Here and there were open spaces appearing as if cleared for cultivation.

With occasional sand bars and low islands, and the banks frequently broken and shelving, the resemblance to the lower Mississippi was almost perfect.
Mr.Maack says of this region: "In the early part of the year when the yellow blossoms of the Lonicera chrysantha fill the air with their fragrance, when the syringas bloom and the Hylonecon bedecks large tracts with a bright golden hue, when corydales, violets, and pasque flowers are open, the forests near the Ousuree may bear comparison in variety of richness and coloring with the open woods of the prairie country.

Later in the year, the scarcity of flowers is compensated by the richness of the herbage, and after a shower of rain delicious perfumes are wafted towards us from the tops of the walnut and cork trees." A little past noon we touched at the Russian village of Petrovsky.

At this place the river was rapidly washing the banks, and I was told that during three years nearly four hundred feet in front of the village had been carried away.

The single row of houses forming the settlement stands with a narrow street between it and the edge of the bank.