and only built for the one voyage down to the Black Sea, where they are taken to pieces and sold. I had an opportunity of seeing both of these kinds of lighters built last winter. It was a queer sight to see three such Berliners building, each large enough to hold about 120 standards. There can be no doubt that in like manner the men-ofwar were built some hundreds of years ago, when many battles were fought here between the Russians and the wild tribes from the east and south of Russia. The boards used were 5 to 6 inches thick, 15 to 20 inches wide, 50 to 60 feet long, hand-sawn out of one block of the finest trees found in the woods. Thousands of the most beautiful oaks were cut down and made into lighters, each being equal in value to that of a nice sized schooner. Still more wonderful was the building of the barque, which is a sort of Noah's Ark as to size. How they got this enormous structure to hold together and to keep tight is not easy to understand, more especially as it was built to pass the cataracts between Kremenchuek and Kherson. Most of the timber is being sent down to Kherson, Nikolaiev, and Odessa; a small part of it is sold on the way at Kiev and some other places. In Kherson are large sawmills, where many of the logs are transformed into deals and boards; others are shipped from Nikolaiev and Odessa in the form of square timber.
' There are some sawmills in this part of Russia also, but they are as old-fashioned as everything else, where some thousands of logs yearly are sawn into large boards, mostly all of one size, and sold at so much a piece at Kiev.
' In this part of Russia there exists a decided feeling against foreigners; and with the dim idea they have of right and wrong, they consider it their duty to persecute strangers as much as lies in their power.
' In the end of 1882 a wood- exporting firm in Finland made an agreement with a Count v. M., in St. Peters • burg, who was the owner of a large estate with extensive forests in this neighbourhood, to take out the value of the woods for joint account. The forests contained about a million of trees, ripe for cutting, and these were to be made into money in as short a time as possible. Plans were made; a sawmill with six frames, and a planing-mill were to be built, and 80,000 trees were ordered to be felled the first year. The trees were felled, the sawmill was built, workmen were collected from Sweden, Finland, and Riga. Last summer the sawmill was so far ready that sawing began, when the firm in Finland unexpectedly fell into difficulties. Money was not sent to pay the workmen. Some time after, the firm in Finland became bankrupt, and the owner left for America. The Count v. M. stopped payment in the real sense of the word, and there the poor workmen were left with their wives and children in utter want of money, in an exceedingly dangerous climate, where fever and illness came more regularly than the daily bread, without means to buy medicine, and without a medical man to attend them. Death visited them through typhus, and they had to bury their dead themselves.
' Te detail the intrigues, the unfulfilled promises, and the mean behaviour of the Russians against these poor people, would be of no use. Suffice it to say, that by their common efforts they got over the first part of the winter, arid through the help of the Swedish Ambassador, and the Finnish authorities in St. Petersburg, they have been sent home to their respective countries. The business is entirely wound up, and the very fine sawmill, with its first-rate machinery and every new improvement, is waiting for a new owner, who may have sufficient means to make himself independent of Russian intrigues, and be able to continue a business which began hopefully a little more than a year ago.'
Kherson, the capital of the government of that name, was founded in 1.778, and soon became a port for vessels from all countries of Europe. It is 57 miles from the Black Sea, and 92 E.N.E. from Odessa, on the right bank of the Limari, an immense embouchure of the Dnieper, which is here four miles broad, where, when as is frequently the case, its numerous shoals are covered with water, but when the shoals are exposed, the breadth of the river itself is not more than one verst, or two-thirds of a mile.
It is an emporium for the equipment and armament of the fleet of the Black Sea, timber being brought by the Dnieper both for its own supply and that of Nicolaiev and Odessa. There is a fine basin cut out of the limestone rock. During the spring flood of the river vessels built here can be transported to the Black Sea upon ' camels,' as they are called, and much of the produce of the interior is brought here, and taken to Odessa in lighters.