Frank inquired if it was often necessary in Siberian towns to obtain lodgings in this way, and whether they were paid for?
"It was only the lateness of the hour and the fact that neither of us had ever been in Kiachta that compelled us to apply to the police-master. Travellers are unfrequent in Siberia, and the few strangers that go through the country are cordially welcomed. Officers are entertained by their fellow-officers, and merchants by their fellow-merchants. Lodgings obtained as we obtained ours are paid for exactly as they would be at a hotel. We were invited to move the next day, but were so well lodged that we chose to stay where we were.
"The morning after our arrival we delivered our letters of introduction and made numerous calls, the latter including a visit to the _Sargootchay_, or Chinese Governor of Mai-mai-chin. Which of you has read enough about the relations between China and Russia to tell me about these two places--Kiachta and Mai-mai-chin?"
Frank was the first to speak, which he did as follows:
"Kiachta and Mai-mai-chin were built in 1727 for the purposes of commerce--Mai-mai-chin meaning in Chinese 'place of trade.' The towns are about a hundred yards apart, one thoroughly Russian and the other as thoroughly Chinese. From 1727 to 1860 nearly all the trade between the two empires was conducted at this point, and the merchants who managed the business made great fortunes. Women were forbidden to live in Mai-mai-chin, and down to the present day the Chinese merchants keep their families at Urga, two or three hundred miles to the south. The same restriction was at first made upon the Russian merchants at Kiachta, but after a time the rule was relaxed and has never since been enforced. Until quite recently, strangers were forbidden to stay over-night in Kiachta, but were lodged at Troitskosavsk, about two miles away."
"I should say right here," remarked Mr. Hegeman, "that my friend and myself were really lodged in Troitskosavsk and not in Kiachta. The latter place had about a thousand inhabitants, and the former four or five thousand. At a distance only Kiachta is mentioned, just as a man may say he lives in London or New York when his home is really in a suburb of one of those cities."
