked, however, on his voyage of exploration, his book becomes more interesting. He shows himself a thoroughly good-humored, observant, and intelligent traveller. If, in the earlier pages of his journal, he is indiscreetly communicative as to the good cheer he enjoyed, in the later ones he does not waste time in grumbling at discomforts and lenten fare. He observes minutely and describes well all that he sees along the great river,—the people, the productions, the scenery, and the vegetation. He gives us a lively impression of the capabilities of the country, and of the results which are to follow the introduction of steam-navigation on the Amoor. Like a true American, he believes in the manifest destiny of Russia, and looks forward to the not distant time when, with a kind of retributive justice, the Muscovite is to swallow up the Manchew, as Charles Lamb used to call him. Already American merchants have established themselves at the mouth of the Amoor, and, unless Mr. Collins is oversanguine, a great trade is to spring up between the Californians and their opposite neighbors on the eastern coast of Asia.
On the whole, we take leave of Mr. Collins with a feeling of decided esteem for his genuine good qualities, and can safely commend his book as both lively and instructive.