ter and met the
same misfortune as those in similar positions at Igoon. The Korsackoff
made a much greater swell than the Ingodah, and those who caught its
effects were well moistened. We landed from, the steamer's boat and
ascended the bank to the village. Several fat old Manjours eyed us
closely and answered with great brevity our various questions.

Sakhalin-Oula stretches more than a mile along the bank, but extends
only a few rods back from the river. Practically it consists of a
single street, which is quite narrow in several places. The houses are
like those of Igoon, with frames of logs and coverings of boards, or
with log walls plastered with mud. The windows of stores and dwellings
are of lattice work covered with oiled paper, glass being rarely used.

The roofs of the buildings were covered with thatch of wheat straw
several inches thick, that must offer excellent facilities for taking
fire. Probably the character of this thatch accounts for the chimneys
rising ten or fifteen feet from, the buildings. I saw several men
arranging one of these roofs. On a foundation of poles they laid
bundles of straw, overlapping them as we overlap shingles, and cutting
the boards to allow the straw to spread evenly. This kind of covering
must be renewed every two or three years. Several thatches were very
much decayed, and in one of them there was a fair growth of grass. The
village was embowered in trees in contrast to the Russian shore where
the only trees were those in the park. I endeavored to ascertain the
cause of this difference, but could not. The Russians said there was
often a variation of three or four degrees in the temperature of the
two banks, the Chinese one being the milder. Timber for both Chinese
and Russian use is cut in the forests up the Amoor and rafted down.

Sakhalin-Oula abounded in vegetable gardens, which supplied the market
of Blagoveshchensk. The number of shops both there and at Igoon led me
to consider the Manjours a population of shop-keepers. Dr. Snider said
they brought him everything for ordinary table use, and would contract
to furnish at less than the regular price, any article sold by the
Russian merchants. In their enterprise and mode of dealing they were
much like the Jews of Europe and America, which may account for their
being called Manjours. Once a month during the full moon they come to
Blagoveshchensk and open a fair, which continues seven days. They sell
flour, buckwheat, beans