Soon Russia regretted the fruitage of her challenge. In 1685 Golovin’s embassy left Moscow, and, arriving two years later at Verhneudinsk, opened negotiations with Peking. A Chinese commission then made its way north, and at Nerchinsk, August 27, 1689, was signed the famous treaty closing to Russia her Amur outlet to the Pacific, purchased with such desperate valor at Albazin, but granting to a limited number of Russian merchants trading privileges into China. A lively traffic at once sprang up. Long caravans, silk- and tea-laden, crossed the Mongolian deserts, the Siberian steppes and hills, and the forested Urals, taking the road to Europe. A little Russian settlement was founded at Peking, and a traders’ caravansary was built. The church constructed by the prisoners of Albazin, who had been so kindly treated by the Manchus that they at first refused the release which the treaty brought, gave place to a larger edifice erected by popes from Russia. Soon, however, the Russians again offended the Celestial Emperor. In their riotous living, the quickly enriched merchants disquieted the sober Chinese. The Siberians over the frontier gave asylum to a band of seven hundred Mongol free-booters, whom it was urgently desired to present to a Chinese headsman. So commerce was forbidden anew, and most of the reluctant merchants left their compound. Some stayed and assimilated with the Chinese, retaining, however, their religion; and for years a mixed race observed in Peking the rites of Greek Orthodox Christianity. It may seem strange that rulers so energetic as Peter the Great and some of his successors took no steps to resent by force of arms the arbitrary acts of the Chinese Emperor. But much was going on in Russia; Peter was occupied with his invasion of Persia, and Catherine was without taste for a distant and doubtful campaign. The garrisons scattered over the enormous area of Siberia were numerically too weak and too poorly equipped to do more than hold their own. So, when commerce was once more interdicted and the merchants banished, recourse was had to diplomacy. In 1725 the Bogdo Khan relented enough to receive Count Ragusinsky with a special embassy from Catherine the First, which arranged the second great agreement with China, called the Treaty of Kiahta.