which was lost in
the river. My opera glass was of assistance in finding the birds in
the grass; they were quite abundant almost within rifle-shot of town,
and it seemed strange that the officers of the post did not devote
their leisure to snipe hunting.

Our snipe was cooked, for dinner, and equalled any I ever saw at
Delmonico's. We had a wild goose at the same meal, and after a careful
trial I can pronounce the Siberian goose an edible bird. He is not
less cunning than wild geese elsewhere, but with all his adroitness he
frequently falls into the hands of man and graces his dinner table.

On the northern horizon, twenty or thirty miles from Michael Semenof,
there is a range of high and rugged mountains. As we left the town,
near the close of day, the clouds broke in the west and the sunshine
lighted up these mountains and seemed to lift them above their real
position. With the red and golden colors of the clouds; the lights and
shadows of the mountains; the yellow forests of autumn, and the green
plains near the river; the stillness broken only by our own motion or
the rippling of the river, the scene was 'most fair to look upon.' I
have never seen sunsets more beautiful than those of the Amoor.

[Illustration: ARMED AND EQUIPPED.]

I rose early in the morning to look at the mouth of the Songaree.
Under a cloudy moon I could distinguish little beyond the outline of
the land and the long low water line where the Amoor and Songaree
sweep at right angles from their respective valleys. Even though it
was not daylight I could distinguish the line of separation, or union,
between the waters of the two streams, just as one can observe it
where the Missouri and Mississippi unite above Saint Louis. I would
have given much to see this place in full daylight, but the fates
willed it otherwise.

This river is destined at some time to play an important part in
Russian and Chinese diplomacy. At present it is entirely controlled by
China, but it appears on all the late maps of Eastern Siberia with
such minuteness as to indicate that the Russians expect to obtain it
before long. Formerly the Chinese claimed the Songaree as the real
Amoor, and based their argument on the fact that it follows the
general course of the united stream and carried a volume of water as
large as the other. They have now abandoned this claim, which the
Russians are entirely willing to concede. Once the fact established
that the Songaree is the real Amo