At night we ran until the setting of the moon, and then anchored.  It is the custom to anchor or tie up at night unless there is a good moon or very clear starlight.  An hour after we anchored the stars became so bright that we proceeded and ran until daylight, reaching Mariensk at two in the morning.  I had designed calling upon two gentlemen and a lady at Mariensk, but it is not the fashion in Russia to make visits between midnight and daybreak.  Borasdine had the claim of old acquaintance and waked a friend for a little talk.

This town is at the entrance of Keezee lake, and next to Nicolayevsk is the oldest Russian settlement on the lower Amoor.  It was founded by the Russian American Company in the same year with Nicolayevsk, and was a trading post until the military occupation of the river.  Difficulties of navigation have diminished its military importance, the principal rendezvous of this region being transferred to Sofyesk.

On an island opposite Mariensk is the trace of a fortification built by Stepanoff, a Russian adventurer who descended the Amoor in 1654.  Stepanoff passed the winter at this point, and fortified himself to be secure against the natives.  He seems to have engaged in a general business of filibustering on joint account of himself and his government.  In the winter of his residence at this fortress he collected nearly five thousand sable skins as a tribute to his emperor—­and himself.

Morning found us at Sofyesk taking a fresh supply of wood.  This town was founded a few years ago, and has a decided appearance of newness.  There is a wagon road along the shore of Keezee lake and across the hills to De Castries Bay.  Light draft steamboats can go within twelve miles of De Castries.  Surveys have been made with the design of connecting Keezee Lake and the Gulf of Tartary by a canal.  A railway has also been proposed, but neither enterprise will be undertaken for many years.  I passed an hour with the post commander, who had just received a pile of papers only two months from St. Petersburg, the mail having arrived the day before.

The steamer Telegraph lay at the landing when we arrived; among her passengers was a Manjour merchant, who possessed an intelligent face, quite in contrast with the sleepy Gilyaks.  He wore the Manjour dress, consisting of wide trowsers and a long robe reaching to his heels; his shoes and hat were Chinese, and his robe was held at the waist with a silk cord.  His hair was braided in the Chinese fashion, and he sported a long mustache but no beard.

[Illustration:  MANJOUR MERCHANT.]

A few versts above Sofyesk we met a Manjour merchant evidently on a trading expedition.  He had a boat about twenty-five feet long by eight wide, with a single mast carrying a square sail.  His boat was full of boxes and bales and had a crew of four men.  A small skiff was towed astern and another alongside.  These Manjour merchants are quite enterprising, and engage in traffic for small profits and large risks when better terms are not attainable.  Before the Russian occupation all the trade of the lower Amoor was in Manjour hands.  Boats annually descended from San-Sin and Igoon bringing supplies for native use.  Sometimes a merchant would spend five or six months making his round journey.