"The Russians have established villages along the Amoor at intervals of twenty or thirty miles, where the steamboats are supplied with wood. Some of these villages are close to the native ones, and the people live in perfect harmony. At one of our stopping-places I suggested that I would like to see the inside of a Goldee house, and the captain kindly accompanied me to the native village.
"Guided by a Russian peasant, we picked our way among the drying fish, and reached the door. It was quite late in the evening, and all the people had gone to sleep. With some difficulty we roused the owner of the place, and persuaded him to admit us. Our guide carried a torch of birch bark, and as he held it aloft the sight revealed to us was a strange one.
"Twenty or thirty persons were asleep on the benches, or huddled together to stare at the intruders. The captain explained that the Goldees keep their houses very warm, and sleep with little clothing; and certainly it did not seem as if the whole party had bedding enough for one-quarter their number. There was a smouldering fire in the middle of the room, a large kettle, set in brickwork, was at one side, and the rafters were hung with nets and fishing implements. A vicious-looking dog stood growling in front of us, and needed only a word from his master to turn his growls into bites. I had no inclination to stay long, particularly as the atmosphere was by no means pure, and it did not seem exactly polite to rouse a gentleman in the night and compel him to open his house simply to gratify a stranger's curiosity.
"For a thousand miles or more the Amoor forms the dividing line between Russia and China, the former country being on the northern bank, and the latter on the southern. There is a Chinese town of some twenty thousand inhabitants at one point, and smaller towns and villages both above and below it.
"The whole valley of the Amoor was in the possession of the Chinese until 1853, when it was conquered by the Russians in a campaign that lasted less than two months, and was unaccompanied with loss of life. General Mouravieff, then Governor-general of Eastern Siberia, organized an expedition and sent it down the river in boats. The Chinese were wholly unprepared for it, and the Russians had everything their own way. Then colonists were sent to form the villages I have mentioned, and Russia was so firmly established that she could not be disturbed.