This

he can thus procure food wherever game is found. gives him confidence in his position, and makes him formidable to an enemy if molested. When once made a free agent his natural capabilities will be developed, and then he will not be behind any European either in genius or industry." p. 231. These colonists will act upon a people, some of whom will be benefited by their example. "The Mangoons are a highly imitative race; even in their present rude state they cultivate the fine arts and apply their genius in decorating their clothing. Some of their articles of dress are beautiful. Nor do I think they will be slow in adopting a better mode of constructing their dwellings." p. 387. The government presents inducements to the cultivation of the soil, distributes seeds and imparts knowledge fitted for the people. But the fate of the tribes will be that of weaker races. Here and there exceptional remnants may hold their place; but generally they will retreat before the advancing civilization. The hunt and the chase will be crowded into remote wilds and aboriginal men and beasts will steadily disappear. In their places will grow up a people harmonizing the civilization of the Amoor and the Pacific with that of the Volga, the Don, and the Baltic. Already we have this testimony from Mr. Atkinson: "Opening that river has caused a great change; for thriving villages are rising where the bear, the elk, and the maral were almost the sole inhabitants." The colonization and development of this magnificent empire may well challenge the ambition of an enlightened monarch. Peace has its victories more sublime than those of war.

But it is not the Amoor alone which gives to this acquisition its significance. The Amoor is the inlet to the trade of Northern Asia and it is the outlet to the commerce of the Pacific. For long centuries Asia has attracted the greed of traffic. Its opulent resources have drawn the ships of all commercial people, from the days of Tyre down to our own, to its ports. The successful opening of its old empires by Occidental diplomacy and arms is now promising an enlargement of its trade. But Russia has already established an extensive

intercourse with China. The highways of mercantile traffic have been long worn by the water courses and over the steppes of Siberia; and now the introduction of steam communication, penetrating to these very routes of traffic, will quicken the trade which already thrives, and urge forward new supplies.

Indeed, while we write, the American press is publishing a letter from Kiachta, taken from the Abeille du Nord of St. Petersburg, which says:

"You cannot form an idea of the enthusiasm with which the merchants of this place received the news of the conclusion of the treaty of commerce with China. It opens for Russian commerce a new and brilliant prospect, and our most ardent wishes have been realized. Our dealers will now travel in Mongolia, and will have a trading establishment in the city of Urga, the capital of that province, and will penetrate to Kalagan, the great center of the tea trade. A number of Russian merchants have sent orders to Pekin, to purchase ground necessary for forming shops and depots. Gen. Ignarieff, the author of this treaty, so advantageous for Russia, is on his way to St. Petersburg. He was received here with enthusiasm. He took only fifteen days to come from Pekin to Kiachta, a speed which has never before been attained; but it must not be forgotten that the Chinese Government, saved, as it may be said, by the Russian Envoy, showed the greatest eagerness to satisfy his wishes. The General arrived here on the 7th of December."

The Amoor is the outlet to the Pacific. Shipping already clusters at its mouth and steamers are plowing its current. The mouth of this river is too far north for a winter harbor. The map indicates two short courses to the ocean from different points on the Amoor, and the works before us throw additional light upon them. One is by the Keezee Lake, which is twenty-seven miles long from east to west, and whose eastern extremity is only twenty miles from the Gulf of Tartary. Mr. Atkinson suggests that a ship-channel through the intervening hills would be invaluable to Russia. The other is by the Oussoure, a large river which has its source in Lake Khinkai, four hundred miles directly south of the point where it joins the Amoor. West of this lake, in latitude fortytwo degrees, Russia has opened a port where shipping can ride unobstructed throughout the entire year. The latest intelligence from the extreme East brings the rumor that Russia is to occupy Port Hamilton, an island in the straits of Corea, still further southward, and which contains an excellent

harbor. Off the mouth of the Amoor and across the straits of Tartary, lies the long island of Saghalien, extending over ten degrees of latitude, which Mr. Atkinson predicts will soon be added to the Russian empire. "It contains valuable beds of coal, whence Russia can draw supplies for either a steam navy or for industrial purposes; it will also give her splendid harbors in the Pacific and leave her fleets free for operations throughout every part of the year." The opening of the Amoor is therefore the founding of a new Pacific empire. Russia, prostrate on the shores of the Euxine, sealed in by the frozen waters of the Baltic, has taken a gigantic stride toward the broad and inviting waves of the Pacific. Not in vain has it been that the Czars have fostered trade so long with China from the North; that they have established military stations through the length of Siberia; that they have maintained a postal service from Moscow to the eastern limits of the empire, along the line of which hundreds of cities and villages have sprung up. All this was preparatory work for the enterprise on which Russia has now successfully entered. By a wise colonial policy, St. Vladimir on the Pacific may come to outrank St. Petersburg on the Baltic. Grants of land and special privileges are accorded to all foreigners who will settle on the Amoor and acknowledge the Emperor. The result is that Russia is receiving valuable accessions from other lands. The immigration of the last year included a large proportion of Germans.

