Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/576

Rh 548 MARITIME PROVINCE killed seven hundred during its eight months stay on Behring s Island, is rapidly becoming extinct, as well as the sea-lion {Otaria, stelleri) ; whilst the sea-cow (llliytina stelleri) was completely extirpated in the course of forty years. Thanks to the care taken by an American company which has the monopoly of hunting on Behring and Copper Islands, the sea-bear (Otaria ursina), which was likely t meet with the same fate, is nearly domesticated at present, and multiplies rapidly, yielding no less than twelve thousand skins per annum. The inhabitants of this region, the Chukchees (Tuski, or Chaouktoos), who number no more than 12,000 souls (according to some authoritie only 5000), seem to have immigrated from the south; their racial characters make them an ethnological link between the Mongols of Central Asia and the Indians of America ; they are also very nearly akin in their features and customs to the Eskimo. They are subdivided, how ever, into two distinct branches, with different customs and languages. Those of the interior support themselves by reindeer breeding (herds of ten thousand being not uncommon) and by hunting ; whilst those of the coast live by fishing, and are very poor. All travellers who have had dealings with Chukchees speak in the highest terms of the character of the former branch, and of the fraternal feelings shown by them in their mutual relations. The Koryaks (about 5000), who occupy the southern part of this region, are nearly akin to Chukchees. They extend their migrations also to the northern part of Kamchatka. Those of the interior are reindeer proprietors and hunters, and like the Chukchees are quite independ ent, own no superiors, and live in federations of families. They have firmly resisted Russian conquest; and there are tribes among them which still refuse to pay the yasak (tribute in furs) to the Russian authorities. Their national character is described by travellers as very different from that of the settled Koryaks of the coast, who live in the utmost poverty, and have acquired vicious habits from their intercourse with European and American sailors. The middle part of the Maritime Province is a narrow strip of land (40 to 60 miles wide) along the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, including the basin of the Ud in the south. This area is occupied by wild mountains, 4000 to 7000 feet high, forming the eastern border of the high plateau of Eastern Siberia. Thick forests of larch clothe the mountains to nearly one-half of their height, as well as the deep valleys, where short streams discharge into the Pacific the water produced by the melting of accumulations of snow and ice (naMpi, naledi). The undulating hills of the basin of the Ud, which is a continuation to the south west, between the Stanovoy and Bureya mountains, of the deep indentation of the Sea of Okhotsk, are covered with forests and marshes. Only Tunguses visit these inhospit able mountain wildernesses and the bays of the coast, living by hunting or fishing. The southern part of the province includes two distinct regions. From the north-eastern extremity of the Bureya, or Little Khingan range, of which the group of the Shantar Islands is a continuation, a wide and deep depression runs south-westwards to the junction of the Amur and Usuri, and thence to the lowlands of the lower Sungari. It is for the most part less than 500 feet above sea-level. The Amur, which takes a north-eastern course after reaching these lowlands, runs close to their eastern boundary, at the foot of the mountains of the sea-coast ; whilst on its left or western bank it spreads into numberless lakes and marshes, large and small, and extensively inundates the swamps at time of flood. The area on the right banks of the Amur and Usuri, between these rivers and the sea-coast, is occupied by a very little known hilly tract consist ing of several intricate systems of mountains, usually represented on maps as a single range, and known under the general name of Sikhota-alin. The summits reach the height of 5150 feet (Golaya ( -Jora peak) and the average elevation of the few passes is about 2500 feet. There is, however, one depression in these mountains, occupied by Lake Kizi, which may have been at one time an outflow of the Amur to the sea. The Sikhota-alin mountains are covered with thick impracticable forests, through which a passage can be- forced only by means of the hatchet. The lowlands and the count less islands of the Amur are covered with a grass vegetation as luxuriant as that of the forests, and present the same difficulties to the pioneer. Herbaceous plants, 7 to 10 feet high, intertwined with numberless climbing plants, cover the soil with an impenetrable thicket, and, when destroyed by fire, rapidly grow again to their former height. The flora and fauna of this