We drove with a Russo-Chinese interpreter to the residence of the surguchéi, or Chinese governor, — which was distinguished from all other houses by having two high poles tipped with gilded balls erected in front of it, — and after being introduced to his Excellency by Mr. Sulkófski were invited to partake of tea, sweetmeats, and máigalo, or Chinese rice-brandy. We exchanged with the governor a number of ceremonious and not at all exciting inquiries and replies relative to his and our health, affairs, and general well-being, drank three or four sáik-cups of máigalo, nibbled at some candied fruits, and then, as the hour for his devotions had arrived, went with him by invitation to the temple and saw him say his prayers before a large wooden idol to an accompaniment made by the slow tolling of a big, deep-toned bell. The object of the bell-ringing seemed to be to notify the whole population of the town that his Excellency the governor was communing with his Joss. When we returned to his house Mr. Frost drew a portrait of him as with an amusing air of conscious majesty he sat upon a tiger-skin in his chair of state, and then, as we had no excuse for lingering longer, we took our leave, each of us receiving a neatly tied package in which were the nuts, sweetmeats, and candied fruits that had been set before us but had not been eaten.
We wasted the rest of the afternoon in trying to get photographs of some of the strange types and groups that were to be seen in the Maimáchin streets. Again and again we were surrounded by forty or fifty Mongols, Buriáts, and nondescript natives from the great southern steppes, and again and again we set up the camera and trained it upon a part of the picturesque throng. Every time Mr. Frost covered his head with the black cloth and took off the brass cap that concealed the instrument's Cyclopean eye, the apprehensive Celestials vanished with as much celerity as if the artist were manipulating a Gatling gun. We could clear a whole street from one end to the
