The men were in cotton garments and conical hats, and their queues of hair hung like ships pennants in a dead calm, or the tails of a group of scared dogs.  They seemed to enjoy themselves, and were laughing merrily as we went past them.  They waved their hands up the stream as if urging us to go ahead and say they were coming.  The one reclining was a venerable personage, with a thin beard fringing a sedate visage, into which he drew long whiffs and comfort from a Chinese pipe.

These boats were doubtless from Kirin or San-Sin, on their way to Igoon.  The voyage must be a tedious one to any but a Mongol, much like the navigation of the Mississippi before the days of steam-boats.  In spite of the great advantages to commerce, the Manjours resisted to the last the introduction of steam on the Amoor just as they now oppose it on the Songaree.

[Illustration:  MANJOUR BOAT.]

In the language of the natives along its banks the Amoor has several names.  The Chinese formerly called the Songaree ‘Ku-tong,’ and considered the lower Amoor a part of that stream.  Above the Songaree the Amoor was called ‘Sakhalin-Oula,’ (black water,) by the Manjours and Chinese.  The Goldees named it ‘Mongo,’ and the Gilyaks called it ‘Mamoo.’  The name Amoor was given by the Russians, and is considered a corruption of the Gilyak word.  When Mr. Collins descended, in 1857, the natives near Igoon did not or would not understand him when he spoke of the Amoor.  They called the river ‘Sakhalin,’ a name which the Russians gave to the long island at the mouth of the Amoor.  As the Mongolian maps do not reach the outside world I presume the Russian names are most likely to endure with geographers.  The upper part of the defile of the Buryea Mountains is wider and has more meadows than the lower portion.  On one of these meadows, where there is a considerable extent of arable land, we found the village of Raddevski, named in honor of the naturalist Raddy, who explored this region.  The resources here were excellent, if I may judge by the quantity and quality of edibles offered to our steward.  The people of both sexes flocked to the landing with vegetables, bread, chickens, butter, and other good things in much larger quantity than we desired.  There was a liberal supply of pigs and chickens, with many wild geese and ducks.  We bought a pig and kept him on board three or four days.  He squealed without cessation, until our captain considered him a bore, and ordered him killed and roasted.

Pigs were generally carried in bags or in the arms of their owners.  One day a woman brought a thirty pound pig suspended over her shoulder.  The noise and kicking of the brute did not disturb her, and she held him as unconcernedly as if he were an infant.  Finding no market for her property, she turned it loose and allowed it to take its own way home.  Milk was almost invariably brought in bottles, and eggs in boxes or baskets.  Eggs were sold by the dizaine (ten,) and not as with us by the dozen.