Note 1 — Chapter XXVIII · THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN.
Reading edition
We owe some of our early geographical information about Eastern Mongolia to the rupture between the Russians and Chinese on the Amur. The Chinese took several prisoners, and transported them to Peking, subsequently allowing Russian priests to be sent to minister to their spiritual necessities. When, in course of time, the prisoners might have returned, they had learned so to like their quarters, that they chose to remain; whereupon “the spiritual mission” was kept up by sending new priests at intervals of ten years, and thus the Russians learned something of the unknown country through which these functionaries travelled.