Commerce is discouraged by the Chinese Government, chiefly on account of their jealousy of strangers; but it is a pursuit so congenial to the national spirit that no exertions could succeed in putting it down. Wherever money can be made, a Chinaman will brave dangers to gain it, and will fear neither the jungles and marshes of his southern frontier, nor the inhospitable deserts of the north and west. For a thousand years and more, they have trafficked with the isles of the Indian Archipelago, and for nearly twice that time their silks have found their way into Europe. Nevertheless, the geographical situation of the country on the one hand, and the unskilfulness of the Chinese in maritime enterprise on the other, oppose great obstacles to their prosecution of external commerce, so that the carrying-trade is almost entirely in the hands of foreigners. The journey across the inhospitable steppes of Mongolia to the nations of the west, or over the almost insurmountable Himalayas to those of the south, is attended by too much risk and expense, in the present state of the roads, to be prosecuted extensively; but the Chinese eagerly avail themselves of the marts opened in recent times by the Russian traders, and throng with their silks and tea to the grand fairs at Maimatschin. This overland commerce with Russia commenced in the reign of Peter the Great, by a treaty which stipulated for a reciprocal liberty of traffic, and by virtue of which caravans on the part of the Russian Government and individual traders used to visit Peking; but the Muscovites exhibited so much of their native habits of “drinking and roystering,” that, after trying the patience of the Celestials for three-and-thirty years, they were wholly excluded. After a temporary cessation of intercourse, however, a renewal of negotiations took place, by which it was agreed that only Government caravans should proceed to Peking, and Kiachta (distant four thousand miles from Moscow, one thousand from Peking, and close to the Chinese frontier town of Maimatschin) was built for the accommodation of private traders. This market, which has now risen to much importance, is most resorted to in winter. To the chief Russian merchants the trade is a species of monopoly, and a most thriving one,—some of them being millionaires, and living in the most sumptuous style, the “merchant princes” of the wilderness. “At the present day,” says the _Hamburg Borsenhalle_ of 20th July last, “the wholesale trade is in the hands of Russian merchants and commercial companies, while the retail trade is carried on by the Siberian tribe of Burglaetes. The wholesale trade takes place only twice a year, and is a complete interchange of goods, of which black tea forms the staple, and cannot be replaced by any other article. This tea is brought to Kiachta from the northern provinces of China, and is very superior to that exported by the English and Dutch from the southern provinces.