“ Each family receives a free allotment of from 200 to 300 acres of arable land, and a loan of 600 roubles, to be repaid without interest in thirty-two years, the young male colonists being exempted from military service for the same period. Already much of the land along the line as far as the Ussuri has been allotted, and houses are rapidly springing up, and there is nothing to prevent this fine country from being peopled up to the Amur, the rivers Sungacha and Ussuri, which form the boundary of Russia from the Hanka Lake to Khabaroffka, giving a natural protection from Chinese brigandage. ”

“ In the Maritime Province, Russia is steadily and solidly laying the foundations of a new empire which she purposes to make as nearly as possible a homogeneous one. *'No foreigner need apply" ! The emigrants, who are going out at the rate of from 700 to 1,000 families a year, are of a good class. Emigration is fostered in two ways. By the first, the Government grants assisted passages to heads of families who are possessed of 600 roubles (about £60 at present) , which are deposited with a Government official at Odessa, and are repaid to the emigrant on landing at Wladivostok. ”

“ Grass, timber, water, coal, minerals, a soil as rich as the prairies of Illinois, and a climate not only favorable to agriculture but to human health, all await the settler, and the broad, unoccupied, and fertile lands which Russian Manchuria offers are clamoring for inhabitants. ”

“ Large villages with wind- mills are met with along the line for the first 30 versts, as far as the buffet station of Spasskoje. The stoneless soil, a rich loam 6 feet and more in depth, produces heavy crops of oats, wheat, barley, maize, rye, potatoes, and tobacco. Beyond Spasskoje and east of the Hanka Lake up to the Amur a magnificent region waits to be peopled. ”

“ All stand in plots of garden ground. Utilitarianism is supreme. I drove for 20 miles in the region round the settlement, and everywhere saw prosperous farms and farming villages on the prairie, Russian and Korean, and found the settlers kindly and hospitable, and surrounded by material comfort. ”

“ The backs of the seats are hooked up to form upper berths for sleeping, and as the cars are eight feet high they admit of broad luggage shelves above these. The engines which ran the traffic were old American locomotives, but those which are to be introduced, as well as all the rolling stock, are being manufactured in the Baltic provinces. ”

“ Convict labor was abandoned in 1894, and the line in Primorsk is being constructed by Chinese "navvies," who earn about 80 cents per day, and who were bearing the rigor of a Siberian winter in well-warmed, semi-subterranean huts, the line being pushed on as much as possible during the cold season. ”

“ It has six streets of grotesque width, a verst and a half long each. There is no poverty. It is a place of rapid growth and prosperity, the centre of a great trade in grain, and has a large flour mill owned by Mr. ”