An officer, who was temporarily our fellow-passenger, on his way to one of the Cossack posts, a few miles above, gave an account of his experience with a tiger on the Ousuree.
I was out (said he) on a survey that we were making on behalf of the government to establish the boundary between Russia and China.

The country was then less known than now; there were no settlements along the river, and with the exception of the villages of the natives, thirty or forty miles apart, the whole country was a wilderness.

At one village we were warned that a large tiger had within a month killed two men and attacked a third, who was saved only by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a party of friends.

We prepared our rifles and pistols, to avoid the possibility of their missing fire in case of an encounter with the man-stealing beast.

Rather reluctantly some of the natives consented to serve us as guides to the next village.