[Illustration:  INTERIOR OF CHINESE TEMPLE]

After this introduction I visited Maimaichin almost every day until leaving for Irkutsk.  Maimaichin means ‘place of trade,’ and the name was given by the officer who selected the site.  The town is occupied by merchants, laborers, and government employees, all dwelling without families.  The sargootchay is changed every three years, and it was hinted that his short term of office sufficed to give him a fortune.

The houses were only one story high and plastered with black mud or cement.  The streets cross at right angles, but are not very long, as the town does not measure more than half a mile in any direction.  At the intersection of the principal streets there are towers two or three stories high, overlooking the town, and probably intended for use of the police.  Few houses are entered directly from the street, most of them having court yards with gateways just wide enough for a single cart or carriage.  The dwelling rooms and magazines open upon the court yards, which are provided with folding gates heavily barred at night.

Apart from the public buildings the houses were pretty much alike.  Every court yard was liberally garnished with dogs of the short-nosed and wide-faced breed peculiar to China.  They were generally chained and invariably made an unpleasant tumult.  The dwelling rooms, kitchens, and magazines had their windows and doors upon the yards, the former being long and low with small panes of glass, talc, or oiled paper.  In the magazines there were generally two apartments, one containing most of the goods, while the other was more private and only entered by strangers upon invitation.  At the end of each room there was a divan, where the inmates slept at night or sat by day.  Near the edge of the divan, was a small furnace, where a charcoal fire burned constantly.  The rooms were warmed by furnaces with pipes passing beneath the divans or by Russian stoves.

In every place I visited there were many employees, and I did not understand how all could be kept busy.  Everything was neat and well arranged, and the Chinese appeared very particular on the subject of dust.  I attempted to buy a few souvenirs of my visit, but very little was to be purchased.  Few strangers come to Maimaichin, and the merchants have no inducement to keep articles rarely called for.

I found they were determined to make me pay liberally.  “How much?” I asked on picking up an article in one of their shops. “Chetira ruble” (four roubles) was the reply.  My Russian companion whispered me not to buy, and after a few moments chaffering we departed.  In a neighboring shop I purchased something precisely similar for one rouble, and went away rejoicing.  On exhibiting my prize at Kiachta I learned that I paid twice its real value.