Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar | Page 4

a Russian house--The Flowery
Kingdom--Early explorations--The conquest of the Amoor--A rapid
expedition--The Shilka and the Argoon--An old settled country--A lady

in the case--Hotels for the exiles--Stratensk--A large crowd--- End of a
long steamboat ride


CHAPTER XXII.
A hotel at Stratensk--A romantic courtship--Starting overland--A
difficult ferry--A Russian posting carriage--Good substitute for a
trunk--"Road Agent" in Siberia--Rights of travelers--Kissing goes by
favor--Captain John Franklin's equipage--Value of a ball--Stuck in the
mud--The valley of the Nertcha--Reaching Nerchinsk


CHAPTER XXIII.
An extensive house--A Russian gold miner--Stories of the
exiles--Polish exiles--"The unfortunates"--The treatment of
prisoners--Attempts to escape--Buying a tarantass--Light marching
order--A bad road--Sleeping on a stove--The valley of the
Ingodah--Two hours in a mud hole--Recklessness of drivers--Arrival at
Chetah


CHAPTER XXIV.
Location of Chetah--Prisoners in chains--Ingenuity of the
exiles--Learning Hail Columbia in two hours--A governor's
mansion--A hunting party--Siberian rabbits--Difficulties of
matrimony--Religion in Siberia--An artillery review--Champagne and

farewells--Crossing a frozen stream--Inconvenience of traveling with a
dog--Crossing the Yablonoi Mountains--Approaching the Arctic Ocean


CHAPTER XXV.
A cold night--Traveling among the Mongols--The Bouriats and their
dwellings--An unpleasant fire--The Bhuddist religion--Conversions
among the natives--An easy way of catching sheep--A Mongol bell--A
Mongol belle--A late hour and a big dog--Bullocks under saddle--An
enterprising girl--Sleeping in a carriage--Arrival at Verkne
Udinsk--Walking in the market place--Stories of Siberian robbers--An
enterprising murderer--Gold and iron mines on the Selenga


CHAPTER XXVI.
Crossing a river on the ice--A dangerous situation--Dining on soup and
caviar--Caravans of tea--The rights of the road--How the drivers treat
each other--Selenginsk--An old exile--Troubled by the nose--Lodged
by the police--A housekeeper in undress--An amateur
concert--Troitskosavsk and Kiachta--Crossing the frontier--Visiting the
Chinese governor


CHAPTER XXVII.
In the Chinese empire--A city without a woman--A Chinese court of
justice--Five interpretations--Chinese and Russian methods of tea

making--A Chinese temple--Sculpture in sand stone--The gods and the
Celestials--The Chinese idea of beauty--The houses in
Maimaichin--Chinese dogs--Bartering with the merchants--The
Chinese ideas of honesty--How they entertained us--The Abacus


CHAPTER XXVIII.
Russian feast days--A curious dinner custom--Novel separation of the
sexes--The wealth of Kiachta--The extent of the tea trade--Dodging the
custom house--Foreign residents of Kiachta--Fifteen dogs in one
family--The devil and the telegraph--Russian gambling--Dinner with
the Chinese governor--Chinese punishments--Ingredients of a Chinese
dinner--Going to the theatre in midday--Two dinners in one
day--Farewell to Kiachta


CHAPTER XXIX.
Trade between America and China--The first ship for a Chinese
port--Chinese river system--The first steamboat on a Chinese
river--The Celestials astonished--A nation of shop-keepers--Chinese
insurance and banking systems--The first letters of credit--Railways in
the empire--The telegraph in China--Pigeon-English--The Chinese
treaty


CHAPTER XXX.

The great cities of China--Pekin and its interesting features--The
Chinese city and the Tartar one--Rat peddlers, jugglers, beggars, and
other liberal professionals--The rat question in China--Tricks of the
jugglers--Mendicants and dwarfs--"The house of the hen's
feathers"--How small feet became fashionable--Fashion in America and
China--Gambling in Pekin--An interesting lottery prize--Executions by
lot--Punishing robbers--Opposition to dancing--The temple of
Confucius--Temples of Heaven and Earth--The famous Summer
Palace--Chinese cemeteries--Coffins as household
ornaments--Calmness at death


CHAPTER XXXI.
A journey through Mongolia--Chinese dislike to foreign
travel--Leaving Pekin--How to stop a mule's music--The Nankow
Pass--A fort captured because of a woman--The great wall of
China--Loading the pack mules--Kalgan--Mosques and Pagodas--A
Mongol horse fair--How a transaction is managed--A camel journey on
the desert--How to arrange his load--A Mongolian cart--A brisk trade
in wood for coffins


CHAPTER XXXII.
Entering the desert of Gobi--Instincts of the natives--An antelope
hunt--Lost on the desert--Discovered and rescued--Character of the
Mongols--Boiled mutton, and how to eat it--Fording the Tolla
river--An exciting passage--Arrival at Urga--A Mongol
Lamissary--The victory of Genghis Khan--Chinese couriers--Sheep
raising in Mongolia--Holy men in abundance--Inconvenience of being
a lama--A praying machine--Arrival at Kiachta

CHAPTER XXXIII.
Departure from Kiachta--An agreeable companion--Making ourselves
comfortable--A sacred village--Hunting a wild boar--A Russian
monastery--Approaching Lake Baikal--Hunting for letters--"Doing"
Posolsky--A pile of merchandise--A crowded house--Rifle and pistol
practice--A Russian soudna--A historic building--A lake steamer in
Siberia--Exiles on shore--A curious lake--Wonderful journey over the
ice--The Holy Sea--A curious group--The first custom house--Along
the banks of the Angara--A strange fish--Arrival at Irkutsk


CHAPTER XXXIV.
Turned over to the police--Visiting the Governor General--An
agreeable officer in a fine house--Paying official visits--German in
pantomime--The passport system--Cold weather--Streets, stores, and
houses at Irkutsk--Description of the city--The Angara river--A novel
regulation--A swinging ferry boat--Cossack policeman--An alarm of
fire--"Running with the machine" in Russia--Markets at
Irkutsk--Effects of kissing with a low thermometer


CHAPTER XXXV.
Society in Irkutsk--Social customs--Lingual powers of the
Russians--Effect of speaking two languages to an infant--Intercourse of
the Siberians with Polish exiles--A hospitable people--A ceremonious

dinner--Russian precision--A long speech and a short translation--The
Amoorski Gastinitza--Playing billiards at a disadvantage--Muscovite
superstition--Open house and pleasant tea-parties--A wealthy gold
miner


CHAPTER XXXVI.
The exiles of 1825--The Emperor Paul and his
eccentricities--Alexander I.--The revolution of 1825--Its
result--Severity of Nicholas--Hard labor for life--Conditions of
banishment--A pardon after