Excerpt from The Russians on the Amur: Its Discovery, Conquest, and Colonisation, With a Description of the Country, Its Inhabitants, Productions, and Commercial Capabilities; And Personal Accounts of Russian Travellers The progress of Russia in Asia, her rapid strides in the direction of India, and the acquisition from China of pro vinces far exceeding the British Islands in extent, cannot fail of being important to a nation with such vast interests at stake in China and the East as England has. In presenting therefore a work on Russian advance on the Amur, within the confines of the Celestial Empire, we feel that we are laying before the public a subject well worthy of their attention. It has been our endeavour to convey a correct idea of the past and present condition of 'the countries we treat of, their productions, inhabitants, and germs of future development, information of value not only to the geographer, politician, or merchant, but also attractive to that' daily-increasing portion of the public who find a pleasure in studying the state and prospects of distant countries. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.