As in other parts of the country, the inhabitants were favoured so far as possible in regard to the acquisition of horses, which were necessary for teaming and haulage work generally, in a district where steam traction engines were quite out of the question. The camps were provided also, so far as practicable, with local produce. In this territory, however, a serious situation was precipitated. The harvest failed, and the peasants were faced with starvation. Then the dreaded disease known locally as “Siberia” ravaged the country. It is a plague analogous to the rinderpest of South Africa, and has wrought tremendous havoc throughout the eastern corner of the Russian Empire, its effects being experienced along the shores of the Pacific. In 1898, this calamity assumed such proportions that work had to be brought to a standstill for lack of transportation facilities. The Government attempted to alleviate the situation by organising a special veterinary service to study the plague on the spot, with a view to elaborating some palliative measures. In order to meet the local deficiency the engineers were compelled to dispatch emissaries into Mongolia to purchase the hardy beasts of burden peculiar to that country. Large herds were acquired in this manner and were driven several hundred miles to the grade. By means of this section the railway was carried so far east as Stretensk, from which point the line was to be continued to Khabarovsk. A modification in the arrangements, however, took place. Under the original scheme the line was to traverse Russian territory entirely, although Manchuria thrust its border so far to the north as to demand a wide detour in order to gain Vladivostok. At last, however, it became possible to carry the railway into Manchuria, and as a link was being built across this country, affording a short-cut to the seaboard, the Amur railway was abandoned, a short length being built to the Chinese frontier to connect with the Eastern Chinese railways instead. The result is that the extreme eastern end of the line comes to a dead-end at Khabarovsk, and in itself is far from being remunerative. At the time the engineers appeared on the scene the territory had not been explored, signs of settlement were very few and far between, there were no roads, and the population was composed mostly of exiles and prisoners deported from Europe. Construction had to be carried out almost exclusively by convicts, assisted by the military, Chinese and Corean labour. The climate being extremely humid in summer, the work during that period proved terribly exacting, and the difficulties were enhanced by the ravages of the cattle plague. All material, being manufactured in European Russia, had to be brought to the extreme eastern end by water, either via the Suez Canal or the Cape of Good Hope, and consequently delays were frequent and often serious for both grade and men.