e Russian frontier, and I
was becoming uneasy about the fate of my little revolver. It had already
undergone various vicissitudes; discovered by the customs officials at
Constantinople, they had threatened to fine me for violating the law
about bringing in firearms, but finally decided to remit the fine but
confiscate the weapon. When remonstrated with on the ground that I was a
lady going to Asiatic Turkey and might need it, they made matters
straight by returning the revolver, but kept the ammunition. I had paid
duty on the thing in Bombay, I had spent hours fitting it with
cartridges in Shanghai, many miles it had been carried, kept handy in
case of need, although I could not imagine what the need could be, and
now I was assured it would be seized and I would be fined if I tried to
take it over the Russian frontier. No firearms of any sort may be
brought into the empire without a permit procured beforehand. No, the
Russians should not have my little revolver. We passed a small pond; one
toss and it was gone.

The sun was setting as looking across the valley I caught the white
gleam of the great church in Kiakhta, but it was after eleven when we
rumbled through Mai-ma-chin, the frontier post of China, and, crossing
the Russian boundary unchallenged, drove quietly down the long main
street of the town. I was too sleepy to notice anything, until I heard
the men chuckling softly, and I waked up to find that we were past the
custom house. "It would be too bad to disturb the sleepy sentinels, so
we took off the bells," they explain. I imagine they had added to their
other misdeeds by doing a bit of smuggling.

It seemed to me that we drove for hours through the dark, echoing
streets of Kiakhta, but at last we stopped before the white wall of a
long, low building, and in a moment I was in another world. Behind me
were the wide, open plains of Mongolia and the starlit nights in tent or
tarantass. Here was Russia, half Europe, half Asia, and wholly
uninteresting. But at least there was a good bed awaiting me, and the
most wonderful little supper ever served at midnight on short notice,
delicious tea, good bread and butter, and the most toothsome small
birds, served hot on toast in a casserole. Where in a Western frontier
town could one find the like?

But it was not until I waked the next morning that I realized how very
Western Kiakhta is: humble log houses side by side with pretentious
stuccoed buildings, rickety wooden