Possiet Bay is a large military station of fine barracks and storehouses. It scarcely seemed to possess a civil population, but there are Korean settlements at no great distance, from which much of the beef supply of Wladivostok is derived. We met a number of strong, thriving-looking Koreans driving 60 fine fat cattle down to the steamer. The post wagon, in which we were cramped up among and under the mail-bags, took us at a two hours’ gallop along frozen inlets of the sea and across frozen rivers, over grassy, hilly country, scarcely enlivened by Korean farms in the valleys, to Nowo Kiewsk, which we reached after nightfall, and were hospitably received by the representative of Messrs. Kuntz and Albers, whose large brick and stone establishment is the prominent object in the settlement. Nowo Kiewsk is a great military post, to which 1,000 civilians, chiefly Koreans and Chinese, have been attracted by the prospect of gain. Koreans indeed form the bulk of this population, and do all the hauling of goods and fuel with their ox-teams. The centre of the town is a great dusty slope intersected by dusty and glaring roads, which resound at intervals from early morning till sunset with the steady tramp of brown-ulstered battalions. Between Possiet Bay and Nowo Kiewsk there were 10,000 infantry and artillery, and at the latter post 8 pieces of field artillery and 24 two-wheeled ammunition wagons. Barracks for 10,000 more men were in course of rapid construction. Long wooden sheds shelter the artillery ponies, and villages of low mud-houses of two rooms each, with windows consisting of a single small pane of glass, the families of soldiers. There are great drill and parade grounds and an imposing Greek church of the usual pattern. With its great open spaces and wide streets, Nowo Kiewsk looks laid out for futurity, straggling along a treeless and bushless hill slope for 2 miles. In addition to Kuntz and Albers, with their polyglot staff of clerks, among whom a young Korean in European dress was conspicuous for his gentlemanliness and alacrity, there is another German house, and there are forty small shops, chiefly kept by Chinese, at all of which _schnaps_ and _vodka_ are sold.