In this direction, too, we are to look for the solution of the problem of European supremacy in Asia. The old rivals, England and Russia, are to look each other in the face on the Pacific side of the continent. While England is adding more and more territory to her Indian Empire, and has just appropriated five hundred square miles in the heart of Asia, beyond her former limits, so that already her lion growls from the highest summit of the Himalayas; Russia, secure on the Amoor, advances her Cossacks to Corea and overawes Manjouria, Mongolia, and Tartary. A narrow space alone divides them. Whether the problem will be solved by the arts of peace or

the sterner test of arms, it would not be safe to predict. Certainly, each power has enough to occupy all its energy in the maturing of its gigantic colonial policy and the development of its own imperial resources, for long years to come. The continent and the sea invite the enlightened successor of Peter the Great, to their unlimited dominion. So far there is nothing in his acts to justify the supposition that he covets India.

*

There is another aspect of this subject which is of great interest. The acquisition of the Amoor brings Russia face to face with our own country across the Pacific. We have already alluded in this Quarterly to the late developments in our new Northwest, which have brought that region into notice. It is remarkable, that simultaneously with these, similar prominence should have been given to the opposite shores of Asia, on the same parallels of latitude, so that a mutual impulse is afforded to colonial progress and maritime enterprise on both continents. While explorers and engineers were sounding their way down the Red river of the North, and up the Saskatchewan toward the Pacific, similar parties were crossing the Baikal, and mapping down the navigation of the Amoor toward the same ocean. The fortresses of Van Couver are matched by those of Nicholaiofsk. The naval station at Victoria is rivaled by that at Vladimir. The ships and steamers that vex the waves of Puget Sound are hardly more numerous than those which are seen on the Sea of Japan and the Straits of Tartary. While we are introducing steam navigation on the inland waters of our Northwest, American-built steamers are launched on the tide of the Amoor. Our projected lines of railway and telegraph find their correspondence in those of Asiatic Russia. And not only this, but from these two opposite starting-points, the Eastern and the Western continents are likely to be connected by telegraphic wires. The course of the world's commerce is to be changed; the conduits of its communication are to be on new courses. It is ascertained that the Straits of Juan de Fuca are the nearest point

Article VII.-New Northwest. November, 1859. p. 995.

on our Continent to the ports of China, Japan, and Russia in Asia. The great trade-winds, which maintain their uniform track, blow up from Panama and San Francisco to Puget Sound, and thence sweep across the sea to the Eastern Continent. England should therefore seek her Indian Empire on a line due West. Russia and the United States should exchange courtesies in friendly commerce across the Pacific. The opulence of the East, "the wealth of Ormus and of Ind," should be borne in a new direction to the markets of the world.

Mr. Collins left behind him in Asia a proposition for constructing a railroad from Chita to Irkoutsk, which has a decided American smack to it. His proposals were sent by General Korsackoff to Lieutent-General Mouravieff, Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, with the assurance that his Excellency's answer should be forwarded to him as soon as it is received. Nor has he been idle since his return to his own land. The bill reported to Congress, near the close of the last session, by the Chairman of the House Committee on Com merce, appropriating $50,000 for a scientific survey of the Northern water-courses and islands on the Pacific Ocean and Behring's Straits, with a view to the establishment of a line of magnetic telegraph from the Russian Possessions in North America to the mouth of the Amoor, was based upon a memorial of Mr. Collins.

Two Northern routes for telegraphic lines between the old and new worlds are now in consideration. One is that of the North Atlantic, by Faroe, Iceland, and Greenland. A British expedition has just completed the examination of this route, and, after an experience of much dangerous navigation, has returned and reported its undoubted practicability. But her Majesty's ship Bulldog, and the Fox, found that the tempestuous surges of the Atlantic were no aids to exploring, as they certainly will not be to the quietude of long lengths of cable. The other, and, as it would seem, the more feasible route, is that of the North Pacific. A striking and, in this connection, a very significant feature on the map of this part of the ocean, is that of two remarkable chains of islands, the Kurile Isles and the Aleutian Archipelago, the one connecting