and so there was the curious spectacle of the Russian Cossacks co-operating with the Chinese forces of the Manchu dynasty at Peking, in subduing the unruly elements of its own tribe. But this co-operation was short-lived, and when it had accomplished its object, the Chinese troops and the Cossack bands stood facing each other in the land which both coveted. Amicable relations between the Emperor Kang-hi and the Cossack Ataman were not likely to continue in such circumstances, and it is not surprising that in 1680 we hear of Chinese attacks upon Cossack forts on the Amur, and of desultory fighting between the two powers during the remaining years of the seventeenth century.
Meanwhile the Tsar of Moscow, seeing that the Chinese power was one to be reckoned with, sent Golovin as ambassador to Manchuria with a force, and in 1689 the two representatives met at Nerchinsk on the Upper Amur River. But the Chinese ambassador had a large military force at his command, while Govolin had but a comparatively small band of Cossacks. He was therefore compelled to agree quickly with his adversary, and the resulting Treaty of Nerchinsk, contracted in fear of the Chinese power, marked the first serious check that the Russians received on their eastward march across Siberia. By Articles 1 and 2 of the treaty a large tract of country lying to the north of the Amur River, which had been won by the Cossacks, was given back to China, and the frontiers of the two countries were delimited by a line running from Kamschatka over the barren plateaus of North-Eastern Siberia to the upper waters of the Amur. This was a serious blow to the Russian advance. The hopes of the Cossacks
