Conversation was carried on through the Colonel’s interpreter, and ran upon various topics.  General Bussy’s death was mentioned in terms of regret, and then followed an interchange of compliments between the two governors who met for the first time.  After this the Chinese governor spoke of my visit to Sakhalin-Oula, and said I was the first American he ever met in his province.

“How did I come from America,” he asked, “and how far had I traveled to reach Blagoveshchensk?”

The interpreter named the distance and said I came to the Amoor in a ship connected with the telegraph service.

“When would the telegraph be finished?”

He was told that within two or three years they would probably be able to send messages direct to America.

Then he asked if the railway would not soon follow the telegraph.  He had never seen either, but understood perfectly their manner of working.  He expressed himself pleased at the progress of the telegraph enterprise, but did not intimate that China desired anything of the kind.  The interview lasted about an hour, and ended with a leave-taking after the European manner.

There is much complaint among the Russians that the treaty of 1860 is not carried out by the Chinese.  It is stipulated that trade shall be free along the entire boundary between the two empires, and that merchants can enter either country at will.  The Chinese merchants are not free to leave their own territory and visit Russia, but are subject to various annoyances at the hands of their own officials.  I was repeatedly informed at Blagoveshchensk that the restrictions upon commerce wore very serious and in direct violation of the stipulations.  One gentleman told me: 

“Every Manjour trader that brings anything here pays a tax of twenty to fifty per cent, for permission to cross the river.  We pay now a third more for what we purchase than when we first settled here.  The merchants complain of the restriction, and sometimes, though rarely, manage to evade it.  Occasionally a Manjour comes to me offering an article twenty or thirty per cent, below his usual price, explaining that he smuggled it and requesting me not to expose him.”

I asked if the taxation was made by the Chinese government, and was answered in the negative.

“Thee police of Igoon and Sakhalin-Oula regulate the whole matter.  It is purely a black-mail system, and the merchant who refuses to pay will be thrown into prison on some frivolous charge.  The police master of Igoon has a small salary, but has grown very wealthy in a few years.  The Russian and Chinese governors have considered the affair several times, but accomplish nothing.  On such occasions the Chinese governor summons his police-master and asks him if there is any truth in the charges of the corruption of his subordinates.  Of course he declares everything correct, and there the matter ends.”

How history repeats itself!  Compare this with the conduct of certain Treasury officials along the Mississippi during our late war.  The cases were exactly parallel.  The government scandalized, trade restricted, and merchants plundered, to fill the pockets of rapacious officers!  I began to think the Mongol more like the Anglo-Saxon than ethnologists believe, and found an additional argument for the unity of the human race.