There is nothing about this Ussuri Railway of the newness and provisional aspect of the Western American lines, or even of parts of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The track was already ballasted as far as Ussuri (327 _versts_), steel bridges spanned the minor streams, and substantial stations either of stone or decorated wood, with buffets at fixed distances, successfully compare both in stability and appearance with those of our English branch lines. The tank houses are of hewn stone. Houses for the employés, standing in neatly fenced gardens, are both decorative and substantial, being built of cement and logs protected by five coats of paint, and contain four rooms each. The crossings are well laid and protected. Culverts and retaining walls are of solid masonry, and telegraph wires accompany the road, which is worked strictly on the block system. The aspect of solidity and permanence is remarkable. Even the temporary bridge over the Ussuri, 1,050 feet in length, a trestle bridge of heavy timber to resist the impact of the ice, is so massive as to make the great steel bridge, the handsome abutments of which were already built, appear as if it would be a work of supererogation. Up to that point there are no serious embankments or cuttings, and the gradients are easy. The cost of construction of the Ussuri section is 50,000 roubles per _verst_, a rouble at this time being worth about 2s. 2d. This includes rolling stock, stations, and all bridges except that over the Amur, which was to cost 3,000,000 roubles, but may now be dispensed with owing to the diversion of the route through Manchuria. Convict labor was abandoned in 1894, and the line in Primorsk is being constructed by Chinese “navvies,” who earn about 80 cents per day, and who were bearing the rigor of a Siberian winter in well-warmed, semi-subterranean huts, the line being pushed on as much as possible during the cold season. For the first 102 _versts_, it passes along prettily wooded shores of inlets and banks of streams, and the country is fairly well peopled, judging from the number of sleighs and the bustle at the six stations _en route_. The line as far as Nikolskoye was opened in early November, 1893, and in a year had earned 280,000 roubles. The last section had only been open for eight weeks when I travelled upon it.