The navigation of the Straits of Tartary is very intricate, the water being shallow and the channel tortuous.

From De Castries to Cape Catherine there is no difficulty, but beyond the cape the channel winds like the course of the Ohio, and at many points bends quite abruptly.

The government has surveyed and buoyed it with considerable care, so that a good pilot can take a light draught steamer from De Castries to Nicolayevsk in twelve or fifteen hours.

Sailing ships are greatly retarded by head winds and calms, and often spend weeks on the voyage.

In 1857 Major Collins was nineteen days on the barque Bering from one of these ports to the other.
[Illustration: TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE.] In the straits we passed four vessels, one of them thirty days from De Castries and only half through the worst of the passage.