in establishing relations with Kamschatka and the dreams of a warm-water port on the Pacific were rudely nipped in the bud, for, without the right of navigating the Amur River, communication with the Pacific was well-nigh impossible. On the other hand, the treaty allowed for the first time complete freedom of trade between Russians and Chinese, and the Cossacks were from henceforth permitted to send caravans of furs and other Siberian merchandise to Peking for barter. This is the first recognition of Russo-Chinese trade, which is such an important factor in the economic history of Asia to-day.
For some thirty years the relations between the Russians and the Chinese continued upon the basis of this treaty. Merchants who had during the previous fifty years set up businesses in Western Siberia sent Caravans to Peking, and emigrated over into Eastern Mongolia to barter with the Mongol tribes. A sort of annual fair took place on the Orkhon River, where Mongol, Siberian and Chinese merchants met each year to exchange their wares, but it soon became a seat of disorder and riot; and a dispute between the Russians and the Chinese about the suzerainty of a Mongol tribe near the frontier ended in 1822 in the expulsion of all Russian traders from Chinese territories by order of the Emperor.
In 1727 embassies were again exchanged between the courts of Moscow and Peking. The two ambassadors met on the Bura, a small river on the East Mongolian frontier not far from Khiakta, which was a Cossack town, separated by a little brook from the Chinese town of Maimatsin, and the Treaty of Khiakta was made, and signed in the following year. By this treaty the previous frontiers on the Amur,
