The Great Siberian Railway by Francis E. Clark

For three days longer we continued to steam on the _Baron Korff_ between China and Russia. On the third day out from Khabaroffsk the scenery grows more charming with every mile. The Amour here passes through a cleft in a spur of the Khingan Mountains, which close in on her on both the Manchurian and Siberian sides. The hills here are not very high, perhaps not more than five hundred feet, but their sides are often precipitous and present a sheer wall of rock to the view, through which it forces its way with many a swirl and eddy and with tremendous force of current, against which our good ship could make but slow headway.

We here remarked again the peculiar open, park-like effect of the forests, especially on the Manchurian side. I could scarcely believe that these trees in these far Eastern wilds had not been planted by man, and that they did not indicate some great baronial estate, whose castle, to be sure, was hidden behind the hills. Some beautiful hill slopes were covered with stately white birches, without a sign of underbrush, but with green grass forming a soft carpet beneath. In other places trees with black boles took the place of the white birch, but they were at such a distance that I could not determine the species, though they looked like oaks. For miles and miles these natural parks continued, and even where the park-like effect was not so pronounced and beautiful, the lovely open character of the forest continued, for nearly the whole of our fifteen hundred miles on the Amour. The cause of this beautiful effect I do not know. Perhaps in the severe Siberian winters only the fittest survive. The small wood, vines, and parasites of all kinds are killed off by the cold, and only the hardier and stronger trees remain. Whatever the cause, the resultant parks make the banks of the Amour singularly attractive during the brief summer.