This village had recently sold a large quantity of wheat and rye to the government.  It had the best church I had seen since leaving Nicolayevsk, and its general appearance was prosperous.  Among the women that came to the boat was one who recognized Borasdine as an old acquaintance.  She hastened back to her house and brought him two loaves of bread made from wheat of that year’s growth.  As a token of friendship he gave her a piece of sugar weighing a pound or two and a glass of bad brandy that brought many tears to her eyes.  I think she was at least fifteen minutes drinking the fiery liquid, which she sipped as one would take a compound of cayenne pepper and boiling water.  The worst ‘tanglefoot’ or ‘forty-rod’ from Cincinnati or St. Louis would have been nectar by the side of that brandy.

The country for a hundred miles or more above the Buryea mountains was generally level.  Here and there were hills and ridges, and in the background on the south a few mountains were visible.  There were many islands which, with the banks of alluvium, were evidently cut by the river in high freshets.  Where the beach sloped to the water there was a little driftwood, and I could see occasional logs resting upon islands and sand bars.

When taken in a tumbler the water of the Amoor appeared perfectly clear, but in the river it had a brownish tinge.  There were no snags and no floating timber.  I never fancied an iron boat for river travel owing to the ease of puncturing it.  On the Mississippi or Missouri it would be far from safe, but on the Amoor there are fewer perils of navigation.  More boats have been lost there from carelessness or ignorance than from accidents really unavoidable.  The Amoor is much like what the Mississippi would be with all its snags removed and its channel made permanent.

While among the islands I saw a small flotilla of boats in line across a channel, and after watching them through a glass discovered they were hauling a net.  There were ten or twelve summer huts on the point of an island, and the boats were at least twice as many.  A dozen men on shore were hauling a net that appeared well filled with fish.  I do not think a single native looked up as we passed.  Possibly they have a rule there not to attend to outside matters when exercising their professions.

CHAPTER XVII.

The second day above the mountains we passed a region of wide prairie stretching far to the north and bearing a dense growth of rank grass and bushes, with a few clumps of trees.  On the Chinese side there were hills that sloped gently to the river’s edge or left a strip of meadow between them and the water.  Many hills were covered with a thin forest of oaks and very little underbrush.  At a distance the ground appeared as if carefully trimmed for occupation, especially as it had a few open places like fields.  In the sere and yellow leaf of autumn these groves were charming, and I presume they are equally so in the fresh verdure of summer.