Nicolayevsk is a free port of entry, and there are no duties upon merchandise anywhere in Siberia east of Lake Baikal.  Since the opening of commerce, in 1865, the number of ships arriving annually varies from six or eight to nearly forty.  In 1866 there were twenty-three vessels on government, and fifteen on private account.  The government vessels brought flour, salt, lead, iron, machinery, telegraph material, army and navy equipments, and a thousand and one articles included under the head of ‘government stores.’  The private ones, (three of them American,) brought miscellaneous cargoes for the mercantile community.  There were no wrecks in that year, or at any rate, none up to the time of my departure.

At the Amoor I first began to hear those stories of peculation that greet every traveler in Russia.  According to my informants there were many deficiencies in official departments, and very often losses were ascribed to ‘leakage,’ ‘breakage,’ and damage of different kinds.  “Did you ever hear,” said a gentleman to me, “of rats devouring window-glass, or of anchors and boiler iron blowing away in the wind?” However startling such phenomena, he declared they had been known at Nicolayevsk and elsewhere in the empire.  I think if all the truth were revealed we might learn of equally strange occurrences in America during the late war.

The Russians have explored very thoroughly the coast of Manjouria in search of good harbors.  Below De Castries the first of importance is Barracouta Bay, in Latitude 49 deg.  The government made a settlement there in 1853, but subsequently abandoned it for Olga Bay, six degrees further south.  Vladivostok, or Dominion of the East, was occupied in 1857, and a naval station commenced.  A few years later, Posyet was founded near the head of the Corean peninsula, and is now growing rapidly.  It has one of the finest harbors on the Japan Sea, completely sheltered, easily defended, and affording superior facilities for repairing ships of war or commerce.  It is free from ice the entire year, and has a little cove or bay that could be converted into a dry dock at small expense.

In 1865 Posyet was visited by ten merchant vessels; it exported fifteen thousand poods of beche de mer, the little fish formerly the monopoly of the Feejees, and of which John Chinaman is very fond.  It exported ten thousand poods of bean cake, and eleven times that quantity of a peculiar sea-grass eaten by the Celestials.  Ginseng root was also an article of commerce between Posyet and Shanghae.  Russia appears in earnest about the development of the Manjourian coast, and is making many efforts for that object.  The telegraph is completed from Nicolayevsk to the new seaport, and a post route has been established along the Ousuree.