Zuruchaitu is situated in 137° longitude, and 49°. 20´ N. latitude, upon the Western branch of the river Argoon, at a small distance from its source. It is provided with a small garrison, and a few wretched barracks surrounded with chevaux de frise. No merchants are settled at this place; they come every summer from Nershinsk, and other Russian towns in order to meet two parties of Mongol troops: these troops are sent from the Chinese towns Naun and Merghen, and arrive at the frontiers about July. They encamp near Zuruchaitu upon the other side of the river Argoon, and barter with the Siberian merchants a few Chinese commodities, which they bring with them.
Commerce.
Formerly the commerce carried on at Zuruchaitu was more considerable; but at present it is so trifling, that it hardly deserves to be mentioned. These Mongols furnish the district of Nershinsk with bad tea and tobacco, bad silks, and some tolerable cottons. They receive in return ordinary furs, cloth, cattle, and Russian leather. This trade lasts about a month or six weeks, and the annual duties of the customs amount upon an average to no more than 500 roubles. About the middle of August the Mongols retire; part proceed immediately to China, and the others descend the stream of the Amoor as far as its mouth, in order to observe if there has been no usurpation upon the limits. At the same time the Russian merchants return to Nershinsk, and, were it not for the small garrison, Zuruchaitu would remain uninhabited[117].
Transport of the Russian and Chinese Commodities through Siberia.
The Russian commodities are transported by land from Petersburg and Moscow to Tobolsk. From thence the merchants may embark upon the Irtish down to its junction with the Oby; then they either tow up their boats, or sail up the last mentioned river as far as Marym, where they enter the Ket, which they ascend to Makoffskoi Ostrog. At that place the merchandize is carried about ninety versts by land to the Yenisei. The merchants then ascend that river, the Tunguska, and Angara, to Irkutsk, cross the lake Baikal, and go up the river Selenga almost to Kiachta.
It is a work of such difficulty to ascend the streams of so many rapid rivers, that this navigation Eastwards can hardly be finished in one summer[118]; for which reason the merchants commonly prefer the way by land. Their general rendezvous is the fair of Irbit near Tobolsk; from thence they go in sledges during winter to Kiachta where they arrive about February, the season in which the chief commerce is carried on with the Chinese. They buy in their route all the furs they find in the small towns, where they are brought from the adjacent countries. When the merchants return in spring with the Chinese goods, which are of greater bulk and weight than the Russian commodities, they proceed by water; they then descend the streams of most of the rivers, namely, the Selenga, Angara, Tunguska, Ket, and Oby to its junction with the Irtish; they ascend that river to Tobolsk, and continue by land to Moscow and Petersburg.
Transport of the Furs from Kamtchatka to Kiachta.
Before the passage from Ochotsk to Bolcheresk was discovered in 1716, the only communication between Kamtchatka and Siberia was by land; the road lay by Anadirsk to Yakutsk. The furs[119] of Kamtchatka and of the Eastern isles are now conveyed from that peninsula by water to Ochotsk; from thence to Yakutsk by land on horse-back, or by rein-deer: the roads are so very bad, lying either through a rugged mountainous country, or through marshy forests, that the journey lasts at least six weeks. Yakutsk is situated upon the Lena, and is the principal town, where the choicest furs are brought in their way to Kiachta, as well from Kamtchatka as from the Northern parts of Siberia, which lay upon the rivers Lena, Yana, and Endigirka. At Yakutsk the goods are embarked upon the Lena, towed up the stream of that river as far as Vercholensk, or still farther to Katsheg; from thence they are transported over a short tract of land to the rivulet Buguldeika, down that stream to the lake Baikal, across that lake to the mouth of the Selenga, and up that river to the neighbourhood of Kiachta.