Rhode Island American

THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA.

The author of A Journey from Moscow to the Frontiers of China, says—“The line of demarcation between the Empires of Russia and China, extends from the river Boukhtorina to the sea of Okhotzk. There is a space between the two of seventy yards, which belongs to nobody. It is extraordinary enough that these frontiers are formed almost every where on each side by two chains of mountains, between which is a flat level ground—which forms the neutral space. After the disposition of the places, and the number of inhabitants, are established guards five, ten, and twenty-five versts* apart, but which are always in sight of each other. They are obliged every day to patrol, in order to prevent all suspicious communications between the inhabitants of the two countries, and the violation of the limits. The Mongoles have such a piercing sight, that when even they are on horseback, the least trace of man or beast cannot escape them. In order the better to confirm these boundaries, they have amassed heaps of earth and stones on the highest places, and in the thickest forests; and in the places where the limits are formed by rivulets, they have driven in stakes on both sides, between which they have spread horse hair."

* A verst is about two-thirds of a mile.