ike
you."

"For what reason?"

"The pigeon or dove is held sacred throughout Russia. He is the living
symbol of the Holy Spirit in the faith of the Eastern church, and he
brought the olive branch to The Ark when the flood had ceased. No
Russian would harm one of these birds, and for you to do so would show
disrespect to the religion of the country."

I went on shore again, but without a gun.

Every day we saw rafts moving with the stream or tied along the shore.
They were of logs cut on the upper Amoor, and firmly fastened with
poles and withes. An emigrant piles his wagon and household goods on a
raft, and makes a pen at one side to hold his cattle. Two or three
families, with as many wagons and a dozen or twenty animals, were
frequently on one raft. A pile of earth was the fire place, and there
was generally a tent or shelter of some kind. Cattle were fed with
hay carried on board, or were turned ashore at night to graze.

[Illustration: EMIGRANTS ON THE AMOOR.]

Some rafts were entirely laden with cattle on their way to market or
for government use at Nicolayevsk. This is the most economical mode of
transportation, as the cattle feed themselves on shore at night, and
the rafts float with the current by day. A great deal of heavy freight
has been carried down the Amoor in this way, and losses are of rare
occurrence. The system is quite analogous to the flat-boat navigation
of the Mississippi before steamboats were established. We met a few
Russian boats floating or propelled by oars, one of them having a crew
of six Cossacks and making all haste in descending. We supposed it
contained the mail due at Blagoveshchensk when we left. The government
has not enough steamers to perform its service regularly, and
frequently uses row boats. The last mail at Blagoveshchensk before my
arrival came in a rowboat in fifteen days from Stratensk.

Ascending the river we made slow progress even without a barge. Our
machinery was out of order and we only carried half steam. We ran only
by day, and unfortunately the nights had a majority of the time. We
frequently took wood in the middle of the day, and on such occasions
lost from one to three hours. Our average progress was about sixty
miles a day. I could not help contrasting this with journeys I have
made on the Mississippi at the rate of two hundred miles in
twenty-four hours. A government boat has no occasion to hurry like a
private one, and the pilot's imperfect knowledge