The police master tendered his equipage and offered to escort me in making calls upon those I wished to know. Etiquette is no less rigid in Siberian towns and cities than in Moscow and St. Petersburg. One must make ceremonial visits as soon as possible after his arrival, officials being first called upon in the order of rank and civilians afterward. Officers making visits don their uniforms, with epaulettes and side arms, and with all their decorations blazing on their breasts. Civilians go in evening dress arranged with fastidious care. The hours for calling are between eleven A.M. and three P.M. A responsive call may be expected within two days, and must be made with the utmost precision of costume.
Arrayed for the occasion I made eight or ten visits in Kiachta and Troitskosavsk. The air was cold and the frost nipped rather severely through my thin boots as we drove back from Kiachta. After an early dinner we went to Maimaichin to visit the sargootchay, or Chinese governor. We passed under a gateway surmounted with the double-headed eagle, and were saluted by the Cossack guard as we left the borders of the Russian empire. Outside the gateway we traversed the neutral ground, two hundred yards wide, driving toward a screen or short wall of brick work, on which a red globe was represented. We crossed a narrow ditch and, passing behind the screen, entered a gateway into Maimaichin, the most northern city of China.
CHAPTER XXVII.
From 1727 to 1860 nearly all the trade between Russia and China was transacted at Kiachta and Maimaichin. The Russians built the one and the Chinese the other, exclusively for commercial purposes. To this day no Chinese women are allowed at Maimaichin. The merchants consider themselves only sojourners, though the majority spend the best part of their lives there. Contact with Russians has evidently improved the Celestials, as this little frontier city is the best arranged and cleanest in all China.
After passing the gateway, the street we entered was narrow compared to our own, and had but a single carriage track. On the sidewalks were many Chinese, who stopped to look at us, or rather at me. We drove about two hundred yards and turned into an enclosure, where we alighted. Near at hand were two masts like flag-staffs, gaily ornamented at the top but bearing no banners. Our halting place was near the Temple of Justice, where instruments of punishment were piled up. There were rattans and bamboos for flogging purposes by the side of yokes, collars, and fetters, carefully designed for subduing the refractory. There was a double set of stocks like those now obsolete in America, and their appearance indicated frequent use. To be cornered in these would be as unpleasant as in Harlem or Erie.
From this temple we passed through a covered colonnade and entered an ante-room, where several officers and servants were in attendance. Here we left our overcoats and were shown to another apartment where we met the sargootchay. His Excellency shook hands with me after the European manner. His son, a youth of sixteen, was then presented, and made the acquaintance of Major Boroslofski. The sargootchay had a pleasing and interesting face of the true Chinese type, with no beard beyond a slight mustache, and a complexion rather paler than most of his countrymen. He wore the dress of a Mandarin, with the universal long robe and a silk jacket with wide sleeves.
A CHINESE MANDARIN.
After the ceremony of introduction was ended the sargootchay signed for us to be seated. He took his own place on a divan, and gave the ‘illustrious stranger’ the post of honor near him. Tea and cigars were brought, and we had a few moments of smoky silence. The room was rather bare of furniture, and the decorations on the walls were Russian and Chinese in about equal proportion. I noticed a Russian stove in one corner and a samovar in the adjoining room. The sargootchay had been newly appointed, and arrived only a week before. I presume his housekeeping was not well under way.