After we left the table tea was served, and I was fain to pronounce it the best I ever tasted.  The evening entertainments for those who did not dance consisted of cards and conversation, principally the former.  Tea was frequently passed around, and at regular intervals the servants brought glasses of iced champagne.

The houses of the Kiachta merchants are large and well built, their construction and adornment requiring much outlay.  Nearly all the buildings are of two stories and situated in large court yards.  There is a public garden, evidently quite gay and pretty in summer.  The church is said to be the finest edifice of the kind in Eastern Siberia.  The double doors in front of the altar are of solid silver, and said to weigh two thousand pounds avoirdupois.  Besides these doors I think I saw nearly a ton of silver in the various paraphernalia of the church.  There were several fine paintings executed in Europe at heavy cost, and the floors, walls, and roof of the entire structure were of appropriate splendor.  The church was built at the expense of the Kiachta merchants.  Troilskosavsk contains some good houses, but they are not equal in luxury to those at Kiachta.  Many dwellings in the former town are of unpainted logs, and each town has its gastinni-dvor, spacious and well arranged.  I visited the market place every morning and saw curious groups of Russians, Bouriats, Mongols, and Chinese, engaged in that little commerce which makes the picturesque life of border towns.

From 1727 to 1860 the Kiachta merchants enjoyed almost a monopoly of Chinese trade.  Fortunes there are estimated at enormous figures, and one must be a four or five-millionaire to hold respectable rank.  Possibly many of these worldly possessions are exaggerated, as they generally are everywhere.  The Chinese merchants of Maimaichin are also reputed wealthy, and it is quite likely that the trade was equally profitable on both sides of the neutral ground.  Money and flesh have affinities.  These Russian and Chinese Astors were almost invariably possessed of fair, round belly, with good capon lined.  They have the spirit of genuine hospitality, and practice it toward friends and strangers alike.

The treaty of 1860, which opened Chinese ports to Russian ships, was a severe blow to Kiachta and Maimaichin.  Up to that time only a single cargo of tea was carried annually into Russia by water; all the rest of the herb used in the empire came by land.  Unfortunately the treaty was made just after the Russian and Chinese merchants had concluded contracts in the tea districts; these contracts caused great losses when the treaty went into effect, and for a time paralized commerce.  Kiachta still retains the tea trade of Siberia and sends large consignments to Nijne Novgorod and Moscow.  There is now a good percentage of profit, but the competition by way of Canton and the Baltic has destroyed the best of it.  Under the old monopoly the merchants arranged high prices and did not oppose each other with quick and low sales.