abruptly. The government has surveyed and buoyed it with considerable
care, so that a good pilot can take a light draught steamer from De
Castries to Nicolayevsk in twelve or fifteen hours. Sailing ships are
greatly retarded by head winds and calms, and often spend weeks on the
voyage. In 1857 Major Collins was nineteen days on the barque Bering
from one of these ports to the other.

[Illustration: TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE.]

In the straits we passed four vessels, one of them thirty days from De
Castries and only half through the worst of the passage. The water
shoals so rapidly in some places that it is necessary to sound on both
sides of the ship at once. Vessels drawing less than ten feet can pass
to the Ohotsk sea around the northern end of Sakhalin island, but the
channel is even more crooked than the southern one.

We anchored at sunset, and did not move till daybreak. At the hour of
sunset, on this vessel as on the corvette, we had the evening chant of
the service of the Eastern church. While it was in progress a sentinel
on duty over the cabin held his musket in his left hand and made the
sign of the cross with his right. Soldier and Christian at the same
moment, he observed the outward ceremonial of both. The crew, with
uncovered beads, stood upon the deck and chanted the prayer. As the
prayer was uttered the national flag, lowered from the mast, seemed,
like those beneath it, to bow in adoration of the Being who holds the
waters in the hollow of His hand, and guides and controls the
universe.

While passing the straits of Tartary we observed a mirage of great
beauty, that pictured the shores of Sakhalin like a tropical scene. We