never suppose it to be the most important commercial point in Eastern Siberia. Through Kiákhta, nevertheless, pass into or out of Mongolia every year Russian and Chinese products to the value of from twenty to thirty million rúbles ($10,000,000 to $15,000,000). Nearly all of the famous "overland" tea consumed in Russia is brought across Mongolia in caravans from northern China, enters the Empire through Kiákhta, and after being carefully repacked and sewn up in raw hides is transported across Siberia a distance of nearly four thousand miles to St. Petersburg, Moscow, or the great annual fair of Nízhni Nóvgorod. Through Kiákhta are also imported into Russia silks, crapes, and other distinctively Chinese products, together with great quantities of compressed, or "brick," tea for the poorer classes of the Russian people and for the Kírghis, Buriáts, and other native tribes. The chief exports to the Chinese Empire are Russian manufactures, medicinal deer-horns, ginseng, furs, and precious metals in the shape of Russian, English, and American coins. Even the silver dollars of the United States find their way into the Flowery Kingdom through Siberia. Among the Russian merchants living in Kiákhta are men of great wealth, some of whom derive from their commercial transactions in general, and from the tea trade in particular, incomes varying from $75,000 to $150,000 per annum.
We found Mr. Lúshnikof living in a comfortably furnished two-story house near the center of the town, and upon introducing ourselves as American travelers were received with the sincere and cordial hospitality that seems to be characteristic of Russians everywhere, from Bering Strait to the Baltic Sea. In the course of lunch, which was served soon after our arrival, we discussed the "sights" of Kiákhta and Maimáchin, and were informed by Mr. Lúshnikof that in his opinion there was very little in either town worthy of a foreign traveler's attention. Maimáchin might perhaps interest us if we had never seen a Chinese
