There were two Englishmen and one Frenchman residing at Kiachta. The latter, Mr. Garnier, was a merchant, and was about to many a young and pretty Russian whose mother had a large fortune and thirteen dogs. The old lady appeared perfectly clear headed on every subject outside of dogs. A fortnight before my visit she owned fifteen, but the police killed two on a charge of biting somebody. She was inconsolable at their loss, took her bed from grief, and seriously contemplated going into mourning. I asked Garnier what would be the result if every dog of the thirteen should have his day. “Ah!” he replied, with a sigh, “the poor lady could never sustain it. I fear it would cause her death.”
One Englishman, Mr. Bishop, had a telegraph scheme which he had vainly endeavored for two years to persuade the stubborn Chinese to look upon with favor. The Chinese have a superstitious dread of the electric telegraph, and the government is unwilling to do anything not in accordance with the will of the people.
A few years ago some Americans at Shanghae thought it a good speculation to construct a telegraph line between that city and the mouth of the river. The distance was about fifteen miles, and the line when finished operated satisfactorily. The Chinese made no interference, either officially or otherwise, with its construction.
RUSSIAN PETS.
They did not understand its working, but supposed the foreigners employed agile and invisible devils to run along the wires and convey intelligence. All went well for a month or two. One night a Chinese happened to die suddenly in a house that stood near a telegraph pole. A knowing Celestial suggested that one of the foreign devils had descended from the wire and killed the unfortunate native. A mob very soon destroyed the dangerous innovation.
The other Englishman, Mr. Grant, was the projector and manager of a Pony Express from Kiachta to Pekin. He forwarded telegrams between London and Shanghae merchants, any others who chose to employ him. He claimed that his Mongol couriers made the journey to Pekin in twelve days, and that he could outstrip the Suez and Ceylon telegraph and steamers. He seemed a permanent fixture of Kiachta, as he had married a Russian lady, the daughter of a former governor. All these foreigners placed me under obligations for various favors, and the two Britons were certainly more kind to me than to each other.
PONY EXPRESS.
I spent an evening at the club-rooms, where there was some heavy card-playing. One man lost nine hundred roubles in half an hour, and they told me that such an occurrence was not uncommon. In all card playing I ever witnessed in Russia there was ‘something to make it interesting.’ Money is invariably staked, and the Russians were surprised when I said, in answer to questions, that people in America generally indulged in cards for amusement alone. Ladies had no hesitation in gambling, and many of them followed it passionately. ‘Chaque pays a sa habitude,’ remarked a lady one evening when I answered her query about card playing in America. It was the Russian fashion to gamble, and no one dreamed of making the slightest concealment of it. Though I saw it repeatedly I could never rid myself of a desire to turn away when a lady was reckoning her gains and losses, and keeping her accounts on the table cover. Russian card tables are covered with green cloth and provided with chalk pencils and brushes for players’ use. Cards are a government monopoly.