al and summon his armies to the capital. The Mandarins
assembled with their forces, but on finding they had been simply
employed at the caprice of a woman, they returned angrily to their
homes. By-and-by the enemy came; the beacon fires were again lighted;
but this time the Mandarins did not heed the call for assistance.

The Great Wall--the real one--crosses the road at Chan-kia-kow, a
large and scattered town lying in a broad valley, pretty well enclosed
by mountains. The Russians call the town Kalgan (gate), but the
natives never use any other than the Chinese name. In maps made from
Russian authorities, Kalgan appears, while in those taken from the
Chinese, the other appellation is used. Kalgan (I stick to the Russian
term, as more easily pronounced, though less correct) is the centre of
the transit trade from Pekin to Kiachta, and great quantities of tea
and other goods pass through it annually. Several Russians are
established there, and the town contains a population of Chinese from
various provinces of the empire, mingled with Mongols and Thibetans in
fair proportion. The religion is varied, and embraces adherents to all
the branches of Chinese theology, together with Mongol lamas and a
considerable sprinkling of Mahommedans. There are temples,
lamissaries, and mosques, according to the needs of the faithful; and
the Russian inhabitants have a chapel of their own, and are thus able
to worship according to their own faith. The mingling of different
tribes and kinds of people in a region where manners and morals are
not severely strict, has produced a result calculated to puzzle the
present or future ethnologist. Many of the merchants have grown
wealthy, and take life as comfortably as possible; they furnish their
houses in the height of Chinese style, and some of them have even sent
to Russia for the wherewith to astonish their neighbors.

The Great Wall runs along the ridge of hills in a direction nearly
east and west; where it crosses the town it is kept in good repair,
but elsewhere it is very much in ruins, and could offer little
resistance to an enemy. Many of the towers remain, and some of them
are but little broken. They seem to have been better constructed than
the main portions of the wall, and, though useless against modern
weapons, were, no doubt, of importance in the days of their erection.
The Chinese must have held the Mongol hordes in great dread, to judge
by the labor expended to guard against in