m into the desert, 200 leagues north of the Great Wall.

After leaving behind us the Old Town, we came to a broad road crossing
N.S. that along which we were travelling E.W. This road, the ordinary
route of the Russian embassies to Peking, is called by the Tartars
_Koutcheou-Dcham_ (Road of the Emperor's Daughter), because it was
constructed for the passage of a princess, whom one of the Celestial
Emperors bestowed upon a King of the Khalkhas. After traversing the
_Tchakar_ and _Western Souniot_, it enters the country of the _Khalkhas_
by the kingdom of _Mourguevan_; thence crossing N.S. the great desert of
Gobi, it traverses the river _Toula_, near the _Great Couren_, and
terminates with the Russian factories at _Kiaktha_.

This town, under a treaty of peace in 1688 between the Emperor
_Khang-Hi_, and the _White Khan of the Oros_, i.e. the Czar of Russia,
was established as the entrepot of the trade between the two countries.
Its northern portion is occupied by the Russian factories, its southern
by the Tartaro-Chinese. The intermediate space is a neutral ground,
devoted to the purposes of commerce. The Russians are not permitted to
enter the Chinese quarter, nor the Chinese the Russian. The commerce of
the town is considerable, and apparently very beneficial to both parties.
The Russians bring linen goods, cloths, velvets, soaps, and hardware; the
Chinese tea in bricks, of which the Russians use large quantities; and
these Chinese tea-bricks being taken in payment of the Russian goods at
an easy rate, linen goods are sold in China at a lower rate than even in
Europe itself. It is owing to their ignorance of this commerce of Russia
with China that speculators at Canton so frequently find no market for
their commodities.

Under another treaty of peace between the two powers, signed 14th of
June, 1728, by Count Vladislavitch, Ambassador Extraordinary of Russia,
on the one part, and by the Minister of the Court of Peking on the other,
the Russian government maintains, in the capital of the celestial empire,
a monastery, to which is attached a school, wherein a certain number of
young Russians qualify themselves as Chinese and Tartar-Mantchou
interpreters. Every ten years, the pupils, having completed their
studies, return with their spiritual pastors of the monastery to St.
Petersburg, and are relieved by a new settlement. The little caravan is
commanded by a Russian officer, who has it in charge to conduct the n