They were not mistaken in their fears. Murder in cold blood awaited them; and only during the Middle Ages, at the time of the Inquisition and the persecution of heretics, Jews, and Moors in Spain, have such inhuman proceedings as now followed been equalled. Some versts above Blagovèstshensk, on the left bank of the Amur, there is a Cossack settlement. Thither before sunrise several thousand Chinese, among them old men, cripples, invalids, women, and children, were driven by the Cossacks and police. Those who for sickness or fatigue could not get so far were stabbed on the road by the Cossacks. One man, a representative of the great Chinese firm Li-Wa-Chan, refused to proceed, demanding to be taken to the governor, who had promised the Chinese delegates safety for all who remained on Russian soil; but for answer the Cossacks killed him then and there. The deputy-_prìstav_, Shabanov, was present, and uttered no word of protest against this iniquitous deed. When the miserable Chinese had been driven down to the shore of the Amur, they were commanded _to go into the water_. Means there were none for reaching the opposite Chinese shore; the river at this point is more than half a verst (about one-third of a mile) in width, and flows with a strong current. One can picture what terror seized on the poor creatures at the water’s edge. Falling on their knees, with hands raised to heaven, or even crossing themselves, they implored to be spared such a death. Many vowed to become Christians and to be naturalised as Russian subjects. But the only response vouchsafed to their prayers by the merciless fulfillers of official orders were bayonet-thrusts, and blows with the butt-end of rifles or with swords, to drive them into the river-depths; any who still continued to resist were simply murdered on the spot. Persons who by chance were eye-witnesses of this wholesale drowning and massacring, which proceeded on several successive days before the rising of the sun, tell of frightful and heartrending scenes. One Manchurian family that was driven into the water consisted of father, mother, and two little children. The parents each took a child, and tried to swim across the Amur, but all were soon sucked down by the current. In another family there was one child; the mother besought the murderers and the bystanders at least to take the little one and spare its life, but no one would do so. She then left it on the bank and herself entered the water, but after a few steps returned, seized her child, and carrying it went back into the river, then again returned and laid down her precious burden. Here the Cossacks intervened to end her vacillations, stabbing both parent and child. The tortures of this wretched mother and of all the victims thus driven to their death can be imagined by everyone not dead to all human feeling. Even the above-mentioned police officer, Shabanov, declared that he could not remain to the end of this scene of horror. [Illustration: