e hundred feet, would thenceforth preserve
them from decay. The tusks form an article of considerable trade, the
ivory selling from a shilling to one and ninepence a pound, according to
the perfection of the tusks.

One of the travellers' especial wishes was, to have visited the town of
Kiachta, the place of commerce between the Russians and the Chinese. But
a note from the Governor mentioned that the Chinese had suddenly stopped
all communication. But a few words may be given to a commerce so
peculiar. By the treaty of Nertshinsk, a reciprocal liberty of traffic
was stipulated; and accordingly caravans on the part of the Russian
government, and individual traders, used to visit Pekin. But the
Muscovites exhibited so much of the native habits in "drinking and
roystering," that, after exhausting the patience of the Celestials
during three-and-thirty years, they were wholly excluded. But a
cessation of five years having taken place, the Russians in 1728
obtained a treaty, by which individuals were permitted to trade on the
frontier; and Kiachta was built. But public caravans were permitted to
go on to Pekin. At length, in 1762, Catherine fixed the grand emporium
at Kiachta.

This town, standing on a beach of the same name, is within about half a
furlong of the Chinese village of Maimatschin, (about the fiftieth
parallel of latitude,) being one thousand miles from Pekin, and four
thousand from Moscow. Such are the enormous distances through which the
eagerness for money-making drives the children of men.

The materials of the Russian traffic are furs, woollens, cottons, linen,
&c., with articles in tin, copper, iron, &c.--the whole amounting to
about nineteen millions of rubles. The Chinese products are tea, silks,
sugar-candy, &c.--nominally to the amount of seven millions of rubles,
but probably rising to thrice the value. The chief time of the market is
the winter. To the chief Russian merchants this is a species of
monopoly, and a most thriving one, some of them being _millionnaires_,
and living in the most sumptuous manner, the "merchant princes" of the
wilderness!

We had some curiosity to know the condition of the exiles to Siberia
from this intelligent eye-witness. But he gives little more than a
glance to a subject on which the public mind of England is at present so
much engaged. In Russia corporal punishment is much in use; but
criminals are seldom put to death. They are marched off to Siberia for
every kin