region (especially in the Usuri district) exhibit a striking combination of species of warm climates with those of subarctic regions ; the wild vine clings to the larch and cedar-pine, and the tiger meets the bear and the sable. The quantity of fish in the rivers is immense, and in August the wide channels of the Amur and Usuri literally swarm with the ascending salmon. The mountain-wildernesses are visited by no madic Tunguses, while the banks of the great rivers are inhabited, besides Russians, by Golds and Oroclions, both of Tungusian origin, and the lower Amur by Ghilyaks, closely allied to the Ainos of Saghalien. Manchus and Chinese are scattered here and there among the Russian population on the right bank of the Usuri. The best part of the Maritime Province is at its southern extremity, in the valley of the Suifun river, which enters the Pacific in the Gulf of Peter the Great, and on the shores of the bays of the southern coast, where new settlements have appeared since this territory was annexed to Russia in 1860. But even here the climate is very harsh. The warm sea-current of the Kuro-sivo does not reach the coasts of Siberia, while a cold current, originating in the Sea of Okhotsk, brings its icy water and chilling fogs to the coasts of Saghalien, and flows along the Siberian shores to the eastern coast of Corea, The high mountains of the sea-coast and the monsoons of the Chinese Sea contribute to produce in the southern parts of the Maritime Province cold winters and wet summers. Accordingly, at Vladivostok (in the Gulf of Peter the Great), which has the same latitude as Marseilles, the average yearly tem perature is only 39 5 Fahr. , and the harbour is frozen for nearly three months ; the Amur and Usuri are frozen in November. Towards the end of summer the moist monsoons cause heavy rain falls, which destroy the harvests and bring about su .-h inundations that even in the two miles wide channel of the Amur the water within a few days rises more than 15 feet, and covers the low lands to a breadth of 15 to 20 miles ; the navigation also becomes dangerous for small river steamers and barges, on account of storms from the Chinese Sea. The sea-coast farther north has a continental and arctic climate. At Nikolayevsk, temperatures as low as -41 5 Fahr. are observed in winter, and as high as 94 G in summer, the average yearly temperature being below zero ( - 9). At Ayan (56 27 N. lat.) the average temperature of the year is 25 5 (-0 4 in winter, and 50 0- 5 in summer), and at Okhotsk (59 21 N. lat.) it is 2*3 (-6 in winter, and 52 5 in summer). Russian settlements occur at intervals throughout the whole of the province, but, with exception of those on the banks of the Amur and Usuri, and the southern ports of the sea-coast, they are mere centres of administration. Anadyrsk on the Anadyr river, Penzhinsk and Ghizhiga at the heads of bays of the same name, Ayan on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, and Udskoy Ostrog on the river Ud, all have played an important part in the conquest of Siberia by Cossacks and merchants ; but at present they are only small blockhouses with a few buildings around them, and the seat of local authorities ; the population of none exceeds two hundred. Okhotsk, which has given its name to the sea between Kamchatka and the Siberian coast, is one of the oldest towns of Eastern Siberia, having been founded in 1649. Until the acquisition by Russin of the Manchurian sea-coast, this port, 700 miles distant from Yakutsk, poor though it is, was an object of special solicitude to the Russian Government for the maintenance of its possessions on the Pacific. It is connected by a bridle path with Yakutsk, and even in 1851-56, during the conquest of the Amur, all communica tion with the mouth of the Amur was by this route. It has now but 210 inhabitants. Nikolayevsk, on the left bank of the Amur, 23 miles from its mouth, was until lately the capital of the Mari time Province. Great expectations were formed regarding it when it was founded in 1851. It was provided with machine-works, foundries, and dockyards, and was proclaimed a free port. But the difficulties of navigation and of communication with the interior, and the complete failure of the governmental colonization of the Amur, made the prosperity of the new Russian port on the Pacific impossible, and the seat of government, was transferred to the more central Khabarovka. At present Nikolayevsk has only 3500 .nhabitants, nearly all military or officials, and a few foreign merchants trading chiefly in groceries and spirits. The port is visited every year by from twenty to twenty-live ships, importing manufactured and grocery wares to the value of about 100,000, ind of wines and spirits estimated at 20,000. On the banks of the Amur, from Nikolayevsk to the mouth of the Usuri, is a chain of Russian settlements at distances not exceeding 25 miles. Their