The Morje drew eight feet of water, and was admirably adapted to the sea coast service.  There were several vessels of this class in the Siberian fleet, and their special duty was to visit the ports of Kamchatka, North Eastern Siberia, and Manjouria, and act as tow boats along the Straits of Tartary.  The officers commanding them are sent from Russia, and generally remain ten years in this service.  At the end of that time, if they wish to retire they can do so and receive half-pay for the rest of their lives.  This privilege is not granted to officers in other squadrons, and is given on the Siberian station in consequence of the severer duties and the distance from the centers of civilization.

In its military service the government makes inducements of pay and promotion to young officers who go to Siberia.  I frequently met officers who told me they had sought appointments in the Asiatic department in preference to any other.  The pay and allowances are better than in European Russia, promotion is more rapid, and the necessities of life are generally less costly.  Duties are more onerous and privations are greater, but these drawbacks are of little consequence to an enterprising and ambitious soldier.

The Morje had no accommodations for passengers, and the addition to her complement was something serious.  Captain Lund, the doctor, Mr. Anassoff, and myself were guests of her captain.  The cabin was given to us to arrange as best we could.  My proposal to sleep under the table was laughed at as impracticable.  I knew what I was about, having done the same thing years before on Mississippi steamers.  When you must sleep on the floor where people may walk about, always get under the table if possible.  You run less risk of receiving boot heels in your mouth and eyes, and whole acres of brogans in your ribs.  The navigation of the Straits of Tartary is very intricate, the water being shallow and the channel tortuous.  From De Castries to Cape Catherine there is no difficulty, but beyond the cape the channel winds like the course of the Ohio, and at many points bends quite abruptly.  The government has surveyed and buoyed it with considerable care, so that a good pilot can take a light draught steamer from De Castries to Nicolayevsk in twelve or fifteen hours.  Sailing ships are greatly retarded by head winds and calms, and often spend weeks on the voyage.  In 1857 Major Collins was nineteen days on the barque Bering from one of these ports to the other.

[Illustration:  TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE.]

In the straits we passed four vessels, one of them thirty days from De Castries and only half through the worst of the passage.  The water shoals so rapidly in some places that it is necessary to sound on both sides of the ship at once.  Vessels drawing less than ten feet can pass to the Ohotsk sea around the northern end of Sakhalin island, but the channel is even more crooked than the southern one.