IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
| i 886.] HUNCHUN. | 31 |
said, there were gold-mines, which, however, it was only permissible for government to work, as the Chinese think that
indiscriminate gold-mining only leads to fighting and quar-
relling and trouble, and the emperor therefore forbids it to his subjects entirely. We crossed numerous side streams, and
these, as well as the Hurka itself, swarm with fish, mostly
salmon. The natives form dams across the side streams, and catch them in hundreds. So at this time, what with pheasants,
ducks, geese, and salmon, we were living very comfortably, and making up for our privations in the forests of the White Mountain.
As we neared Ninguta the valley opened up into a wide plain, which was well cultivated and populated, and on October 26 we reached Ninguta, a flourishing place of nearly twenty thousand inhabitants. Here we found a telegraph station just opened. The Chinese attach considerable importance to this frontier, touching as it does on Russian territory, and the construction of this telegraph line was one of the signs of the interest they took in it. The line was well and stoutly constructed under the supervision of a Danish gentleman. But the office was manned entirely by Chinese, and the language in use was English. Every . clerk spoke English, and it was a pleasure to us to meet any one who spoke our native tongue.
We halted here a couple of days, and then started for Hunchun, a garrison post of some importance, situated on the extreme frontier, and just at the point where Russian, Chinese, and Corean territory meet. Winter was creeping on apace now. The thermometer on the morning we left Ninguta was at i I° Fahrenheit, so we had to push on hard to get to our furthest destination, which we hoped might be on the sea, at the Russian port just beyond Hunchun, and then back to our original starting-point at Newchwang, before the severest part of the Manchurian winter overtook us. The
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