1858 Russia - RIVER AMUR - TRANSBAIKAL - With Early Map

Russian-Chinese Borderlands - With Early Map

Title: Notes on the River Amúr and the Adjacent Districts. [With Map]

Author: MITCHEL, Mr.
Publisher: London: Royal Geographical Society, 1858

Notes & Condition: Translated from Russian sources, this is a thorough geographical analysis of the districts through which flows the Amur river, on the Russian-Chinese borderlands, from Lake Baikal, to the mountainous Transbaikal region, to the Sea of Okhotsk. Also with fascinating ethnological remarks on the Manchu, the Daur, the nomadic Tungus people, and a chronicle of a journey from Nikolaefsk (Nikolayevsk-on-Amur) to Yakutsk in the Russian Far East. A spectacular folding map, compiled by John Arrowsmith completes this early account.

68 pages, plus a large fold-out map , measuring approximately 18 inches x 7.75 inches (35cm x 20cm). These are the original pages and map printed in 1858. Age-toning to first leaf, otherwise in excellent condition, attractively bound booklet style in recent blue paper covers with label.

Excerpts from the Text: "...the most valuable river in Northern Asia, the only highway of nature that directly connects the central Steppes of Asia with the rest of the world.... The Amur was wholly in the Chinese territory; the boundary line between the Russian empire, following the course of the Argun until its junction with the Schilka to the Yablonoi range..."
"...the greatest part of those who can read and write in the towns are Dáurs, which promotes their taking bribes.... these poor peopls [Manchurs] are forbidden, under penalty to death, to ascend the river higher than the Sungari." End Excerpts

The Amur river is formed by the confluence of the Shilka and Argun rivers, in North East Asia, at the Russian-Chinese border; the Amur-Shilka-Onon system is almost 2,700 mile long. The Amur flows generally southeast, forming for more than 1,000 miles the border between Russia and China, then North East through Russia before entering the Tartar Strait opposite Sakhalin island. Its chief tributaries are the Ussuri, Songhua, Zeya, and Bureya rivers. One of the chief waterways of Asia, the Amur is navigable for small craft for its entire length during the ice-free season (May-Nov). The chief ports are the Russian cities of Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk, and Nikolayevsk.

As recently as the beginning of the 17th century, the Yukaghirs were over a large territory in North-Eastern Siberia - from the lower reaches of the River Lena in the west to the middle and upper reaches of the River Anadyr in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Verkhoyansk Mountains in the south. It has been suggested that the early Yukaghir ( the Yukaghir-Chuvan tribes) inhabited areas further to the west and to the south. In the 12th or the 13th century the Tungus people (the Evens and the Evenks) invaded Northern Siberia, coming from the mountain taigas behind Lake Baikal.