As we left the town, near the close of day, the clouds broke in the west and the sunshine lighted up these mountains and seemed to lift them above their real position.

With the red and golden colors of the clouds; the lights and shadows of the mountains; the yellow forests of autumn, and the green plains near the river; the stillness broken only by our own motion or the rippling of the river, the scene was 'most fair to look upon.' I have never seen sunsets more beautiful than those of the Amoor.
[Illustration: ARMED AND EQUIPPED.] I rose early in the morning to look at the mouth of the Songaree.
Under a cloudy moon I could distinguish little beyond the outline of the land and the long low water line where the Amoor and Songaree sweep at right angles from their respective valleys.

Even though it was not daylight I could distinguish the line of separation, or union, between the waters of the two streams, just as one can observe it where the Missouri and Mississippi unite above Saint Louis.

I would have given much to see this place in full daylight, but the fates willed it otherwise.
This river is destined at some time to play an important part in Russian and Chinese diplomacy.

At present it is entirely controlled by China, but it appears on all the late maps of Eastern Siberia with such minuteness as to indicate that the Russians expect to obtain it before long.