ere a charcoal fire
burned constantly. The rooms were warmed by furnaces with pipes
passing beneath the divans or by Russian stoves.

In every place I visited there were many employees, and I did not
understand how all could be kept busy. Everything was neat and well
arranged, and the Chinese appeared very particular on the subject of
dust. I attempted to buy a few souvenirs of my visit, but very little
was to be purchased. Few strangers come to Maimaichin, and the
merchants have no inducement to keep articles rarely called for.

I found they were determined to make me pay liberally. "How much?" I
asked on picking up an article in one of their shops. "_Chetira
ruble_" (four roubles) was the reply. My Russian companion whispered
me not to buy, and after a few moments chaffering we departed. In a
neighboring shop I purchased something precisely similar for one
rouble, and went away rejoicing. On exhibiting my prize at Kiachta I
learned that I paid twice its real value.

The Chinese merchants are frequently called scoundrels from their
habit of overreaching when opportunity occurs. In some respects they
are worse and in others better than the same class of men in Western
nations. The practice of asking much more than they expect to receive
prevails throughout their empire, and official peculation confined in
certain limits is considered entirely consistent with honesty. Their
cheating, if it can be called by that name, is conducted on certain
established principles. A Chinese will 'beat about the bush,' and try
every plan to circumvent the man with whom he deals, but when he once
makes a bargain he adheres to it unflinchingly. Among the merchants I
was told that a word is as good as a bond. Their slipperiness is
confined to preliminaries.

China contains good and bad like other countries, but in some things
its merchants rank higher than outside barbarians. When the English
were at war with the Viceroy of Canton, the foreigners were driven out
and compelled to leave much property with Chinese merchants. These
Chinese never thought of repudiation, but on the contrary made their
way to Hong Kong during the blockade of the Canton river for the
purpose of settling with the foreigners.

Old John Bell of Antermony, who traveled to Pekin in the reign of
Peter the Great, in the suite of a Russian Ambassador, makes the
following observations on the Chinese:

"They are honest, and observe the strictest honor and justice in
t