CHAPTER XVI.
On the morning of September 28th we arrived at Ekaterin-Nikolskoi, a flourishing settlement, said to contain nearly three hundred houses.
It stood on a plateau forty feet above the river, and was the best appearing village I had seen since leaving Habarofka.

The people that gathered on the bank were comfortably clad and evidently well fed, but I could not help wondering how so many could leave their labor to look at a steamboat.

The country was considered excellent for agriculture, yielding abundantly all the grains that had been tried.
On the Amoor the country below Gorin belongs to the Maritime province, which has its capital at Nicolayevsk.

Above Gorin is the Province of The Amoor, controlled by the governor at Blagoveshchensk.

In the Maritime Province the settlers are generally of the civilian or peasant class, while in the Amoor Province they are mostly Cossacks.
The latter depend more upon themselves than the former, and I was told that this was one cause of their prosperity.